BEAUTIFUL horns of hammered and embossed bronze belonging to the Corporations of Canterbury and Dover. The right-hand one is from Dover, where it was formerly used for the calling together of the Corporation at the order of the mayor. The minutes of the town proceedings were constantly headed "At a common Horn blowing" (comyne Horne Blowying). This practice continued until the year 1670, and is not yet entirely done away with, as it is still blown on the occasion of certain Municipal ceremonies. The motto on this horn is:—
JOHANNES DE · ALLEMAINE · ME · FECIT ·
preceded by the talismanic letters A·G·L·A, which stand for the Hebrew
אַתָּה גִּבּוֹר לְעוֹלָם אֲדֹנָי
and mean, "Thou art mighty for ever, O Lord!" The horn, which is 31¾ inches long, with a circumference at the larger end of 15½ inches, is of brass, and is deeply chased with a spiral scrollwork of foliage chiefly on a hatched ground. The inscription is on a band that starts four inches from the mouth and continues spirally. The maker's name is now nearly effaced, but the inscription shows that he was a German, and the date is assigned to the thirteenth century. A paper in the Antiquary (vol. 1. pp. 253-55), written by the late Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A., of which some use has here been made, states that there are on the obverse of the oldest Seal of Dover, said to have been made in 1305, two horn-blowers in the stern of a ship, each blowing a horn similar to this example.
The left-hand Burgmote Horn belongs to the Corporation of Canterbury, and records of its use for calling meetings of the Corporation are extant from 1376, down to the year 1835. The chord measurement of the arc of this Horn is 36 inches.
The antiquity of horns, whether natural or of metal, as instruments for sounding is well known. Their employment in some religious services points to customs that were already old when the oldest historical monuments we possess were raised. The Hebrew formulary upon the Dover horn reminds us of the Jewish Shophar, referred to particularly in the Introduction (page xii)—a ram's horn, usually straightened and flattened, which is not only the solitary ancient musical instrument actually preserved in the Mosaic ritual, but is the oldest wind instrument known to be retained in present use in the world. It is still sounded by Jews on the New Year and on the Fast of the Day of Atonement.
In England, horns have been used amongst the various methods of transferring inheritances. They were adopted for instruments of conveyance either in Frank Almoigne, in Fee, or in Serjeantry, and from this cause have been often preserved.
PLATE II.
QUEEN MARY’S HARP.
THIS venerable instrument, the least impaired Gaelic Harp existing, is known as Queen Mary's Harp, and belongs to C. Durrant Steuart, Esq., of Dalguise, near Dunkeld. Of Gaelic Harps we can only reckon seven that may be dated earlier than the eighteenth century, the oldest being the Queen Mary and Lamont Harps, now in Edinburgh, and the harp named after Brian Boru (Boromha), preserved at Trinity College, Dublin; these three dating anterior, perhaps long anterior, to the fifteenth century. The Queen Mary and Brian Boru Harps are the two most nearly resembling one another. They are small, the Queen Mary Harp being only 31 inches high and 18 inches from back to front. They were played resting upon the left knee and against the left shoulder of the performer, whose left hand touched the upper strings. The comb is from 2½ to 3¼ inches high. It is inserted obliquely in the sound chest, and projects about 14 inches. The sound chest, in shape a truncated triangle hollowed out of the solid, is 5 inches wide at the top and 12 at the bottom, the depth being 4½ inches. The bow or forearm measures in a straight line 27½ inches, the chord of the arc of the inner curve being 23 inches. The front of it is expanded so as to form a convenient hold for the hand; it tapers slightly above and below, and ends both ways in boldly carved heads of animals of a symbolical character. The strings were of brass and twenty-nine in number, and were made to sound by the player's finger-nails, which were allowed to grow long for the purpose. The Queen Mary Harp has had another (the lowest) string attached later. This string measured 24 inches, the highest treble string 2½ inches; what compass the harp had it is now impossible to decide, but, following the tradition of Irish harpers, the accordance was based upon the old diatonic scale with the minor seventh, sometimes replaced by the major seventh. We learn by the lectures of the late Dr. Eugene O'Curry that the ancient Irish had three modes in their music, the "Crying," the "Laughing," and the "Sleeping." Whatever these tunings were, and probably the Highland Scotch had the same, their secret is locked up in the wood of the harps that once responded to them. In this, and frequent instances in these Plates, the instruments are not represented as strung. It is impossible to keep old instruments with that strain continually upon them, and to string them only to have them drawn would have been attended with many disadvantages.
The Queen Mary Harp has a history based upon the family tradition of its former owners, the Robertsons of Lude in Perthshire, but in passing through several mediums it has become unreliable. It was long believed to have been Mary Stuart's, and, according to the Lude tradition, it had golden and jewelled ornaments attached to the right upper circle of the bow including her portrait and the Royal Arms of Scotland, which were stolen about 1745. The historical inquiry containing the information respecting this Harp is by John Gunn, F.S.A.E., and was published in 1807, under the auspices of the Highland Society. A paper read before the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland by Mr. Charles D. Bell, F.S.A. Scot., and published in their Proceedings for 1880-81, from which I have made extracts, thoroughly sifts the facts that can be deduced from it, and which may be thus accepted:—Queen Mary of Lorraine, the mother of Mary Queen of Scots, gave this harp to Beatrix Gardyn of Banchory, Aberdeenshire. Beatrix Gardyn was married to Finla Mór, and from this marriage the family of Farquharson of Invercauld, in Braemar, is descended. Finla Mór was killed at the battle of Pinkie in A.D. 1547. John Robertson, the eleventh in succession to Lude, married Margaret Farquharson, the only daughter of the then Laird of Invercauld. He was fifty-six years in possession of Lude, and died in A.D. 1730. The last performer on this ancient harp was his great-grandson, General Robertson, who lent both the Lude harps for examination by the Highland Society in 1805. It appears to have been General Robertson's belief that this harp was acquired for Lude by the marriage of John, the eleventh Laird, with a direct descendant of Beatrix Gardyn, but, following Burke's genealogy of the family, it would appear that it came to Lude with Beatrix Gardyn herself, on her marriage with John, seventh Laird. The Robertsons of Lude are now, in the direct line, extinct, but the family of Gardyn is represented by Francis Garden-Campbell, Esq., of Troup and Glenlyon.
Queen Mary's and the Lamont Harps are on loan (1887) in the Museum of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh, and it may be mentioned that when exhibited in the Music Loan Collection, South Kensington, the former was insured for £1500 and the latter for £1000.
PLATE III.
THE LAMONT HARP.
THE Highland Harp, known as the Clarsach Lumanach, or Lamont Harp, belongs to the owner of the Queen Mary Harp, C. Durrant Steuart, Esq., of Dalguise, Perthshire. Both harps were sent to Edinburgh in 1805 by General Robertson of Lude, who owned them at that time, at the request of the Highland Society, and a book was published in 1807 under the patronage of the Society, entitled An Historical Enquiry respecting the Performance on the Harp in the Highlands of Scotland from the earliest times until it was discontinued about the year 1734, by John Gunn, F.A.S.E., in which they were described, and a version of the family tradition of Lude given, compiled from letters written by General Robertson, now unfortunately not forthcoming. Although Mr. Gunn's story of the Queen Mary Harp is coloured in order to attach the gift of it to Mary Queen of Scots, that of the Lamont Harp appears to be according to the simple statement of the original narrator, and may be thus epitomised from a paper published in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1880-81, by Mr. C.D. Bell, F.S.A. Scot.: "The family tradition of Lude alleges that for several centuries past the larger of these harps has been known as the Clarsach Lumanach or Lamont Harp, and that it was brought from Argyllshire by a daughter of the Lamont family on her marriage with Robertson of Lude in 1464. It is said to be the older of the two. If the probably quiet place in the house of Lude be considered, and that it was likely to be valued and cared for there, also that the repairs appear to be of very old date, then the Clarsach Lumanach may have already, before 1464, been an old broken and mended instrument with a pre-traditional story we can never hope to hear." From Burke's Landed Gentry, "Lineage of the Robertsons of Lude," we learn that Charles, fifth Laird of Lude, married Lilias, daughter of Sir John Lamont of Lamont, chief of that clan, and that "it was with this lady, Lilias Lamont, there came one of those very curious old harps which have been in the family for several centuries."
The drawing shows the harp as it is, and may have been for centuries, but Mr. M'Intyre North, in his Book of the Club of True Highlanders, London, 1880, proposes, by the substitution of a longer bow or forearm, to bring this harp to the lines of the Queen Mary Harp and that of Brian Boru. It is sufficient here to observe that the present bow agrees in measurement with that of the Queen Mary and Brian Boru Harps, and is certainly very old. Against its originality is the fact that the Lamont Harp appears to have always had thirty-two strings, and for the three extra treble strings a longer bow ought to have been required.
The extreme length of the Lamont Harp is 38 inches, and the extreme width 18½ inches. The sound chest, as with other ancient harps, is hollowed out of one piece of wood, but the back has been in this instrument renewed, although probably a long time ago. The sound chest is 30 inches long, 4 inches in breadth at the top, and 17 at the bottom. The comb projects 15½ inches. The broken parts of the bow are held together by iron clamps.
As to the musical effect of a Gaelic or Irish harp when well played, the impression of such a performance recorded by Evelyn in his Diary is worth quoting. He says: "Came to see me my old acquaintance and the most incomparable player on the Irish harp, Mr. Clarke, after his travells. He was an excellent musitian, a discreete gentleman, borne in Devonshire (as I remember). Such musiq before or since did I never heare, that instrument being neglected for its extraordinary difficulty; but in my judgment it is far superior to the Lute itselfe, or whatever speakes with strings." Elsewhere he speaks of a Mr. Clark (probably the same performer) as being from Northumberland, and says of the instrument, "Pity 'tis that it is not more in use; but indeede to play well takes up the whole man, as Mr. Clark has assur'd me, who, tho' a gent of quality and parts, was yet brought up to that instrument from 5 yeares old, as I remember he told me."
PLATE IV.
CORNEMUSE, CALABRIAN
BAGPIPE, MUSETTE.
THE Bagpipe (Cornemuse and Musette) and the hurdy-gurdy (Vielle) were, after the thirteenth century, banished to the lower orders, to the blind and to the wandering mendicant class. But polite society in France resumed these instruments again in the modern Arcadia of Louis XIV. and XV.—not the Cornemuse, it is true, for that has ever remained a rustic instrument, as may be observed in the glowing pages of George Sand's Les Maîtres Sonneurs. The Cornemuse, as formerly used in France and the Netherlands, is derived from the Roman tibia utricularis, and is provided with a bag, inflated by the mouth of the player, while a double reed is attached to the melody pipe or chanter. In recent times it is furnished with two drones—le grand, et le petit bourdon, which are made to sound also by reeds, and an octave apart. The Musette, which has practically displaced the Cornemuse in use, is a softer, sweeter instrument, with a double reed to a very narrow cylindrical pipe, the effect of which is to make it sound like a stopped pipe, an octave lower. This accounts for the short appearance of the instrument. The drones, as it will be seen, are on a more artificial principle than those of the Cornemuse. Another difference is that the bag is always inflated by a small pair of bellows worked by the player's left arm. The Northumbrian and modern Irish bagpipes are also inflated by means of bellows, and have taken the place in northern England and Ireland of the large bagpipe inflated with the mouth which is now regarded as distinctly Highland Scotch. The Musette in the drawing is made of ebony and ivory with keys of silver, and has a bag adorned with needlework. The small bellows are made of walnut inlaid with marqueterie. The melody pipe (le grand chalumeau) is bored with eight finger-holes, and fitted with seven keys for the chromatic notes. To the left of the melody pipe or chanter there is a small flask-shaped pipe furnished with six keys (le petit chalumeau) containing the additional compass upwards. There are four drones contrived in a barrel pierced with thirteen bores in juxtaposition, of from 5 to 35 inches in length. The barrel is furnished with five stops sliding in grooves and regulating the length of the apertures for tuning the drones. Bach's musettes, the alternatives to his gavottes, always imply a drone bass.
It will be observed the Cornemuse here drawn has a chanter and drone fixed parallel in one stock. The former has eight finger-holes, and, like that of the Scotch bagpipe, has a vent-hole not fingered. The bag covered with crimson plush is furnished with a short mouthpiece near the neck for the purpose of inflation.
The Calabrian Bagpipe or Zampogna is a rudely carved instrument of the eighteenth century. It has four drones attached to one stock, hanging downwards from the end of the bag: two of them are furnished with finger-holes. The reeds are double like those of the oboe and bassoon. The bag is large; it is inflated by the mouth and pressed by the left arm against the chest of the performer. The Zampogna is chiefly used as an accompaniment to a small reed melody pipe called by the same name, and played by another performer. The quality of the tone produced is not unpleasing. It has five holes only, and consequently the seventh of the scale is absent, but this can be easily got by octaving the open note of the pipe and covering part of the lower opening of the chanter with the little finger.
The Musette, Zampogna, and Cornemuse here shown are from specimens belonging to Messrs. J. & R. Glen, Edinburgh.
PLATE V.
BAGPIPES.
IN continuation of the Bagpipes, this Plate shows, in the instrument with a crimson bag, the modern Northumbrian Bagpipe. The four drones, proceeding from one stock, are mounted with brass and ivory. The chanter, or melody pipe, has seven finger-holes in front and one behind; also, seven brass keys. As there is only one hole open at a time when the instrument is played, this manner of playing is called close fingering. The chanter and drones are furnished with stops at the ends. The instrument with a blue bag is the ancient Northumbrian bagpipe. It has three drones, mounted with silver and ivory, of different sizes; the longest being tuned an octave and the middle one a fourth lower than the shortest. The chanter is of ivory, with seven holes in front and one behind. The large bagpipe with a green bag is the Lowland Scotch. It is of boxwood, with three drones placed in one stock. The two shorter drones sound in unison, the long one an octave lower, the same as in the Highland Bagpipe. They are mounted with carved horn. The chanter has seven finger-holes and a vent-hole, also the same as in the Highland Bagpipe, with which the Lowland agrees in fingering and other particulars, except that it is inflated by bellows attached to the bag by a short blow-pipe, a peculiarity that it has in common with the other Bagpipes in this Plate. The bellows of the modern Northumbrian Bagpipe are also drawn.
The Bagpipe is, as Mr. Henri Lavoix has justly said in his La Musique au Siècle de Saint Louis, the organ reduced to its most simple expression. It is of great antiquity, and in the Middle Ages was generally popular in Europe. It was as well known in England as in Scotland, in France as in Italy and Germany. Shakspeare makes out Falstaff in Part I. of Henry IV. to be as melancholy as a lover's lute or the drone of a Lincolnshire Bagpipe. If we may judge by the peculiar scale of the Scotch Bagpipe, it would appear almost certain that the instrument, in its modern forms, has come from the East, and was most likely brought by the Crusaders. This would not of course apply to the ancient principle of a pipe and air reservoir, which is traced back to the Romans, but to the boring of the finger-holes of the chanter, the reed pipe by which the melody is played. By their position and size the intervals are so regulated that the thirds are neither major nor minor, but give a neutral or mean interval that is neither the one nor the other. This mean third, of a tone and three-quarters, has not been elsewhere observed in Europe, but in the East, in Syria and Egypt, and in other parts, it is of common occurrence, and gives a peculiar character to the music, not to be explained, but felt. An historical origin of the mean third is to be found in Mr. A.J. Ellis's paper "On the Musical Scales of Various Nations" (p. 498), published in the Journal of the Society of Arts, London, March, 1885. Modern Bagpipes that have keys are, of course, different.
As to the antiquity of existing Bagpipes, Messrs. Glen of Edinburgh own one, carved with the initials R. Mc.D., and the Hebridean galley, that bears the date of 1409. But this is not considered to be the oldest existing, as the M'Intyre pipe, belonging to N. Robertson M'Donald, Esq., of Kinlochmoidart, is reputed to have been played at Bannockburn. Possessing one drone only, it has the peculiarity of two vent-holes, instead of one, on each side of the chanter to accommodate a right or left handed player; in either case one hole is temporarily stopped. Messrs. Glen's pipe has two drones set in one stock. The name M'Intyre, by which Mr. Robertson M'Donald's pipe is distinguished, is derived from the hereditary pipers of the Chiefs of Menzies and Clanranald. Both these ancient Bagpipes are figured in Mr. M'Intyre North's Book of the Club of True Highlanders. The Bagpipes here drawn are from specimens belonging to Messrs. J. & R. Glen, Edinburgh.
PLATE VI.
CLAVICYTHERIUM OR
UPRIGHT SPINET.
THIS singularly interesting and rare key-board instrument, now the property of Mr. Donaldson, belonged to the collection of Count Correr of Venice. There is no maker's name or any date upon the instrument, which is of the kind named Clavicytherium by the earliest writer on musical instruments, Virdung (Musica getutscht und auszgezogen, Basle, 1511), who gives a drawing of one. It is in fact a spinet, set upright. The internal decoration, as old as the instrument itself, may be North Italian or South German, authorities differ, but a piece of paper pasted over a split in the inside of the wooden back, possibly by the maker, proves to be a fragment of a lease or agreement contracted at Ulm, which is in favour of the Swabian origin. The instrument can hardly be of later date than the first years of the sixteenth century, and is probably the oldest spinet or key-board stringed instrument existing. The earliest date that can be given for the introduction of the Spinet must be within the second half of the fifteenth century.
The key-board is of narrow compass—three octaves and a minor
third—from the second E below, to the second G above, middle C,
this note being the ledger-line C between the bass and treble clefs
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—an extent about the compass of the human voice, which long
ruled that of key-board instruments. In Virdung's time their compass
was being extended. It is, however, more than likely that the lowest
E key was here tuned down to the still lower C, according to the
so-called "short octave" arrangement, which altered the lowest E,
F♯, and G♯, to make fourths below F, G, and A, instead
of semitones, and thus get deep dominant basses for cadences.
Examination of the plectra or "jacks" of this instrument shows
they were furnished with little tongues of wire, and not quills or
leather, as in later spinet instruments. It is in a painted pine
case, the inside being also painted. An unusual feature of the
interior is the Calvary below the narrow sound-board, in which the
sound holes, judging by the ornament that remains in one, have been
Flamboyant windows. There must also have originally been figures,
perhaps the Transfiguration or the Crucifixion, but there is no trace
of them left. The treatment of the landscape, without other evidence,
nearly determines the epoch when the instrument was made.
The stand and the paintings on the door, one of which represents a figure holding a mirror and a serpent, are of later date.
The dimensions of this truly remarkable spinet are—height of instrument, 4 feet 10½ inches, and extreme width, 2 feet 3 inches—the key-board being 2 feet wide. The depth of the case at base, 11 inches, diminishes in ascending to 55/8 inches. The table upon which it stands is 2 feet high and 2 feet 11 inches wide.
PLATE VII.
OLIPHANT.
AN ivory Hunting Horn belonging to Earl Spencer, called Oliphant because it is of ivory, and bearing in the ornament the arms and badges of Ferdinand and Isabella of Portugal, may be regarded as belonging to the first half of the sixteenth century, the strap and buckle being evidently an addition of later date. The beautiful carving, so conspicuous in this horn, is supposed to have been executed by negroes of the West Coast of Africa, who carved ivory for the Portuguese; the arms of Portugal, with the supporters, two angels, holding the shield upside down, often appearing on their work.
Philip II. of Spain married Mary, daughter of the King of Portugal, in 1543. She died in 1545. The carving of the Horn was probably completed within that interval, and when Philip came to England to marry Mary Tudor, he may have brought the horn with him.
Besides the uses named under Burgmote Horns (Plate I.) horns were blown to give alarm in circumstances of danger, to announce the arrival of visitors of distinction, and, as Mr. M'Intyre North informs us respecting the horn in Drummond Castle, for summoning the household and guests to dinner. But horns were not restricted to winding, there were also drinking and powder horns, often beautifully adorned.
The extreme length of this Horn, measuring along the outside of the curve and including the mouthpiece, is 28¼ inches. The greatest circumference is 11½ and the least 2¾ inches.
PLATE VIII.
QUEEN ELIZABETH’S VIRGINAL.
THIS beautiful Spinet is, in the drawing, placed upon a stand, which served for its support in the Tudor Historical Room appertaining to the Music Loan Collection of 1885. I believe this instrument to be Italian, not Flemish or English, and Italian spinets had no stands or legs, but when required for use were withdrawn from an outer case, as this one would be, and placed upon a table, or some other convenient position. They were even taken in Gondolas, as Evelyn records, for pleasure and the performance of serenades.
We may assume 1570 to be approximately the date of this instrument. The green and gold decoration, including a border of gold two and a half inches broad round the inside of the top, is of later date, perhaps by nearly one hundred years. An indistinct number on the back of the case, inside, appears to be 1660. The Royal Arms of Elizabeth are emblazoned on one end to the left of the key-board; to the right a dove is seen rising crowned. The dove holds in its right foot a sceptre; beneath it is an oak tree. This decoration, whether original in 1660 or the copy of a former one, goes far to support the claim for this Spinet having been Queen Elizabeth's. Her musical taste, inherited from Elizabeth of York, and skill as a performer upon the spinet, need no more than a passing reference.
I characterize the instrument as a spinet because a true virginal is a parallelogram, not a trapeze-shaped instrument. The attribution of virginal is, however, not incorrect as a generic term; for all key-board stringed instruments with jacks were known in England as virginals from the Tudor epoch to that of the Commonwealth.
There are in this instrument fifty quilled jacks (plectra). The natural keys, thirty in number, are of ebony with gold arcaded fronts, and the compass is of four octaves and apparently a semitone, from B to C. But the lowest natural key was tuned G when the instrument was in use. The semitone keys, twenty in number, begin apparently as C♯, but this was tuned A to continue the "short octave" arrangement. They are very elaborate, being inlaid with silver, ivory, and different woods, each consisting, it is said, of about two hundred and fifty pieces. The painting of the case of the instrument is done upon gold with carmine and ultramarine, the metal ornaments being minutely engraved. The outer case is of cedar, covered with crimson Genoa velvet, and lined inside with yellow tabby silk. There are three gilt locks, finely engraved. The entire case is five feet long, sixteen inches wide, and seven inches deep. Queen Elizabeth's Virginal was bought, at Lord Spencer Chichester's sale at Fisherwick in 1803, by Mr. Jonas Child, a painter at Dudley. The Rev. J.M. Gresley acquired it in 1840. It has since (1887) been obtained from the Rev. Nigel Gresley, for South Kensington Museum.
PLATE IX.
QUEEN ELIZABETH’S LUTE.
STRINGED instruments with a finger-board, touched with the fingers or a plectrum, may be divided, as stated in the Introduction, into two principal types: the lute and the guitar, the former with a rounded back, the latter with a flat back. Both are derived from the East. According to this division, the beautiful instrument called Queen Elizabeth's Lute must resign the name of lute and be considered a Guitar. As a wire-strung instrument it belongs to that species of guitar known as Cither, and from the incurvations of the ribs, but that the bridge is not set obliquely, I should be disposed to specialize the instrument as a Pandore or Penorcon. Praetorius regarded the Pandore and its varieties, the Orpheoreon and Penorcon, as of English invention. This instrument, the property of Lord Tollemache, was made in London by John Rose, as the label bears witness:—
Johannes Rosa, Londini fecit,
In Bridwell, the 27th of July, 1580.
It is infinitely more graceful than any Pandore, and is perhaps best described by the maker's designation, "Cymbalum Decachordum," carved on the ribs. It had, as this name indicates, ten strings, which were of wire, to be tuned in five pairs of unisons, and played with a plectrum.
The carving is surpassingly lovely, and bears comparison with contemporary Italian work. The jewelled centre of the rose in the sound-hole is so beautiful that an enlarged drawing of it has been made to show it to advantage. The shell at the back is a characteristic feature deserving attention.
The extreme length of this instrument is 2 feet 11 inches. The length of the body is 1 foot 4 inches. The extreme breadth, beneath the rose and near the string-holder, is 12 inches. The breadth, measuring across the centre of the rose, is 10 inches. The depth of the ribs varies from 1½ to 3 inches, the greatest depth being near the finger-board.
The traditions that attach themselves to instruments of this character require to be carefully tested. Queen Mary's Harp, for instance, could not have been the gift to Beatrix Gardyn from Mary Stuart of Scots, although her portrait and coat of arms are said to have, at one time, adorned it. The attribution to Queen Elizabeth also of a spinet or virginal rests entirely upon such evidence as can be gathered from the instrument itself. This so-called lute has no doubt the support of a family tradition, and the story is thus told in Burke's Peerage ("Lineage of the Dysart Family," 1884): "Sir Lionel Tollemache, of Helmingham, high sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1567. In 1561 Queen Elizabeth honoured Helmingham with her presence, and remained there from the 14th to the 18th of August inclusive, being most hospitably and sumptuously entertained. During Her Majesty's visit she stood sponsor to Sir Lionel's son, and presented the child's mother with her lute, which is still preserved at Helmingham Hall, county Suffolk, the seat of Lord Tollemache of Helmingham." Unfortunately the dates do not fit. John Rose's Lute, made in 1580, although it might possibly have belonged to Queen Elizabeth, could not have been the lute given in 1561. It is the tradition, however, that may have gone astray, and a fault in it does not do away entirely with a plausible attribution.
PLATE X.
THE RIZZIO GUITAR.
THIS beautiful Guitar of tortoiseshell, combined with ivory, mother-o'-pearl, and ebony (the property of Mr. George Donaldson, London), has ten pegs representing fleur-de-lys, and the ornament round the rose is formed with the same emblematic flower. To this, no doubt, it owes its romantic reputation of having belonged to David Rizzio. The apparent age of the Guitar would agree with a supposed gift of it from Mary Stuart to Rizzio, and the fleur-de-lys might connect it with the French or Scotch Royal Families; but this slender suggestion of the fleur-de-lys, to which the guitar owes its special interest, unsupported by other evidence, is scarcely sufficient to uphold the fascinating attribution. Mr. Donaldson, however, informs me that this instrument was bought in Scotland, nearly forty years ago, from an old family that had possessed it for generations with this tradition of its former ownership.
This Guitar had ten strings, forming five notes, in pairs of unisons, instead of six single strings, as in the modern guitar, giving six notes. It is the lowest note E that is here wanting. The instrument is 3 feet 1 inch in extreme length; the body being 18¾ inches in length, and 10 inches across. The ribs are 3¾ inches deep.
This Spanish guitar may have first come to England in the reign of Henry VIII., as there is occasional mention, at that time, of the Spanish viol, a bowed instrument which may have been accompanied by the true Spanish guitar. There is no doubt, however, about the Spanish guitar having been here in the reign of Elizabeth, and it might have been brought by attendants of Philip II. when he married Mary Tudor. In the latter half of the sixteenth century it was already known, valued, and highly decorated in Venice; and it was also known in France, so that, as an instrument, it would not be strange to Mary Stuart, or Rizzio either. The lute, however, was the most in vogue at that time, excepting perhaps in Spain. The character of the design of this so-called Rizzio guitar is undoubtedly Moorish.
PLATE XI.
POSITIVE ORGAN.
A CHAMBER Organ formerly in the Tolbecque Collection, and belonging to the epoch of Louis XIII. The Positive Organ, as the name implies, was intended to remain in a fixed place, while the smaller portable organ (orgue portatif) was made to be carried about. The disposition of the pipes was usually the same in both organs,—what may be called the natural order,—ascending from the longest pipe in the bass to the shortest in the treble, but some positive organs had the pipes arranged in a circular disposition, perhaps for a more equal distribution of the weight upon what is known as the sound-board. The instrument admits of more than one register. There are authentic representations of positives in several old pictures, one of the best known being that in the St. Cecilia panel, by Hubert Van Eyck, in the famous altar-piece of the Adoration of the Lamb at Ghent. The original St. Cecilia panel, now at Berlin, was not painted later than 1426, but the panel at Ghent is a good copy. Another St. Cecilia panel (date about 1484), with a positive organ, by an unknown painter, is not of such universal fame, but is nevertheless of very great merit. It is in the palace of Holyrood, Edinburgh, and is of equal value with the Van Eyck panel as a faithful representation of the instrument, and of the chromatic arrangement of the keys, thus early introduced.
The Positive Organ drawn in this volume has been intended for chamber, not choir, use. It has three registers, and the drawstops which control them project at the right-hand side of the case the same as in the old Flemish harpsichords. The principal register, that of the show pipes of gilt tin, is called the Montre; and the compass of it is from the E below, to the third C above, middle C—three octaves and a sixth. The second register, also of tin, is an octave higher in pitch, but extends only from the first E below, to the second C above, middle C; the remainder of the key-board compass is borrowed from the Montre. The third register is the Bourdon—wooden pipes stopped at the upper ends, an octave lower in pitch than the Montre. The Bourdon extends in compass from E an octave and sixth below, to the second C above, middle C. The three registers in this instrument are consequently at octave distances, but Praetorius (1619) describes an old positive in which the registers were in the relation of the fifth and octave to the lowest!—a combination the modern musical ear rejects. The boxwood natural keys with gilded paper fronts, as seen in this specimen, were common to the earliest known key-board instruments. The dimensions of this Positive Organ, including the stand, are—height, 6 feet 4 inches; width, 2 feet 6 inches; and depth, 1 foot 4 inches. The paintings inside the doors are, to the left, St. Cecilia playing upon a positive organ, while three angels sing and a fourth blows the bellows; to the right, a warrior crowned with laurel is in the attitude of listening; outside the doors there are panels with paintings of a woman playing on an instrument of the viol kind, and another playing a flute. There is a crowing cock upon the apex of the cornice. This Positive Organ is the property of the Conservatoire Royal, Brussels.
PLATE XII.
REGAL.
THE Regal here drawn is the prototype of the modern harmonium, but with "beating" not "free" reeds. The beating reed is usually employed in the organ, and it derives its appellation from the reeds touching the sides of their frames. The beating reed was introduced in the fifteenth century, but whether in the simple regal first, or as part of an organ, is not known. In England, the word "regal" has been also used to denote a portable organ, as is shown by Sir John Hawkins's suggestion that the stage direction to the players' scene in Hamlet, "Enter a duke and a duchess with regal coronets," should be "with regals and cornets." The oldest German authorities, as Virdung (1511) and Praetorius (1619), separate them and describe the regal as a reed instrument with key-board exactly like this one, a kind of positive and not a portable organ. This Regal, which was in the Tolbecque Collection, is attributed in date to the end of the sixteenth century. It came from the Abbey of Freuenfeld in Switzerland, and now belongs to the Brussels Conservatoire. Mr. Victor Mahillon, the curator of the museum of that institution, records another fine specimen of this very rare instrument in the possession of the Community of Lady Canonesses of the order of St. Augustine, at Brussels, to which body it was presented, by the founder of the Order, in 1625. The regal is said to have been much used in convents to accompany the singing of the nuns. The Belgian Government kindly allowed a selection of the Conservatoire instruments, of which the Regal here drawn was one, to be played in the Historic Concerts given in July 1885, in the Music Room of the Inventions Exhibition. This instrument, when on its stand, measures 2 feet 8 inches in height, the width is the same, and the length is 4 feet 2 inches. The case is of finely-carved walnut. The compass of the key-board is from the second E below, to the second A above, middle C—about the extent of the human voice, and the frequent compass of old organs.
The word "regal" has been derived from the inventor having made a present of the first one to a king, or to kings having had in their establishments special regal-makers. Rigabello, a now unknown instrument which is said to have preceded the organ in Venice, is also quoted as the origin of the name. I have elsewhere (Encyclopædia Britannica, article Pianoforte) suggested that "regal" may have come from "regula," a rule, the idea of gradation being inherent in a key-board. The wooden harmonicon, when made to play by a key-board, was at one time called regal (régale en bois).
PLATE XIII.
PORTABLE ORGAN AND
BIBLE REGAL.
THE Portable Organ (orgue portatif, also nimfali) was a processional instrument slung by a strap over the player's shoulder, so as to allow the bellows at the back of the instrument to be worked by the player's left hand, while the keys were touched with the fingers of the right hand. From the high pitch of the pipes, the limited number of keys, and one hand only being used for touching them, it is possible that only one voice, or part, was played. The same remarks may be made of the early large organs, except that, with them, each key made several pipes of various lengths speak at the same time, so as to give the octave, twelfth, and super-octave, and still higher accordant intervals,—in point of fact, the large organ was, with the exception of the front pipes, a large mixture stop. The positive and portable organs were smaller editions of the principal or front pipe part of the large organ. From Orcagna and Fra Angelico, in the fourteenth century, to D.G. Rossetti and E. Burne Jones, in the nineteenth, the portable organ has been a favourite musical instrument for delineation by the painter of religious subjects, and from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries no musical instrument was more in favour in religious establishments. Notwithstanding this fact, I know of only two as now existing, and they are both of late date, being of the seventeenth century. The one, here drawn, belongs to the Museum of the Brussels Conservatoire, while the other, belonging to His Grace the Duke of Athole, is preserved at Blair Athole in Scotland.
The Brussels Portable Organ has twenty-six metal pipes arranged in two rows, and has as many keys, in a compass extending from the first E to the third F above middle C. On the case are engravings upon wood and ivory, representing a youth playing upon a harp while three boys dance, and a woman playing upon a portable organ while a girl and two boys sing. A woodcut of the harp-player is on the title-page of this volume. There is a conventional lion on each key-block. The dimensions are—height, 2 feet 6 inches; width, 2 feet; and depth, 8 inches.
The Bible Regal, drawn in the same Plate, is of the same kind as the beating reed Regal. The pipes which enclose the reeds are so cut down as to practically do little more than cover them. The instrument is so constructed that it can be folded up, and, when closed, looks like a book—whence the name Bible Regal. The key-board, hinged in the middle, is extended for performance. In the instrument drawn it is of four octaves and a fourth compass. The bellows are found by reversing the book cover. The Bible Regal is said to have been invented about the middle of the sixteenth century, by George Voll, an organ-builder of Nuremberg. It is extremely rare; I only know of two, one belonging to Mr. Wyndham Portal of Malshanger, Basingstoke, and this instrument, the property of Mrs. Frederick Pagden and her sister Miss Ferrari.