Chapter ii, p. 20, is devoted to the gittern and citole. In the

first-named instrument we have the ancestor of the guitar, which it resembled in its flat back, and in the curving inwards of the vertical sides. {74a} It has generally been believed that the "waist" thus produced was an adaptation to the use of the bow, but, as the author points out, this form occurs long before the existence of bowed instruments. {74b} At p. 22 (Galpin) is given an early fourteenth century illustration of a gittern-player, holding in his right hand the plectrum with which he sounds the strings. The most curious point, however, is the depth of the neck of the instrument, which is pierced by a large hole to admit the left thumb; without this curious device it would apparently be impossible to stop the strings. On the same plate is given an illustration of the precious gittern at Warwick Castle, believed to date from about 1330, in which the thumb-hole is more clearly shown. The guitar, which may be considered a descendant of the gittern, is said to have completely eclipsed its ancestor in the seventeenth century. And at the present time it, together with the mandoline and the banjo, are the only representatives of the type in every-day use.

Mr Galpin places the citole in the same class as the gittern. He says that this instrument has been much misunderstood, and since I do not desire to add my quota to the injustice under which this unfortunate instrument suffers, I shall pass on to the mandore and lute. The essential characteristic of these instruments is that their bodies, instead of having the flat back of the guitar, are rounded. Though the body is now built of strips of wood or ivory, its form is "reminiscent of the time when the body or resonator consisted of a simple gourd or half-gourd covered with skin." In this they resemble the instruments of Oriental races, and the author traces the form of the rebec and mandoline as well as that of the mandore and lute to Persian, Arabic, and Moorish influence in the Middle Ages.

The European lute had at first only four strings, but in the "elaborate instruments of the seventeenth century there were twenty-six or thirty strings to be carefully tuned and regulated." No wonder that a lutenist should have been said to spend three-quarters of his existence in tuning his instrument. The mandore was a small form of lute, and is chiefly of interest because in a yet smaller form it still survives as the mandoline, which, however, usually has both wire and covered strings, and is played with a plectrum. To return to the lute, its most obvious characteristic is that the head (in which are the pegs for tuning the strings) is bent at right-angles to the general plane of the instrument. It is not clear what is the meaning of this curious crook in the instrument, but it is some comfort to the ignorant since it enables us to recognise a lute when we see one. Henry VIII. and his daughters Mary and Elizabeth are said to have been good lutenists. The smaller gut strings, called by the pleasant name of _minnikins_, were easily broken, and a gift of lute-strings was considered a present fit for a queen, and one which the great Elizabeth did not disdain.

There was also an archlute, which in its largest form--six feet in height--was known as the chitarrone. It had not the rectangular bend in the neck of the ordinary lute; it was also characterised by having four or five free or unstopped strings. A fine reproduction of Lady Mary Sidney and her archlute faces the title-page of the book.

Mr Galpin (p. 46) quotes from Thomas Mace's _Musick's Monument_, 1676, the proper method of "fretting" a lute or similar instrument. The frets, or horizontal strings or wires which make cross ridges on the neck of lutes, viols, etc., I had ignorantly imagined to be guides to the beginner as to where to stop the string; but it appears (Galpin, p. 46) that they "add to its tone and resonance by keeping the string from touching the finger-board too closely." The word "fret" is said to be derived from the old French _ferrette_, _i.e._, banded with iron. {77a}

[Picture: PLATE II. Various stringed instruments]

In Mace's {77b} book above referred to he discourses with a child-like enthusiasm on his favourite instrument. He does not follow the elder lutenists, whom he describes as "extreme shie in revealing the _Occult_ and _Hidden Secrets_ of the Lute." He gives the following examples of "_False and Ignorant Out-cries against the Lute_":--

(1) "That it is the _Hardest Instrument_ in the _World_.

(2) "That it will take up the Time of an _Apprenticeship_ to play _well_ upon _It_.

(3) "That it makes _Young People_ grow _awry_.

(4) "That it is a very _Chargeable Instrument_ to keep; so that one had as good keep a _Horse_ as a _Lute_ for _Cost_.

(5) "That it is a _Woman's Instrument_.

(6) "And lastly (which is the most _Childish_ of all the rest), It is out of _Fashion_."

The following extracts from Mace will give some idea of his style and of his method of treating the subject:--

"_First_, _know that an Old Lute is better than a New one_: _Then_, _The Venice Lutes_ are commonly _Good_. There are diversities of _Mens Names_ in _Lutes_; but the _Chief Name_ we most esteem, is _Laux Maler_, ever written with _Text Letters_: _Two_ of which _Lutes_ I have seen (_Pittifull Old_, _Batter'd_, _Crack'd Things_) valued at 100 l. _a piece_ (p. 48).

"When you perceive any _Peg_ to be troubled with the _slippery Disease_, assure yourself he will never grow better of _Himself_, without some of _Your Care_; therefore take _Him_ out, and _examine_ the _Cause_ (p. 51).

"And that you may know how to _shelter your Lute_, in the worst of _Ill weathers_ (which is _moist_) you shall do well . . . to put _It into a Bed_, _that is constantly used_, _between the Rug and the Blanket_; but _never_ between the _sheets_, because they may be _moist_ with _Sweat_ (p. 62).

"Strings are of three sorts, _Minikins_, _Venice-Catlins_, _and Lyons_ (for _Basses_).

"I us'd to compare . . . _Tossing-Finger'd Players_ to _Blind-Horses_, which always _lift up their Feet_, _higher than need is_; and so by that means, _can never Run Fast_, or with a _Smooth Swiftness_" (p. 85).

He says, "You must be _Very Careful_ (now, in your first beginning) to get a _Good Habit_; so that you _stop close to your Fretts_, _and never upon any Frett_; _and ever_, _with the very End of your Finger_; except when a _Cross_, _or Full Stop_ is to be performed" (p. 99).

[Picture: Plate III. The Crwth]

Bowed Instruments.

Mr Galpin (p. 75) gives a figure of a man playing a Crowd with a bow, instead of plucking the strings with the fingers as shown in sculptured Irish Crosses. What makes the figure so especially interesting, is that there is clearly no means of _stopping_ the strings, _i.e._, of altering the length of the vibrating region, and therefore altering the pitch. No one, I fancy, would have guessed that the bow was of more ancient lineage than the fiddle. The finger-board, which transforms the instrument into an undeniable relative of the violin, is known to have existed in the thirteenth century. It is a striking fact that what is practically a cruit or rotte survived in use until the nineteenth century in this country, in the form of the Welsh _crwth_ or crowd shown on Plate III. There is a specimen dated 1742 in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The crwth here figured was made last century by Owain Tyddwr of Dolgelly, an old man who remembered the instrument as it was in his younger days, and took great pleasure in its reconstruction.

The crwth is followed by the rebec, which most of us know better from Milton's lines--

"When the merry bells ring round And the jocund rebecks sound"--

than in any more practical manner. It had a certain resemblance to the lute in its pear-shaped outline and its convex or rounded sound-box, but differs from that instrument in being played with a bow. Mr Galpin quotes very appropriately the name of one of the country actors in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_--Hugh Rebeck--as suggesting that an everyday audience was familiar with it.

_Viols_.--The only surviving instrument of this class is the double bass, which is "still frequently made with the flat back and sloping shoulders of its departed predecessors." The bass viol was also known as the Viola da Gamba, and this was Sir Andrew Aguecheek's instrument, who was said to play on the "Viol de Gamboys." These instruments--bass and treble--had six strings, and were provided with frets like the guitar. Their tone is described as "soft and slightly reedy or nasal, but very penetrating." It seems that the smaller viols disappeared in England towards the end of the seventeenth century, but the type of viol corresponding to the violoncello "held its own for nearly another hundred years," when it at last yielded to the more modern instrument.

Under the heading "Concerning the _Viol_ and _Musick_ in general," Mace writes (p. 231):--

"It may be thought, I am so great a _Lover of It_ [the Lute], that I make _Light Esteem_ of any other _Instrument_, besides; which _Truly_ I do not; but _Love the Viol_ in a _very High Degree_; yea, close unto the Lute. . . .

"I cannot understand, how _Arts and Sciences_ should be subject unto any such _Phantastical_, _Giddy_, or _Inconsiderate Toyish Conceits_, as ever to be said to be _in Fashion_, _or out of Fashion_.

[Picture: PLATE IV. The Tromba Marina]

"I remember there was a _Fashion_, not many Years since, for _Women in their Apparel_ to be so _Pent up by the Straitness_, _and Stiffness_ of their _Gown-Shoulder-Sleeves_, that _They_ could not so much as _Scratch their Heads_ for the _Necessary Remove of a Biting Louse_; nor _Elevate their Arms scarcely to feed themselves Handsomely_; nor _Carve a Dish of Meat at a Table_, but their _whole_ Body must needs _Bend towards the Dish_."

And here we must leave Thomas Mace (who with all his oddities is a lovable and genuine writer) and pass on to the "scoulding" violin--to use his own phrase--an instrument he considered as only suitable for "any extraordinary Jolly or Jocund Consort-Occasion."

The violin, which finally ousted the treble viol, seems indeed to have had a humble beginning in fairs and country revels: but six violins were included in Henry VIII.'s band, where they were played by Italian musicians. Violins did not rapidly make their way to popularity, and Playford (1660) describes these instruments--rather condescendingly--as "a cheerful and spritely instrument much practised of late." He speaks, too, of a bass violin, _i.e._ the violoncello.

The chapter ends with a description of the tromba marina, which is not marine trumpet, but a curious elongated box-like instrument with a single string, which is sounded with a bow and wakens the harmony of the sympathetic strings within the body of the instrument. Mr Galpin's instrument was discovered in an old farmhouse in Cheshire (Plate IV.).