1 Vol. I., p 433.Google Scholar

2 Since the above was written, the letter F has been reached in Dr. Murray's Dictionary, now in course of publication. Here an advance has been made, a fipple being stated to be “the plug at the mouth of a wind instrument by which the volume was contracted.” Fipple had previously been connected with wind instruments both in the Imperial and in the Century Dictionary, but only in the following vague and unsatisfactory explanation: “a stopper, as at the mouth of a musical wind instrument.”Google Scholar

3 No other derivation of fipple than that from fibula has, as far as I am aware, hitherto been proposed.Google Scholar

In Scotch the word fipple signifies “the under lip in men or animals” (Jamieson's Dic., “i.v., Faiple”), It is possible that a resemblance may be traced between the section of the fipple, as it appears at the beak of a flute, and an underlip; but I will suggest for the consideration of etymologists that the word may, perhaps, be traced to “pipe” in the following way. In Somersetshire, when a boy plucks a dandelion, and, pinching the stalk so as to form a reed, proceeds to elicit from it a squeaking sound, he terms the instrument thus constructed a. fib—that is, clearly, a pib, or pipe (confer “pibcorn,” infra, p. 158, note 37). When he makes (or did make, for the art is becoming extinct) the spirally wound willow bark trumpet, known in Oxfordshire as a Whit-horn (see a paper on “A Primitive Musical Instrument,” by H. Balfour, in “The Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist,” October, 1896), but which he calls a May horn, he names the reed by which it is sounded, whether it be made of dandelion or willow bark, the fib. Again, if he takes a twig of willow, notches it so as to form the finger-holes and the mouth of a fipple flute, cuts it slantwise at one end for the beak, then, after detaching the bark, which becomes a tube, constructs a fipple out of the piece of wood above the mouth by removing a slice to form the flue, he designates the fipple, which, like the reed of the May horn, makes the tube yield sound, the fib of the instrument. Thus we have fipple, fib, pib, pipe.Google Scholar

4 Obviously a misprint of fibula.Google Scholar

5 “The umber” is, beyond all doubt, nothing but a misprint of “thumbe,” an “e” having been introduced after the “th,” and an “r” added at the end of the word. In the quarto of 1611, “the umber” is corrected into “the thumb.” In the first, second, and third folios we find “and thumbe.”Google Scholar

6 The nose flu e is described in Ellis's “Polynesian Researches,” ch. viii.; in “Hawkesworth's Voyages,” Vol. II., p. 205: in a paper entitled “Notes on the Asiatic Relations of Polynesian Culture,” published in the journal of the Anthropological Institute, May, 1882, and in M. Victor Mahillon's “Catalogue do Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire de Musique de Bruxelles,” second edition, pp. 176, 408. A general account of the instrument is given in the writer's “History of the Boehm Flute,” third edition, pp. 257 to 67.Google Scholar

7 Supra, p. 146.Google Scholar

8 Stephen Hawes studied at Oxford, then travelled on the Continent, and afterwards became groom of the chamber of Henry VII. On the Queen's death, in 1502, he received four yards of black cloth for mourning, but he does not appear to have received any cloth when the King died, in 1509, from which it is inferred that he no longer held the appointment. “The Pastime of Pleasure” has been reprinted by the Percy Society (Vol. XVIII.). The passage quoted above occurs in the sixteenth chapter of the poem.Google Scholar

9 See infra, p. 216.Google Scholar

10 Royal MS. 18, D. II., British Museum.Google Scholar

11 The two remaining lines of this proverb are of interest, inasmuch as they seem to contain an allusion to the tendency of the shawm to fly into the twelfth above the note fingered, a peculiarity of which Denner availed himself in the construction of the clarinet:—

12 Ritson's “Metrical Romances.”Google Scholar

13 “The Houlate” (Anglice, the Owl) was first printed in Pinkerton's Scottish Poems (Vol. III., p. 179), afterwards by Lang, and again by the Hunterian Club. In 1893 an edition of the text (“Holland's Buke of the Houlate,” by Arthur Diebler) was published at Leipsic, in which two MSS., one written in the early part of the sixteenth century by John Asloan, the other in 1568 by George Bannatyne, were carefully collated. Certain differences noted by Diebler are given below.Google Scholar

14 Pinkerton. “lift.”Google Scholar

15 “Mene”—i.e., “mention.”Google Scholar

16 Bannatyne MS., “cytholis “; Asloan MS., “sytholis”Google Scholar

17 Bannatyne MS., “cytharist “; Asloan MS., “sytharist “; Pinkerton, “atherift.”Google Scholar

18 Asloan MS., “gyttyrnis.”Google Scholar

19 Pinkerton, “ribus “; Lang, “ribupe.”Google Scholar

20 Pinkerton, “rift.”Google Scholar

21 Asloan MS., “the trumpe and the talburn.”Google Scholar

22 Asloan MS., “fydill,” a reading undoubtedly preferable to “cythil,” that of the Bannatyne MS., the “cytholis” having been already mentioned in the third line. It can certainly be said of the fiddle that it is played in the fist, or closed hand. Pinkerton, however, gives, instead of “in fist,” “and fift “; so that if he is correct the fife is here named.Google Scholar

23 Asloan MS., “dulset.”Google Scholar

24 Pinkerton, “schalin.”Google Scholar

25 Asloan MS., “claryonis”; Pinkerton, “clarionls.”Google Scholar

26 Pinkerton, “portatibus “; Asloan MS., “portatiuis “; as printed for the Hunterian Club, “portatisis.”Google Scholar

27 Pinkerton, “cymbaellonis “; Asloan MS., “cymbaclanis “; in the Bannatyne MS., apparently altered into “cymbaclasnis.” Two forms of mediaeval cymbalo—one consisting of plates of metal, the other of small bells fastened together—are described and figured by Engel (“Catalogue of the Instruments in the South Kensington Museum,” p. 111, and “Handbook of Musical Instruments,” p. 105). The instrument here mentioned, however, was, I take it, neither of these, but the cymbalum of a monastery. This was a bell, or pulsatile instrument of some sort, suspended in the cloister and struck with a hammer or mallet to summon the monks to meals in the refectory. The cella or cellarium of a religious house was the cellar; not the wine-cellar only, it included the promptuari m, or storehouse for food in general. But the word cella was also used to denote the monastery itself, and, more particularly, the open space, interior ambitus, or quadrangle, round which the cloisters were placed. See Cange, Du, s.v., “Cella”Google Scholar

28 Bannatyne MS., “so oft “; Pinkerton, “so oft “; Asloan MS., “so soft.”Google Scholar

29 A joust was a set-to between two combatants only; a tournament, between several at the same time.Google Scholar

30 Mr. Skeat proposes Tyrtæus.Google Scholar

38 The opinion has been expressed that the compiler of the Promptuarium was “starved to death between four walls,” but Mr. Way gives no credence to the story. It is a false inference, he thinks, from the statement that he was “inter quatuor parietes pro Christo inclusus.” It seems that the door of an anchorite's abode could not be opened without breaking a seal which was affixed to it, food being handed in at the window.Google Scholar

39 Canula, fistula, Gallice Flute. Instrumentum musicum. Papias in MS. Bituric. Choraules, Princeps chori, vel qui Canulis, id est fistulis canit. Choraule enim Glæce Canula dicitur. “Du Cange. The Papias here named, who was an Italian grammarian of the eleventh century, wrote for the instruction of his children a Latin lexicon. According to Way, this lexicon supplied the ground-work of the Dictionary or Vocabularium of Ugutio, Bishop of Ferrara, who flourished in the next century. It is conceivable that the author of the Campus Florum might have derived the word canula from one of these works.Google Scholar

40 Appendix to the Promptorium, edited by Way, p. lxxxiv.Google Scholar

41 Many entries in the Promptuarium afford grounds for believing that English words were used in the Campus Florum. See Way's Preface to the Promptuarium, p. xxv., note b, where some of them are named.Google Scholar

42 “Sambuca in musicis species est syraphoniarum. Est etiam genus ligni fragilis unde et tibise componuntur.” Isidore, quoted by Du Cange. “Sambuca is the Ellerne tree brotyll, and the bowes therof ben holowe, and voyde and smothe; and of those same bowes ben pipes made, and also some maner symphony, as Ysyder sayth” Trevisa's translation of Bartholomœeus. (See Hawkins, chap lx, also supra, p. 158, note)Google Scholar

43 Cerone, in a work written in Spanish, and published at Naples in 1613, includes the Sambuca in a list of wind instruments. (Hawkins, ch. cxxiii.)Google Scholar

44 “Gugaw, idem quod Flowte, pype, supra in F; et giga, KYLW.” On this entry in the Promptuarium Mr. Way remarks as follows: “Various etymologies have been proposed of the word ‘gugaw,’ in its ordinary sense; ‘Crepundia, toyes, or gugawes for children, as rattles, clappers, &c.’ — “Junius,” by Higins. ‘Babiole, a trifle, whim-wham, gugaw, or small toy for a child to play withall.’—Cotg. Skinner suggests Anglo-Saxon gegaf, nugœ, or heawgas, simulacra, or the French word joyau, but gogue or gogaille seems more nearly to resemble it, and signifies, according to Roquefort, ‘bagatelle, plaisanterie. Gogoyer, se réjouir.’ &c. It would seem, however, that the word is here given as synonymous with flute, and the inquiry suggests itself whether it had originally denoted some musical instrument, and thence been used in a more general signification. According to Roquefort, there was a wind instrument called gigue, and this statement corresponds with the observation of Ferrari, that giga, Ital., may be derived from , a kind of flute. It is singular that, according to Brockett and Jamieson, a Jew's harp is called in North Britain a gewgaw; but in that instance, as likewise here, in the Promptorium, it seems probable that the word is used merely in reference to that with which idle disport may be taken, like trifles in childhood.”Google Scholar

45 “From thense” [that is, from Greenwich, in 1510, the second year of his reign] “the whole court remooved to Windsor, there begining his progresse, and ' exercising himselfe dailie in shooting, singing, dansing, wrestling, casting of the barre, plaieing at the recorders, flute, virginals, in setting of songs, and making of ballads; he did set two full masses, everie of them five parts, which were soong oftentimes in his chappell, and afterwards in diverse other places.”—Holinsbed, “Chronicles,” Vol. III., p. 557.Google Scholar

46 We are left in doubt as to whether the instruments here named were lip flutes, or fipple flutes with a smaller number of holes than recorders.Google Scholar

47 Mr. William Chappell considers that these “Pilgrim staves” were probably six feet long. I am not aware that this idea rests on any other foundation than the circumstance that the staff which forms one of the badges of a pilgrim is usually represented as being of great length. To me, I confess, it would not seem unlikely that the flutes “caulled pilgrim staves” corresponded more nearly in size to the instruments which we term walking-stick flutes, and the French cane flutes (canne flûtes)—that is, flutes constructed in the form of walking-sticks, so that if the owner, when taking a walk (Fétis usually carried one), should feel disposed for a little music, he had only to have recourse to his stick. But the question arises were the so-called pilgrims' staves lip or fipple flutes ? To this question it is difficult to give a satisfactory answer. There were both lip and fipple flutes with six holes. It is true that the walking-stick flutes with which we are familiar, are, for the most part, lip flutes, but the rule is not without exceptions. When I was taking notes for the promised, but never published, descriptive Catalogue of the Loan Collection of Instruments shown in the Albert Hall, in connection with the Inventions Exhibition of 1885, there passed through my hands a walking-stick fipple flute. It was of Russian make and bore the maker's name, C. Wans-cheld, St. Petersburg. There were seven holes in front and a minute thumb hole at the back. The owner. Miss E. A. Willmott, was informed by the Parisian dealer of whom it was purchased that it had been in his shop for fifty years. The Museum of the Conservatoire of Paris contains a “Canne-Flûte à bec,” as well asa “Canne-Flageolet.” Henry VIII. possessed shawms “caulled pilgrim staves.”Google Scholar

48 See infra, p 171, note 51.Google Scholar

49 Probability seems in favour of the flute in the red leather bag, as well as the other remaining flutes in the inventory, being lip flutes.Google Scholar

50 Lingard.Google Scholar

51 The five flutes of ivory, tipped with gold, in Henry the Eighth's collection may have been Little Flutelets.Google Scholar

52 In the orchestra of Monteverde's “Orfeo” there was an instrument designated “Un Flautino alla vigesima seconda.” (See Hawkins, Book XII., chap. cviii.)Google Scholar

53 Syntagma, Tom. II., p. 13 bis.Google Scholar

54 “The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces,” 1773, Vol. I., p 41 The instruments are also alluded to by Fétis (“History of Music,” Vol. V., p. 133). One of them is preserved in the Museum of the Conservatoire of Brussels (No. 188).Google Scholar

55 The keys, like those of hautboys, were the keys of the bass recorders already described (p. 164). They resembled the keys of hautboys in their position, function, and in having cusps for right or left-handed players (see the drawing of a hautboy on the title-page of “The Compleat Flute Master” (infra, p. 191). The tubes which reminded Burney of the crooks of bassoons were the pipes for the conveyance of the wind from the performer's mouth to the top of the flute. Burney's remarks show conclusively that the bass fipple flute was an instrument unknown to him.Google Scholar

56 These were Contrabass, or Great Bass Flutes.Google Scholar

57 Supra, p. 164.Google Scholar

58 The composition for four German flutes, an “Air de Cour.” is reproduced in the writer's “History of the Boehm Flute,” 3rd edition, p 216, that for recorders, a “gavotte,” overleaf (Fig. 15).Google Scholar

59 Supra, p. 160.Google Scholar

60 “Cymbala, tibiae, et cantica turpia Diaboli pompa et farrago.” “Histrio-Mastix,” Part I, act v., sc. 10.Google Scholar

61 “If a Stage player, be it a man or woman, a Chariotor, gladiator, race-runner, a fencer, a practiser of the Olympian games, a fluteplayer, a fidler. a harper, a dancer, an alehouse-keeper, come to turne Christian; either let him give over these professións, or else be rejected.”Google Scholar

“Scenicus si accedat, sive vir sive mulier, auriga. gladiator, cursor stadii, ludius, Olympius choraules, cytharedus, lyristes, saltator, caupo, vel desistat, vel rejiciatur, Clemens Romanus Const Apost., i., viii., c. 38. Canones Varii Pauli Apostoli, p. 120.” Prynne, “Histrio-Mastix,” Part I., act vii., sc. 3.Google Scholar

62 Fox's “Book of Martyrs,” edited by Catley, 1837, Vol. IV., p. 621.Google Scholar

63 Rogero and Turkulony were popular dance tunes in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The figure of Turkulony. or Turquy longe le basse, is given in the Shakespeare Society's Papers, Vol. I., p. 25.Google Scholar

64 Bacon's “Natural History,” Century II. 278Google Scholar

65 The duets are by Mr. Pesable, Mr. Robert King, Mr. Godfrido Finger, Mr. John Banister, and Mr. Keen.Google Scholar

66 Some instruments shown as recorders would be more correctly named if they were termed flutes, as they are not old enough to have been called recorders, either by those who made or those who played them.Google Scholar

67 According to Littré (Dic., s v. “Flûte “). the tana flûte à bec is applicable to all instruments the end of which is placed in the mouth: “Flûtes à bec, tous les instruments comme la clarinette, le hautbois et surtout le flageolet, où il y a une extrémité qui se met dans la bouche.”Google Scholar

68 Flûte à bec is found in the following elegant dedication of “Airs for the Flute, with a thorough Bass for the Harpsichord,” of that date:—Google Scholar

To the right Honorable y^e Lady Gairlies.Google Scholar

Madam,Google Scholar

The following Airs having been composed by a Gentleman for your Ladyship's Use when you began to practice the Flute a Beque; I thought I could not chuse a better Subject for my First Essay, as an Engraver of Musick, than these Airs: as well because they were made for Beginners on the Flute & Harpsichord, as that they were composed by a Gentleman who first put a Pencil in my Hand and then an Engraver. But chiefly because they were originally made for your Ladyship's Use which gives me so fair a Handle to send them into the World under the Protection of your Ladyship's Name.Google Scholar

I am with the greatest RespectGoogle Scholar

Madam,Google Scholar

Your Ladyship's most obedient and most humble Servant, Alexr. Baillie.Google Scholar

EdinburghGoogle Scholar

December 1735.Google Scholar

69 In Hawkins's “History of Music.” Preliminary Discourse.Google Scholar

Sir John has taken seriously one of the most absurd tales that ever found its way to the pages of history. Could any sane man be induced to believe that the people of a town seventeen or eighteen miles from London, having invited the College of Organists collectively to a banquet, or individually to their own houses, could so ply them with wine that they could be thrown into wagons, like so many sacks of coal, and carted to London without their knowledge and against their will ?Google Scholar

The high honour in which, as Ovid in his account of the matter testifies, the Roman flute players were held at the time, their dignified conduct in retiring to Tibur instead of brawling in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, or ungraciously refusing their services at a sacrifice, the consideration with which they were treated by the Tiburtines, the anxiety of the Roman Senate to bring about their return, the farewell entertainment given to them at Tibur, the conveyances provided to take them back to Rome at its conclusion, the joy with which they were welcomed by the populace, the restitution of their privileges, and the institution of an annual public ceremony to commemorate their success in resisting the attempted encroachment on their rights, tell a very different tale from that to which Sir John Hawkins has given credence.Google Scholar

Livy, it should be remembered, had no personal knowledge of the incident he related; it took place in the year 309 b.c., three centuries before his time. The chief source from which Roman historians drew their information on the past was the Annals, or official records of public events. The Annals were compiled and kept by the Priests of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, this being the very Temple in which the flute players taking the sacrificial service were deprived of the distinctions conferred on them by Numa Pompilius in recognition of the holiness of their function in relation to the Divine. Attempts, such as are being made at the present time in our Cathedrals to lower the status of the organists, the modern representatives of the Temple flute players, are not of recent origin. Although Appius Claudius was the ostensible agent in the high-handed proceeding, it was the Priests of the Temple of Jupiter who would have been aggrandized, had the attack on the College of Flute players proved successful. What, then, is more natural than that, foiled and mortified, they should, in revenge, have so distorted the facts as to transmit to posterity the materials for the tissue of ridiculous and incredible nonsense repeated, each with his own variations and embellishments, by Livy, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch, Ovid, and Sir John Hawkins ?Google Scholar

That flute players were fond of wine in Livy's time is likely enough, for the primitive simplicity of the Roman life had passed away, luxury and dissipation having crept into every class of society. A future Livy of the twenty-second century, desirous of fastening a charge of intemperance on the English violinists of our time, might assert with perfect truth that “as drunk as a fiddler” was a saying in common use amongst us. But, if he were not devoid of a sense of justice, he would be compelled to add that the worship of Bacchus was not confined to those who played the violin, there having been another adage equally well-known, “as drunk as a lord.”Google Scholar

70 “History of Music,” Book XIV, chap cxxix.Google Scholar

71 “History of Music,” Book XVI., chap, cliii.Google Scholar

72 See Fig 23, p. 194.Google Scholar

73 The passage is taken from Colley Cibber's Apology for his Life, p. 214 of the 4to edition. The specimen of the stately-peacock-beaux was a gentleman of fortune who had been educated at Oxford, and was occupying chambers in the Temple. He made his way to the Green room of the theatre where Cibber acted, to inquire of htm the price of “a fair full-bottom'd Periwig” which he was wearing on the stage. “This singular beginning of our conversation,” writes Cibber, “ended in an Agreement to finish our Bargain over a Bottle. … That single bottle was the sire of many a jolly dozen.” The incident here related took place in 1698. The stately peacock would seem to have given way to the pert lapwing before 1740, this being the year in which Cibber's “Apology “was published.Google Scholar

74 By Mr. Rockstro in his “Treatise on the Flute,” on the authority of Mendel and Reissman. Fétis gives 1788, which is obviously incorrect, for Hawkins's “History,” in which the work is mentioned, was published in 1776. On the other hand, 1710 seems to be too early, for Fétis states that in 1780 Corrette held the title of organist to the Duke of Angoulême, so that, if we assume that he was only twenty when his Method was brought out, by 1780 he would have been ninety years of age.Google Scholar

75 M. Ernest Thoinan, in his brochure entitled “Les Hotteterre,” maintains that the catalogue to which Fétis appeals did not originally form part of the work to which it is attached, and that Let Principes de la Flûte traversière was not published until 1707 He adds that Hotteterre le Romain (whose christian name, it appears, was not Louis, as it is usually given, but Jacques) says himself, in one of his pieces of 1708, that it was in the preceding year that he published his “Traité de flûte.”Google Scholar

76 Burney's “History of Music,” Vol. IV., p. 647.Google Scholar

77 Chancellor's “Historical Richmond,” Appendix, p 266.Google Scholar

78 “History of Music,” chap cxxvi., note.Google Scholar

79 Below the “Preface” is the following, which seems to point to the piracies, which Dr. Schœlcher has traced to Walsh, of Handel's compositions published by Cluer:Google Scholar

80 “History of Music.” Preliminary Discourse. Note.Google Scholar

81 Burney, “History of Music,” Vol. I., chap. iv.Google Scholar

82 “… in pipes, and the like, the lower the note holes be, and the farther off from the mouth of the pipe, the more base the sound they yield, and the nearer the mouth, the more treble.”—Century II., section 178.Google Scholar

83 It has been said that Lord Bacon, although he was the founder of the inductive method, showed himself to be but an indifferent scientist when he proceeded to put his system into practice. His observing power is certainly here at fault; for it is neither the mouth-hole nor the “traverse or stop” of the lip flute which performs the Apple's part in straightening the air, but the lips of the performer.Google Scholar

84 Burney's “History of Music.” Vol III., p. 336.Google Scholar

85 Chappell's “Popular Music of the Olden Time.” Introduction, p. ix.Google Scholar

86 There is no date on the title-page of this work, but from the stamp impressed on the copy in the Reading Room of the British Museum, it appears that it was received in 1859.Google Scholar

87 Mersenne, “Harmonie Universelle,” Lib. V., Prop iv.Google Scholar

When treating of the organ Mersenne returns to the subject: “I pass over other inventions,” he writes, “by which organ builders could enrich the stops of the organ: for instance, if little pieces of sheeps' skin, peeled as thin as that of onions, are placed at the end of pipes to stop them, or if sundry holes are made in the body of the pipe which should be stopped by the aforesaid skin, there will be heard a singular harmony which can be still further varied by the difference in the movements which are given to the wind.”Google Scholar

88 The following letter, addressed to Mr. Barr, will give an idea of the sort of use ta which the Eunuch flute is now put: —Google Scholar

“Mrs. Gladstone's Orphanage, Hawarden.Google Scholar

“Dear Sir,—I received the goods (Drum and Za-Zah Band) on the 11th inst. The boys had them out the same night and started to play directly. I was quite surprised. indeed, how well they played; it made quite a sensation. On Saturday last the boys had the honour of playing the Za-Zah before the Right Hon W. E. Gladstone and Mrs Gladstone and family. who pronounced them excellent. They save the boys 10s to buy a contra Bass.—Andrew Williams.”Google Scholar

89 An account of the Nyâstaranga is given in M. Victor Mahillon's “Catalogue Descriptif et Analytique du Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles.” I am indebted to the kindness of M. Mahillon for the illustration. As the account given of the way in which this extraordinary instrument is played is sometimes received with incredulity, I think it right to add that I have heard the Nyâstaranga sounded; Mr. Henry Balfour, the Curator of the Ethnographical Department of the University Museum at Oxford, can make it speak. It imparts to both the singing and the speaking voice the weird effect of the phonograph.Google Scholar

90 The Siamese flutes were made of ivcry. They belonged to a flute player in the King of Siam's band, which gave a series of performances in the Albert Hall during the Inventions Exhibition of 1885, who kindly allowed me to have them photographed. It will be observed that the mouth, instead of being in the front of the instrument in a line with the finger-holes, as in European fipple flutes, is placed with the thumb-hole at the back.Google Scholar

91 The highest hole of the recorder, that closed with the thumb, served a double purpose—to emit a note of its own and to act, when required, as a vent hole, or speaker, for the production of upper notes. When it was used for the latter purpose it was necessary to reduce its size. This was done by turning up the thumb, as if the player intended to pinch the instrument. From this circumstance the notes so produced were termed the “pinched notes.” In flutes which have been much used the thumb-hole usually shows traces of an indentation caused by the nail The following is from Salter — “Your pinching Notes ascend higher than the plain Notes … to play these on the Recorder, you must bend your left Thumb, and let it be half over the hole underneath the Pipe … and pinch the Nail of your Thumb in the hole, then blow your Recorder a little stronger than you did when you played the other Notes and you shall find the Recorder sound eight notes.”—C. W.Google Scholar

92 “Music of the Olden Time,” p. 246, note a.Google Scholar

93 Supra, p. 152.Google Scholar

94 “Natural History,” Century II., section 221.Google Scholar

95 That Bacon used the word “flute” to denote the German or transverse flute has been already shown (supra, p. 206).Google Scholar

96 See the writer's “History of the Boehm Flute,” third edition, p. 186, also note 44, p. 467, in the same work.Google Scholar

97 “Harmonie Universelle,” loc. cit., supra, p. 212.Google Scholar

98 Engel's “Catalogue of the Instruments in the South Kensington Museum,” p. 372.Google Scholar

99 There is nothing new in the idea of a person humming notes with his voice whilst playing the fipple flute. Mersenne in his description of the flute douce says that a performer can sing the bass whilst he plays the air, “so that one man can make a duett.”Google Scholar

100 The attempt to explain the origin of the nose flute in the way alluded to by Mr. Southgate is brought forward by Dr. Tylor, the Oxford Professor of Anthropology, in a paper already mentioned (note 6, p. 150), on “The Asiatic Relations of Polynesian Culture.” I believe, however, that Dr. Tylor is by no means convinced that the explanation can be relied on as the true solution of this curious problem. “… it is hard to imagine,” he writes, “that any flute-player should find his nostrils to have any musical advantage over his mouth. In India, however, where the vansi or pungi have long been filled with the nostrils by snake charmers, performers at the Festival of Nila-pûja, &c, a reason for this practice is currently given which may be the true explanation of its origin. A high-caste Hindu will not touch with his mouth a pipe or flute which has touched the mouth of a lower caste man who made or may have used it, but it does not defile him to blow it with the nostril. This explanation (see Engel, ‘Music of Ancient Nations,’ p. 59) is stated to me as unquestionable. in answer to an enquiry made of Dr. Sourindro Mohun Tagore, of Calcutta, the best authority on Hindu music. If it be accepted as the real explanation, we may think it probable that the nose flute, thus introduced for ceremonial reasons, followed the course of Hindu colonisation and influence, so as to become established for ordinary musical purposes in islands of the Pacific where its ceremonial origin was unknown.”Google Scholar

Engel refers to the subject not only in the work appealed to by Dr. Tylor, but in his “Musical Instruments in the South Kensington Museum,” p. 166.–C. W.Google Scholar