In the following lines from Sir W. Leighton’s “Teares or Lamentations of a Sorrowful Soule,” London, 1613, this little organ is mentioned in combination with other curious instruments now antiquated, most of which will be found in the present collection:—
"Praise him upon the claricoales,
The lute and simfonie:
With the dulsemers and the regalls,
Sweete sittrons melody."
The bagpipe ([Fig. 77]) appears to have been from time immemorial a special favourite instrument with the Celtic races; but it was perhaps quite as much admired by the Slavonic nations. In Poland, and in the Ukraine, it used to be made of the whole skin of the goat in which the shape of the animal, whenever the bagpipe was expanded with air, appeared fully retained exhibiting even the head with the horns; hence the bagpipe was called kosà, which signifies a goat.
The bagpipe is of high antiquity in Ireland, and is alluded to in Irish poetry and prose said to date from the tenth century. A pig gravely engaged in playing the bagpipe is represented in an illuminated Irish manuscript, of the year 1300.
Fig. 77.—Bagpipes. English. 18th century. L. 30 in. No. 1197-’03.
Victoria and Albert Museum.