This growing tendency to adopt French customs, even in music, is referred to in the following:—
Hen. VIII. I, iii, 41. French manners in England.
Lovell. A French song, and a fiddle, has no fellow.
Sands. The devil fiddle 'em! I am glad they're going,
For, sure, there's no converting of 'em: now,
An honest country lord, as I am, beaten
A long time out of play, may bring his plain-song,
And have an hour of hearing: and, by'r lady,
Held current music too.
The only word here that has not already been fully explained is 'current music,' which I suppose to mean simply, that the old accomplishments of which Lord Sands speaks would be still thought 'up to date' and in the fashion.
Another instrument in common domestic use was the Recorder. This was a kind of 'Beak-flute,' like a flageolet. Lord Bacon says it had a conical bore, and six holes. So it had the general figure of a modern Oboe, but was played with a 'whistle' mouthpiece instead of a reed.
The six holes may still be seen on any penny whistle, or the brass flageolets in the music-shops.
The Recorder was known for its sweet tone. Poets used the word 'record' to signify the song of birds, especially of the nightingale.
Hawkins identifies it with the Fistula Dulcis, seu Anglica, and gives two pictures which help to explain the next quotation.
In South Kensington Museum there is a Recorder[9] made of a dark wood, which is nothing else but a big flageolet. Its length is 2 ft. 2 in., and its bore is that of the modern flageolet and old flute—viz., conical, but with the wide end nearest the player's mouth.
Hamlet III, ii, 346. Enter Players with recorders.