In A treatise between trouth and information, by W. Cornishe, printed among the works of Skelton, are these lines:
"A harpe geveth sounde as it is sette,
The harper may wrest it untunablye;
A harper with his wrest may tune the harpe wrong,
Mystunyng of an instrument shal hurt a true songe."
The same instrument was used for tuning other stringed instruments, as appears from the same poem:
"The claricord hath a tunely kynde,
As the wyre is wrested hye and lowe;
So it turnyth to the players mynde,
For as it is wrested so must it nedes showe,
Any instrument mystunyd shall hurt a trew song,
Yet blame not the claricord the wrester doth wrong."
Again,
"With golden strings such harmonie
His harpe so sweet did wrest;
That he reliev'd his phrenesie
Whom wicked sprites possest."
Archb. Parker's Psalter, sign. B. 1. b.
In King James's edict against combats, &c., p. 45, is this passage, "this small instrument the tongue being kept in tune by the wrest of awe," &c.
And in Swetnam's Arraignment of women, 1615, 4to, "They are always tempering their wits, as fidlers do their strings, who wrest them so high, that many times they stretch them beyond time, tune, and reason."