“The most popular instruments played with a bow at that time [1659] were the treble-viol, the tenor-viol and the bass-viol. It was usual for viol players to have ‘a chest of viols,’ a case containing four or more viols of different sizes. Thus Thomas Mace, in his directions for the use of the viol, ‘Musick’s Monument,’ 1676, remarks: ‘Your best provision and most complete, will be a good chest of viols six in number, viz., two basses, two tenors, and two trebles, all truly and proportionably suited.’ The violist, to be properly furnished with his requirements, had therefore to supply himself with a larger stock of instruments than the violinist of the present day.
“That there was, in the time of Shakespeare, a musical instrument called recorder is undoubtedly known to most readers from the stage-direction in ‘Hamlet’: ‘Re-enter players with recorders.’ But not many are likely to have ever seen a recorder, as it has now become very scarce.”—Engel’s Musical Instruments (S. K. M. Art Handbooks), pp. 114–119.
APPENDIX V.
APPENDIX V.
PEPYS’S CORRESPONDENTS.
