Again in Richard II. the Duke of Norfolk, upon realising the full despair of the word “banishment,” bursts forth into the grand speech beginning:
“And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
Than an unstring’d viol or a harp.”
In Twelfth Night playing the viola da gamba is mentioned as significant of good character. When Maria calls Sir Andrew Aguecheek a fool and prodigal, Sir Toby Belch defends him with:
“Fye, that you’ll say so! he plays o’ the viol di gamboys....”
In a ballad of the time of Charles I., which occurs in Mr Chappelle’s book, “Music of the Olden Time,” among the lady’s numerous accomplishments it is recorded that:
“She sings and she plays
And she knows all the keys
Of the viol de gambo, or lute.”
In Mr Pepys’ day, ladies cultivated the viola da gamba with great zest, and were not frowned upon for doing so, but the woman was bold who dared to play the violin. Indeed, the antipathy against that instrument for ladies was still felt at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Spohr, writing from Gotha in 1806, mentions his beloved Dorette’s skill as a violinist. But although admiring her aptitude for that instrument he was averse to seeing his future wife adopt it: “I advised her to discontinue the practice of that instrument so unbecoming to females,” he remarks in his most lofty manner. Mr Pepys, under the date 6th June 1661, makes a similar allusion to women playing the violin: “Here came two young gentlewomen to see Mr Holland, and one of them could play pretty well on the viallin, but how these ignorant people did cry her up for it!” Very different is the diarist’s manner of recounting the performance of a certain Mrs Jaggard on the viola da gamba: “After dinner I to the office ... but business not coming we broke up, and I thither again and took my wife ... to visit my Ladys Jemimah and Paulina Montagu and Mrs Elizabeth Pickering, whom we find at their father’s new house in Lincoln’s In Fields; but the house all in dirt. They received us well enough; but I did not endeavour to carry myself over familiarly with them; and so after a little stay, there coming in presently after us my Lady Aberguenny and other ladies, we back again by coach ... and thence to Jaggards again where a very good supper and great store of plate, and above all after supper Mrs Jaggard did at my entreaty play on the Vyall, but so well as I did not think any woman in England could and but few masters. I must confess it did mightily surprise me, though I knew heretofore that she could play, but little thought so well.” Mr Pepys himself took keen pleasure in playing the viol, and prided himself in being the possessor of “as good a theorbo viall and viallin as is in England.” Mrs Pepys was also permitted by her lord to play the viol, and a certain Mr Gregory, carefully selected by Mr Pepys, “he being an able and sober man,” gave her lessons. The third member of the Pepys’ ménage to play the viol was Mrs Pepys’ maid, the coquettish Mercer, who had as pretty a talent for dancing a jig which, according to the gallant Mr Pepys, “she does the best I ever saw,” as playing on that instrument. Professional lady gambists were apparently few in England in the eminent Diarist’s time, but in France they already figured in the Musique du Chambre du Roi, as a Mademoiselle Heléne Sercamann is mentioned among the “Basses de viole” in 1694. A year later there were three lady “Basses de viole,” Mademoiselles de Caix l’aîne, de Caix cadette, and de Caix troisième, with their brother in the same band. The French viola da gamba player, Sainte Colombe, had two daughters who played with him at concerts at his house. One of them, says Titon du Tillet, played the viola da gamba and the other the “dessus” or treble viol, and together with their father they frequently played trios.