[4] This passage is the only one in Shakespeare where the slightest inaccuracy or looseness in the use of a technical word is to be noticed. The word “jacks” is here used carelessly, meaning the “keys,” over which of course the fingers walk, and which leap up to kiss the inward of the hand. The actual “jacks” are inside the instrument.
[5] Cf. Shakespeare on “eight-bar strains.” See “Shakespeare and Music” (Dent), by E. W. Naylor.
[6] Readers to whom this ancient method of composition is new will find in Mendelssohn’s “St Paul,” an easily accessible example, viz.: the chorus “But our God abideth in Heaven,” where the second trebles sing in long notes the old melody of the Apostles’ Creed. No one could recognise it in the midst of the counterpoint of the other vocal parts, and this is the point in question; namely, that the mediæval writers used secular tunes in the same way, and were held blameless.
[7] Named after Jacques Arcadelt, of the early sixteenth century, one of the many natives of Flanders who so distinguished that period of Madrigal composition; a first-rate man.
[8] Doubtless the author refers to the tendency in the sixteenth century for voice parts to be made interchangeable with instrumental parts. Many instances might be given both in Italy and England, e.g. if a tenor voice were absent, the part was played by a tenor instrument, viol, cornetto, trombone, or what not. This was the more easily made habitual since instrumental accompaniment merely consisted in doubling the vocal parts.
[9] This paragraph replaces some rather obscure sentences in the original, and aims at conveying their general sense.
[10] An excellent book, which ought to be known widely, containing many examples of early lute music, is W. G. v. Wasielewski’s History of sixteenth century instrumental music. Berlin, 1878.
[11] Meaning the “Tablature,” a system of writing music for the lute which has nothing in common with our “staff” notation. A set of six horizontal lines (representing six strings), was used, and letters (a, b, c, etc.) on these indicated the semitones, reckoning a as the “open string,” b as the semitone above that, and so on, for each separate string.
[12] Another spelling for Pavana, or Pavan, slow dance in square time.
[13] The play was Gorboduc, otherwise Ferrex and Porrex. The author is better known as Thomas Sackville.