Rules are given for all these graces, but observe he says “that whatever your grace be, you must in your farewell express the true note perfectly, or else your pretended grace, will prove a disgrace.”
“The Spinger is a grace very neat and curious, for some sort of notes, and is done thus: After you have hit your note, you must just as you intend to part with it, dab one of your rest fingers lightly upon the same string, a fret or two frets below, (according to the air,) as if you did intend to stop the string, in that place, yet so gently, that you do not cause the string to sound, in that stop, so dab'd; but only so that it may suddenly take away that sound which you last struck, yet give some small tincture of a new note, but not distinctly to be heard as a note; which grace, if well done and properly is very taking and pleasant.”
The Sting is “another very neat and pretty grace,” it makes the sound seem to swell with pretty unexpected humour, and gives much contentment upon cases.
The Tut is easily done, and always with the right hand. “When you would perform this grace, it is but to strike your letter which you intend shall be so graced, with one of your fingers, and immediately clap on your next striking finger upon the string which you struck; in which doing, you suddenly take away the sound of the letter; and if you do it clearly, it will seem to speak the word, Tut, so plainly, as if it were a living creature, speakable!”
While however the pupil was intent upon exhibiting these graces, the zealous master exhorted him not to be unmindful of his own, but to regard his postures, for a good posture is comely, creditable and praiseworthy, and moreover advantageous as to good performance. “Set yourself down against a table, in as becoming a posture, as you would choose to do for your best reputation. Sit upright and straight; then take up your lute, and lay the body of it in your lap across. Let the lower part of it lie upon your right thigh, the head erected against your left shoulder and ear; lay your left hand down upon the table, and your right arm over the lute, so that you may set your little finger down upon the belly of the lute, just under the bridge, against the treble, or second string: and then keep your lute stiff, and strongly set with its lower edge against the table-edge; and so, leaning your breast something hard against its ribs, cause it to stand steady and strong, so that a bystander cannot easily draw it from your breast, table, and arm. This is the most becoming, steady and beneficial posture.”
“Your left hand thus upon the table, your lute firmly fixed, yourself and it in your true postures,—bring up your left hand from the table, bended, just like the balance of a hook, all excepting your thumb, which must stand straight and span'd out; your fingers also, all divided out from the other in an equal and handsome order; and in this posture, place your thumb under the neck of the lute, a little above the fret, just in the midst of the breadth of the neck; all your four-fingers in this posture, being held close over the strings on the other side, so that each finger may be in a readiness to stop down upon any fret. And now in this lively and exact posture, I would have your posture drawn, which is the most becoming posture I can direct unto for a lutanist.”
“Know that an old lute is better than a new one.” Old instruments indeed, are found by experience to be far the best, the reasons for which Master Mace could no further dive into than to say, he apprehended, “that by extreme age, the wood and those other adjuncts, glue, parchment, paper, linings of cloth, (as some used) but above all the varnish, are by time very much dried, limped, made gentle, rarified, or to say better, even airified; so that that stiffness, stubbornness, or clunguiness which is natural to such bodies, are so debilitated and made pliable, that the pores of the wood, have a more free liberty to move, stir or secretly vibrate; by which means the air (which is the life of all things both animate and inanimate) has a more free and easy recourse to pass and repass, &c. Whether I have hit upon the right cause, I know not, but sure I am that age adds goodness to instruments.”
The Venice lutes were commonly good; and the most esteemed maker was Laux Malles, whose name was always written in text letters. Mace had seen two of his lutes, “pitiful, old, battered, cracked things;” yet for one of these, which Mr. Gootiere, the famous lutanist in his time showed him, the King paid an hundred pounds. The other belonged to Mr. Edward Jones, one of Gootiere's scholars; and he relates this “true story” of it; that a merchant bargained with the owner to take it with him in his travels, on trial; if he liked it, he was on his return to give an hundred pounds for it; otherwise he was to return it safe, and pay twenty pounds “for his experience and use of it.”—He had often seen lutes of three or four pounds a piece “more illustrious and taking to a common eye.”
The best shape was the Pearl mould, both for sound and comeliness, and convenience in holding. The best wood for the ribs was what he calls air-wood, this was absolutely the best; English maple next. There were very good ones however of plum, pear, yew, rosemary-air, and ash. Ebony and ivory, though most costly and taking to a common eye were the worst. For the belly the finest grained wood was required, free from knots or obstructions; cypress was very good, but the best was called Cullen's-cliff, being no other than the finest sort of fir, and the choicest part of that fir. To try whether the bars within, to strengthen and keep it straight and tight, were all fast, you were gently to knock the belly all along, round about, and then in the midst, with one of your knuckles; “if any thing be either loose in it, or about it, you may easily perceive it, by a little fuzzing or hizzing; but if all be sound, you shall hear nothing but a tight plump and twanking knock.”
Among the aspersions against the lute which Master Mace indignantly repelled, one was that it cost as much in keeping as a horse. “I do confess,” said he, “that those who will be prodigal and extraordinary curious, may spend as much as may maintain two or three horses, and men to ride upon them too if they please. But he never charged more than ten shillings for first stringing one, and five shillings a quarter for maintaining it with strings.”