I am sorry to think that my relationship with Sachs came to an unhappy ending. I published what seemed to me a harmless paper, in which I criticised some of his researches. I wrote to him on the subject but received no answer. Partly on account of his silence and partly to pay a visit to a friend, I travelled to Würzburg. I found Sachs in the Botanic Garden; he seemed to wish to avoid me, but I went up to him and asked him why he was angry with me. He replied: “The reason is very simple; you know nothing of Botany and you dare to criticise a man like me.” I had no opportunity of replying, for at that moment one of his co-professors addressed him, asking if he could spare a moment. “Very willingly, Herr Professor,” said Sachs, and walked off without a word to me. And that was the last I saw of the great botanist. I was undoubtedly stupid, but I do not think he showed to advantage in the affair.
I continued to work with my father at Down, and in spite of the advantages I gained by seeing and sharing in the work of German laboratories, I now regret that so many months were spent away from him.
OLD INSTRUMENTS OF MUSIC [71]
Mr Galpin has written an admirable book on old musical instruments. His knowledge, which is first hand, is the harvest of many years’ research; and, like the best type of learned authors, he has the power of sharing his knowledge with the ignorant.
His book begins with a study of stringed instruments, which occupies about half the book, the remainder being given up to the wind band.
My own experience of instruments of music is confined to the latter division. I remember as a small boy at school struggling with an elementary flute: or was it a penny whistle? I believe it was a flute, for I have a dim recollection of pouring water into it before it would sound. I tried to teach the instrument—whatever it was—to a friend, and wrote down the fingerings by a series of black and white dots, in the manner quoted from Thomas Greeting’s Pleasant Companion, 1675, by Mr Galpin (p. 146). Then when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old I began under that admirable teacher, the late R. S. Rockstro, to work regularly at the flute. As a Cambridge undergraduate I remember playing flute
solos at the University Musical Society’s concerts. And I can still recall the pleasant sound of the applause which on one occasion called for a repetition of my performance. Since those days I took up the bassoon under the guidance of another admirable teacher, Mr E. F. James. But nowadays my chief interest is the recorder, which is best known to the unmusical world from the well-known passage in Hamlet. Of this instrument I shall have something to say in the sequel. I give these personal details to show how small a right I have to do more than give an abstract of Mr Galpin’s admirable book.
The first instrument dealt with is the harp, the essential feature of which is that each string gives but one sound. [72] It is not clear to me why the psaltery and dulcimer are separated from the harp, since they also have unstopped strings and therefore unalterable notes. Whereas the interpolated chapter ii. is concerned with instruments—the gittern and citole—whose tones are alterable in pitch by “stopping,” i.e., altering the length of the vibrating part of the string. I can only suppose that the author considers that the fact of the gittern and citole being sounded by plucking the strings, brings these instruments into alliance with the harp. I confess that I should like to have seen Class I. (strings unalterable in tone) including the harp, the rote, the psaltery, dulcimer (Plate I.), the æolian-harp, and the piano. Then would come a class of instruments some at least of whose strings
produce a variety of tones by stopping, i.e., shortening the vibrating region of the string, and this would include gittern and citole, lute, etc. But doubtless the author has good reason for his arrangement, and I have not knowledge enough to be his critic.
