Each of the figures in this group is dressed in a costume so different from the others that one might almost suppose them engaged in a masquerade, and they seem to discountenance the notion that the minstrels were in the habit of wearing any dress peculiar to their class. In this respect, their testimony seems to be confirmed by the circumstance that minstrels are mentioned sometimes as wearing the dresses which have been given them, among other gifts, as a reward for their performances. The illuminated letter here introduced (No. 126), which is taken from a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Harl. No. 5102), represents king David singing his psalms to the harp, while three musicians accompany him. The first, who sits beside him, is playing on the shalm or psaltery, which is frequently figured in the illuminations of manuscripts. One of the two upper figures is playing on bells, which also is a description of music often represented in the illuminations of different periods; and the other is blowing the horn. These are all instruments of solemn and ecclesiastical music. In the next cut (No. 127), taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), the shalm is placed in the hands of a nun, while a friar is performing on a rather singularly shaped cittern, or lute. [Illustration: _No. 127. Musicians of the Cloister._] [Illustration: _No. 128. The Angelic Choir._] [Illustration: _No. 129. An Angel Playing on the Shalm._] In other manuscripts we find the ordinary musical instruments placed in the hands of the angels; as in the early fourteenth century MS. Reg. 2 B. vii., in a representation (copied in our cut No. 128) of the creation with the morning stars singing together, and all the sons of God shouting for joy, an angelic choir are making melody on the trumpet, fiddle, cittern, shalm, and harp. There is another choir of angels at p. 168 of the same MS., with two citterns and two shalms, a fiddle and a trumpet. Similar representations occur in the choirs of churches. In the bosses of the ceiling of Tewkesbury abbey church we see angels playing the cittern (with a plectrum), the harp (with its cover seen enveloping the lower half of the instrument), and the cymbals. In the choir of Lincoln cathedral, some of the series of angels which fill the spandrels of its arcades, and which have given to it the name of the angel choir, are playing instruments, such as the trumpet, double pipe, pipe and tabret, dulcimer, viol and harp, as if to represent the heavenly choir attuning their praises in harmony with the human choir below:--“therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name.” We will introduce here another drawing of an angelic minstrel (No. 129), playing a shalm, from the Royal MS. 14 E. iii.; others occur at folio 1 of the same MS. It has been suggested that the band of village