Viola di Bordone from the South Kensington Museum, from a Painting by D. Freeborn Roberts ” 184 Benjamin Hallet ” 210 Ravanastron 21 Ancient Egyptian Guitars 22 Rabab 29 Kemangeh à Gouze 32 The Rebec 44 Spanish Minstrel 46 Figure from St Georges de Boscerville 49 Bas-relief, Cologne Cathedral 50 Nun playing Marine Trumpet. Sketch by Author 59 Example from Simpson’s “Division-Viol” 80 [Illustration: The Opening bars of the Chant of Ab’oo Zeyd] Chats on Violoncellos CHAT THE FIRST INTRODUCTION Fog--The South Kensington Museum--The Ravanastron--Arabia--The Kemangeh à Gouze--Egypt, and the Rabab Is there any city in the world that can--metaphorically speaking--hold up its head beside this place of mystery--London in a fog? Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St Petersburg, New York--what can they do in the production of a bilious-green, murky-yellow species of hyperphysical abomination? Nothing! Yet we English are not in the least proud of our prerogative. Perhaps elation is impossible among such depressing surroundings, or, perhaps the true British spirit of being satisfied with everything that _is_ British, because it _is_ British, predominates too utterly to admit of any other emotion. From whatever cause our inertia springs, the clue is too deeply locked away in every Cockney’s heart to be revealed. The effect, however, is plainly seen in the total lack of epic poetry, or chromatic musical depiction of the thing. Our literature does not teem with such lines as: “The ’cellist stood in the empty hall, Whence all but himself had fled, ‘’Tis the fog,’ he sighed, ‘that has tired them all And sent them so early to bed!’” No! genius ignores the subject, and fills in the weary hours of darkness with sighs, and gasps, and chokes, like ordinary mortals. What an outlook greets us this dull November day! Misty bricks and mortar emerge and disappear like swiftly buried cities. Hazy, indefinite, dubious figures loom upon us out of the darkness, like ancestral ghosts; dull thuds, faint cries, strange stampings and gratings are transmitted to our ears with telephonic minuteness; and all the while our throats are aching, our eyes are streaming, our noses are smarting, the motor bus is useless, and--we don’t know where we are.