Thus music and musical instruments having lost their chief support in the lordly though uncultured minstrel, other patrons had to be found. In Henry VII.’s reign, Dr Burney tells us of a certain “Dr Fayrfax of Newark Cornyshe” and a few others who set popular poetry to music, “which,” says he, in his dry way, “was uncouth but superior to the music.” Then again, we hear in the same reign of the “Stryng Minstrels at Westminster,” and of the “waits” who belonged to each town in England and made “merrie musick for the kynge” when he passed that way. Henry VIII.--whose musical abilities were of no mean order--included two viols in the State band in the year 1526. The fifteen trumpets and ten sackbuts, receiving the most pay, with which the viols had to compete, doubtless allowed them no chance of being heard, but they were there, and it was their _début_ in the royal music; _dejâ quelque chose_. Henry VIII.’s son, Edward VI., increased the number of viols in his musical establishment to eight, which was a significant augmentation, when we find that his father’s sackbuts had been reduced to six. About this time compositions styled “songes for severall voyces” came into vogue, no doubt instigated by the visit to these shores of the great Netherlands composer, Orlando Lassus. The first of these “severall voyce” compositions was published by Winken de Worde in 1530, and we make mention of them here because it was these very “songes” for “three, fower, and five voyces” that later became “Apt for voyce and vialls,” and were eventually succeeded by that form of composition called “Fantesies.” In 1540, the Italian gambist, Ferabosco, established himself in London, and gave lessons in the art of viol playing, and, as the cult of the gamba grew in England, ventures in the land of concerted music were made by musicians of the period. In the dumb show English play entitled _Gorbodic_--performed in 1561--the earliest English tragedy to be acted on the stage, music was executed by voices and musical instruments between the acts. The first act opened with the instructions that: “Firste the Musicke of Violenze began to play, durynge whiche came in uppon the stage sixe wilde men clothed in leaues.” Likewise Gascoyne’s _Jocasta_, of about the same date, was preceded by a dumb show accompanied by viols, cittaras, bandoras, and other musical instruments. The year 1558 saw the publication by Anthony Munday of “A Banquet of Daintie Conceits,” to be sung to the lute, bandora, virginals, or any other instrument, and in 1593 one of the earliest and best music printers of the day, William Barley, brought out an important work entitled “A New Booke of Tablature containing Instructions to guide and dispose the Hand, to play on sundry Instruments, as the Lute, Orpharion, and Bandora.” Then came, in 1597, the famous lutanist John Dowland’s “First Booke of Songes or Ayres of foure Parts, with Tablature for the Lute. So