is so skilfully wrought that this cannot be looked upon as a defect. Not a petal of the flowers, not a line in the delicate shells, not a lock in the sirens’ hair that is not perfect, and well fitted to be the satellite of the main scheme. The ribs of the violoncello are as profusely covered with similar embellishments as the back. [Illustration: CARVED VIOLONCELLO BY GALLI. MODENA, 1690.] Truly “a thing of beauty is a joy for ever,” and time only increases its loveliness when it is cherished. Galli’s _chefs-d’oeuvre_ will always find admirers, as indeed will all the gracefully decorated musical instruments of past centuries. Look at this _gamba de luxe_, one can call it nothing less, close beside us. Where will you find more faultless inlaying in ivory and tortoise-shell? Most pleasing to the eye, is it not? Yet its very beauty exemplifies one of the greatest pitfalls of the older _luthiers_. To the ancient maker, ornamentation was as irresistible as was the Lorelei’s golden hair to the sailors of the Rhine. Most Italian makers had realised the deleterious effects of inlaying and carving before Stradivarius’ time, but many of the great Cremona master’s German contemporaries were still caught in its delusive toils. Dwelling in Hamburg there was an unequalled stringed-instrument maker named Joachim Tielke, who fashioned his lutes of real ivory and ebony, inlaid the necks thereof with gold, and silver, and mother-of-pearl, while the pegs were formed of the finest tortoise-shell. These lutes were destined for the slim hands of the satin-clad dilettanti of the day, who boldly faced the many difficulties and intricacies of the instrument for the sake of its beauty. According to Mattheson,[31] if a lutanist attained the age of eighty, one might be certain that he had spent sixty years in tuning; a tedious operation, as the lute never remained long in tune. An older writer, Thomas Mace, in his “Musick Monument,” London, 1676, discussing the shortcomings of the lute, seriously advises that it should be kept, in the daytime, between the rug and blankets of a bed which was constantly used. It is hardly surprising that the exasperating sensitiveness to atmospheric changes to which this instrument was subject was at once the delight and despair of its votaries, and that makers observing these difficulties should attempt to please their patrons by ornamenting other less fragile instruments in lute fashion. Tielke of Hamburg at all events transferred his lute decorations _en bloc_ to his gambas, as this instrument and some others reveal.