The gamba of this make which is before us has unfortunately been fitted by some vandal with a machine head, but otherwise is as perfect as when it left Tielke’s hands over three hundred years ago. No doubt, the original pegs were of ivory tipped with a dainty jewel to correspond with those which were let into the neck. Before it became the property of the South Kensington Museum it was owned by Mr Simon Andrew Forster, the joint author of the well-known “History of the Violin.” Two excellent pictures of this instrument are included in this volume, and also the information that Mr Forster purchased it from Mr John Cause, the artist, who had lent it to the directors of the “Ancient Concerts,” held in the Hanover Square Rooms in the spring of 1845. These concerts were organised to take place in this obsolete concert hall by a small body of aristocratic music lovers headed by the Prince Consort, and it was under his auspices that the second concert of the season was not only devoted to the sixteenth-century music, but was performed on the ancient instruments themselves. M. Fetis, at that time director of the Brussels Conservatoire, supplied a number of old instruments from the Musée of the Conservatoire, and the orchestra on the evening of the 16th April 1845, presented,--what _The Illustrated London News_ terms,--“a grotesque sight.” There was a “Violino Francesi,” says the above authority, a “viola da gamba” (now before us), a “viola d’Amore,” and a “viola da Braccio,” a “Theorbo,” “violino,” “guitar,” “harp,” and an “organ,” played respectively by Messrs Loder, Hatton, J. F. Loder, Ventura, Dragonetti, Don Cubra, T. Wright, and Lucas. The complete programme of the concert may be seen in full in _The Illustrated London News_ for 19th April 1845, suffice it here to say that the two _pièces de résistance_ comprised a concerto, played on Antique Instruments, and composed by Emile del Cavalieri (1600), and an anonymous fifteenth-century Romanesca, performed in a like manner. Both Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, appeared to be highly delighted with the concert, and at the end, invited Mr Hatton to play a solo on his viola da gamba in the tea-room.