at this time stands at the head, not even the thirty instrumentalists of Munich being equal to it. Above all there seems to be growing a division of labour between orchestra and chamber-music, so much so that Prätorius, when in his great musical work (1618), he mentions such combinations of lute-choirs, calls this style of chamber-music especially English. “Die Engelländer nennens gar apposite à consortio ein consort,[15] wenn etliche Personen mit allerley Instrumenten, als Klavicymbel und Gross-spinett, grosse Lyra, Doppelharff, Lauten, Theorben, Bandorn, Penorcon, Zittern, Viol de Gamba, einer kleinen Diskant-Geig, einer Quer-Flöt oder Bock-Flöt, bisweilen auch einer stillen Posaun oder Racket zusammen in einer Compagny und Gesellschaft gar still, sanfft und lieblich accordiren, und in anmuthiger Symphonia mit einander zusammen stimmen.” Hence it appears that the orchestra and the chamber-music of old England were the chief things. In the former the wind prevailed, in the latter the strings; but the clavier had its place in both kinds. For the clavier, during many years, even when it had made good its position as a solo instrument, still took its part in orchestral combinations. Even in Hasse’s time the _Kapellmeister_ at Dresden sat at the clavier. Under such circumstances it is no wonder that the old English clavier should have flourished, or that it was in England that it first recognised its mission. The influence of this was great enough to bring about a speedy development on the continent. The cultivation of music was not only wide-spread, but also very ancient; so much so that the old musical writer Tinctor (1434-1520) expressly ascribes the origin of all contrapuntal music to England. The compositions of the thirteenth century were, in grace of melody, simplicity of rhythm, and modernity of harmony, far in advance of their age. (Compare the canon in six parts,[16] “Sumer is icumen in” of the Monk of Reading, before 1226.) It is noteworthy that the English possessed of old a popular, simple, melodious tendency in music which reminds us of Mendelssohn. This has made English music great and also small. Great, for at a time when the whole musical world struggled with the contrapuntal want of system in harmony and melody, the English were capable of preparing the way, in systematic, plastic form, for the new conquering secular principle. Small, because so soon as this principle became universally recognised, they laid themselves to sleep in the luxurious enjoyment of their tradition, and set up foreign ideals, such as Mendelssohn and Handel,[17] who were endowed with the like gifts. [Illustration: Lady at the Clavier. Painting by Dirk Hals (?1656), in the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam.]