pieces by Bird, Bull, Gibbons, Blow, Purcell, and even Arne, who, though later, is not uninteresting. [Illustration: Title-page of the first English engraved Clavier Music, 1611.] The pieces in these collections are of three kinds. First, free fantasias,[18] such as were also composed for organ and lute under the name of prelude, preamble, or even toccata (here denoting simply piece). In their essence fugal they are broken and intersected by florid passages. In the second class, a canto fermo was taken from a church melody, and developed after the approved fashion in fugal or figured style. Or, finally--and this is the most usual case, and the style most appropriate to the clavier--a number of variations, or even groups of variations, if the theme has several sections, are formed into a series. The theme itself is a popular song or dance. Popular songs, as they swept uncounted through England and Scotland, are inexhaustible. Even to-day they retain their freshness. To the whole piece they impart their tense and melodious rhythm. The dances--in common time called Pavans, in triple, Galliards--are frequently named after noblemen,[19] and are in their variations adorned with the same encomiastic flourishes as the songs. The clavier, for which these English musicians wrote their pieces, was of the kind called a virginal. The virginal was a peculiarly handy kind of spinet. It is not to be assumed that, after the quibbling and flattering fashion of the time, it was so called in compliment to the Maiden Queen. The name is older. Possibly it is due to the fact that the small size of the instrument made it specially suitable for young girls. We find scarcely any pictures of _men_ sitting at the clavier. In Italy the same name was in vogue; but we are not here concerned with the whole history of the nomenclature of old keyed instruments. We are only so far interested in the history of the instrument as it forms the basis for the rise of the _literature_, i.e. _style of composition_, which concerns us in its human aspect. The histories of the clavier, those of Rimbault, Oskar Paul, and others, place the history of the instrument in the foreground. Even Weitzmann has appended to the last edition of his “History of Clavier-Playing and Clavier-Literature,” a comprehensive chapter on this subject. But the history of the clavier is a very complicated matter if we are tedious on it, and a very simple matter if, without becoming inexact, we are brief upon it.