[Illustration: The so-called “Hand” of Guido of Arezzo, with an early and extensively used diagram of the scale-notation.] In their clearness of arrangement and harmonious development, so far as they do not deal with dance or song, the majority of the pieces of the Virginal Book are marked by the spirit of the Toccata of the great Dutchman Sweelinck, which appears as Piece 96. Here the spirit of Bach is seen before its time. Gradually the distinctive edges of individuality fade away. A piece by Thomas Morley on the theme, “Goe from my window,” whose melody he himself partially employs again in his “Nancie,” appears again almost unaltered in the same Virginal Book, and is then ascribed to John Munday. With John Blow, Henry Purcell, Thomas Augustine Arne, in the following generations,[32] English clavier music blends with the general Continental stream, till it is absorbed and must seek its nourishment from without. [1] The Cor Anglais is mentioned here as expressing a tone-colour which is entirely foreign to the pianoforte. This instrument is the alto hautboy. Its name is a curious instance of a “ghost” word, viz.: in its original meaning, “Cor anglé,” a bent or “angled” tube, German “Krummhorn,” it was misunderstood and explained as Cor Angl_ais_, Corno Inglese, English Horn. [2] Readers who do not know the picture must not be misled by this expression. St Jerome’s window-frames are filled with numberless little rounds of bottle-glass. [3] The bagpipers play before Othello’s house, and the clown reproves their nasal tone. Othello himself gave them money to go away, which argues rather in his favour. As for Caliban, he was a true musician, except when drunk. Even then he liked howling catches. See especially Tempest, Act iii. 2, 136. [4] This passage is the only one in Shakespeare where the slightest inaccuracy or looseness in the use of a technical word is to be noticed. The word “jacks” is here used carelessly, meaning the “keys,” over which of course the fingers walk, and which leap up to kiss the inward of the hand. The actual “jacks” are _inside_ the instrument. [5] _Cf._ Shakespeare on “eight-bar strains.” See “Shakespeare and Music” (Dent), by E. W. Naylor. [6] Readers to whom this ancient method of composition is new will find in Mendelssohn’s “St Paul,” an easily accessible example, viz.: the chorus “But our God abideth in Heaven,” where the second trebles sing in long notes the old melody of the Apostles’ Creed. No one could recognise it in the midst of the counterpoint of the other vocal parts, and this is the point in question; namely, that the mediæval writers used secular tunes in the same way, and were held blameless.