Yet the titles of the clavier-pieces are not fully explained by this reference to the value of programme-music for the French mind. We must take into consideration also an old decorative tradition. Let us open the magnificent volume of lute-pieces by the famous Denis Gaultier,[39] which came into the Berlin Museum of Engravings along with the Hamilton collection. It is fantastically called “La Rhetorique des Dieux,” because only gods could speak so movingly by music, and equally fantastically he introduces all kinds of titles for the pieces, such as “Phaethon struck by lightning,” “le Panégyrique,” Minerva, Ulysses, Andromeda, Diana, “la Coquette virtuosa,” and the like, besides several “Tombeaux,” by which term dedications to deceased persons were generally indicated.[40] If we compared these sixteenth century pieces with their names, a certain nimble fancy is required to find actual programme-music in them. Of a genuine representation of the content there is no pretence. Minerva, Echo, and the Coquette would seem to have more in common than they ever suspected. The titles are nothing but decorative stamps, resembling those medallions of Aphrodite which are so often engraved over a love-poem. The interpretation is always in the widest spirit possible. It is amusing to see how the editor of the collection labours to explain the names while confining himself exclusively to the vaguest generalities. On “l’Homicide,” or The Fair Murderess, as it is also named, he writes: “This fair creature deals death to every one who sees and hears her; but this death is so unlike the usual death that it is the beginning of a life, not its end.” It could not easily be more plainly indicated that there is no clear representation of anything to be seen in the piece, and that the title is a piece of self-flattery in the dress of the fantastic. Already had the elder Gaultier, the founder of this lute-school, recognised, or perhaps even invented, these decorative titles, such as “le canon,” “la conquérante,” “les larmes du Boset,” or “la volte,” “l’immortelle,” “le loup.” This last, it is certain, is no ordinary wolf, but howls so musically that it is really a man.