natural uprising of these forms which appear to us almost laws of nature. His “Art de toucher le clavecin,” the first school-book specially devoted to the clavier, was published in 1717 and dedicated to the king. This was a noteworthy advance. There was to be no longer a teaching of mere notation, but a teaching of technique and execution. “The method which I here propose,” says Couperin, “is unique, and has nothing to do with the tablature, which is only a counting of numbers. I deal here chiefly with all that belongs to good playing. I believe that my observations are clear enough to please connoisseurs and to help those who are willing to be helped. As there is a great difference between grammatical and rhetorical rules, so there is an infinite distance between tablature and the art of good playing.” Such a general musical “fabrication” and grammar, in spite of many advanced ideas, had been the work of St Lambert, which appeared from 1702 to 1707, and which in its first part (called “Principes du Clavecin”) devotes only a few lines to actual clavecin playing, and extends the second part (called “De l’accompagnement”) also to the organ, and other instruments. It is painful to him that his experience is treated lightly and turned into a “school.” The parents of the pupils, he says later, ought to place the most implicit reliance on the teacher, and yield him the completest powers. The teacher even takes the key of the instrument with him, and no playing should be attempted without his supervision. The scholar sits with his fore-arm horizontal before the clavier, elbows, hand and fingers in a line--the fingers thus lying quite flat on the keys. He has his body turned very slightly to the right, and the right foot a little stretched out. In order to prevent grimacing while playing, he often places a mirror in front in which he can watch his motions. A bar over the hands occasionally regulates the equality of their height; for the holding of the hands high makes the tone necessarily hard. Looking about of any kind is forbidden, and above all, coquetting with the public as if the playing were no trouble at all. And although, finally, everything in the performance depends on experience, taste, and feeling, yet rules are given for performance to which the player must conform. Couperin frequently disregards the fingering of his predecessors, and to the examples which he gives of his new art he adds confidently in a side-note that he is convinced that few persons in Paris have the old rules in their heads--Paris being the centre of all good. Step by step we have harder and harder studies developed from a single figure, and directions for finger exercises fill the rest of the volume. The change of fingers on one note, the avoidance of the same finger twice in scale passages, the first application of the thumb in passing under are his characteristic points. These are all symptoms of the endeavour to