Old Pepys, in his diary, gives a description of the great fire in London which occurred in 1666, in which he says: "The river was full of lighters and boats, taking in goods, _good_ goods swimming in the water; and only I observed that hardly one lighter or boat but that there was a pair of virginals on it." The word "pair" as it is used then had no more meaning than when we now say "a pair of scissors." This extract shows that the instrument must have been almost as commonly used as the piano of our day. In Shakespeare's time it was customary to have a virginal in a barber shop for the entertainment of customers, probably to beguile the weary moments while they waited for the barber to say "next." [Illustration: Clavichord made by John Christopher Jesse, Germany, 1765] In shape the spinet resembled the harp placed horizontally in the framework. A very good example may be seen at the South Kensington Museum in London. It was made by Rossi, a celebrated manufacturer. The Metropolitan Museum in New York has rare specimens of the harp which were given by the late Mr. Drexel, of Philadelphia, who purchased them in Europe. There are two theories as to the origin of the name "spinet." One is, that it was taken from Spinetti, a Venetian who invented the oblong form of the case. The other is that the strings were made to vibrate by the points of a quill, and that the word "spinet" came from thorn or point. In tone the spinet was usually a fifth higher than that of the harpsichord, which came into favor during the eighteenth century. The latter was almost exactly like our grand piano, only very much smaller. To Italy has been accorded the honor of its origin, also, away back in the fifteenth century. It was not commonly used, however, until about 1702. A harpsichord on exhibition at the South Kensington Museum in London bears the date of 1521. A step towards the present-day construction of the piano is shown by the fact that there were always two wire strings to each note and sometimes three or four, and that it had a keyboard covering five octaves. It was like an organ in that it had register stops and sometimes a double keyboard.