Of the little portable organ, known as the _regal_ or _regals_, often tastefully shaped and embellished, some interesting sculptured representations are still extant in the old ecclesiastical edifices of England and Scotland. There is, for instance, in Beverley minster a figure of a man playing on a single regal, or a regal provided with only one set of pipes; and in Melrose abbey the figure of an angel holding in his arms a double regal, the pipes of which are in two sets. The regal generally had keys like those of the organ but smaller. A painting in the national Gallery, by Melozzo da Forli who lived in the fifteenth century, contains a regal which has keys of a peculiar shape, rather resembling the pistons of certain brass instruments. The illustration has been drawn from that painting. To avoid misapprehension, it is necessary to mention that the name _regal_ (or _regals_, _rigols_) was also applied to an instrument of percussion with sonorous slabs of wood. This contrivance was, in short, a kind of harmonica, resembling in shape as well as in the principle of its construction the little glass harmonica, a mere toy, in which slips of glass are arranged according to our musical scale. In England it appears to have been still known in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Grassineau describes the “Rigols” as “a kind of musical instrument consisting of several sticks bound together, only separated by beads. It makes a tolerable harmony, being well struck with a ball at the end of a stick.” In the earlier centuries of the middle ages there appear to have been some instruments of percussion in favour, to which Grassineau’s expression “a tolerable harmony” would scarcely have been applicable. Drums, of course, were known; and their rhythmical noise must have been soft music, compared with the shrill sounds of the _cymbalum_; a contrivance consisting of a number of metal plates suspended on cords, so that they could be clashed together simultaneously; or with the clangour of the _cymbalum_ constructed with bells instead of plates; or with the piercing noise of the _bunibulum_, or _bombulom_; an instrument which consisted of an angular frame to which were loosely attached metal plates of various shapes and sizes. The lower part of the frame constituted the handle: and to produce the noise it evidently was shaken somewhat like the sistrum of the ancient Egyptians. We give woodcuts of the three instruments. [Illustration] The _triangle_ nearly resembled the instrument of this name in use at the present day; it was more elegant in shape and had some metal ornamentation in the middle. The _tintinnabulum_ consisted of a number of bells arranged in regular order and suspended in a frame. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX.