It is generally and justly admitted that in no other branch of the art of music has greater progress been made during the last century than in the construction of musical instruments. Nevertheless, there are people who think that we have also lost something here which might with advantage be restored. Our various instruments by being more and more perfected are becoming too much alike in quality of sound, or in that character of tone which the French call _timbre_, and the Germans _Klangfarbe_, and which professor Tyndall in his lectures on sound has translated _clang-tint_. Every musical composer knows how much more suitable one _clang-tint_ is for the expression of a certain emotion than another. Our old instruments, imperfect though they were in many respects, possessed this variety of _clang-tint_ to a high degree. Neither were they on this account less capable of expression than the modern ones. That no improvement has been made during the last two centuries in instruments of the violin class is a well-known fact. As to lutes and cithers the collection at South Kensington contains specimens so rich and mellow in tone as to cause musicians to regret that these instruments have entirely fallen into oblivion. As regards beauty of appearance our earlier instruments were certainly superior to the modern. Indeed, we have now scarcely a musical instrument which can be called beautiful. The old lutes, cithers, viols, dulcimers, etc., are not only elegant in shape but are also often tastefully ornamented with carvings, designs in marquetry, and painting. Of the stringed instruments used in our orchestra, the _violin_ (Fig. 52) is the one which has been longest preserved entirely unaltered. Its name (Italian, _violino_), a diminutive of _viola_, suggests that our _tenor_ (_viola di braccio_) is the older instrument of the two. The _viol_ (Fig. 53, facing p. 104) in use about three centuries ago, was however somewhat different in shape. As the oldest-known instruments played with a bow, which in European countries preceded the violin, may be mentioned:――The _rebec_, which, it appears, was first popular in Spain; the _crwth_ of the Welsh; the _fidla_ of the Norwegian, which, in shape somewhat resembled the _crwth_, and which, with some slight modifications, is still occasionally to be found in Iceland, where it is called _langspiel_; and the _fithele_ of the Anglo-Saxons.