The most noteworthy kinds of the hautboy of the time of Handel and Sebastian Bach are,――the _oboe da caccia_, which is identical with the _corno inglese_ (_English horn_, _cor anglais_), a large hautboy still occasionally employed in the orchestra, and the _oboe d’amore_, or _oboe lungo_, whch has fallen into oblivion. The pitch of the _oboe d’amore_ was a minor third lower than that of the common hautboy, or _oboe piccolo_; and its sound, owing to the narrowness of the bore at its further end, was rather weak, but particularly sweet. The precursor of the hautboy was evidently the _bombardino_, or _chalumeau_. The _bombardino_, also called in Italian _bombardo piccolo_, was a small _bombardo_, an instrument of the hautboy kind, about three centuries ago much in use on the Continent. The Germans called the _bombardo_ “Pommer,” which appears to be a corruption of the Italian name. The _bombardo_ was made of various sizes, and with a greater or smaller number of finger-holes and keys. That which produced the bass tones was sometimes of an enormous length, and was blown through a bent tube, like the bassoon, the invention of which it is said to have suggested. The smallest instrument, called _chalumeau_ (from _calamus_, “a reed”) is still occasionally to be found among the peasantry in the Tyrol and some other parts of the Continent. The Germans call it _Schalmei_, and the Italians _piffero pastorale_. In England it was formerly called _shawm_ or _shalm_. The _clarinet_, likewise an instrument of this class, is said to have been invented by Denner, in Nürnberg, about the year 1700. The clarinet has only a single vibrating reed in the mouth-piece; the hautboy has a double one. The invention of the _bassoon_ (Italian, _fagotto_; French _basson_; German, _Fagott_) is ascribed to Afranio, a canon of Ferrara, who constructed the first in the year 1539. The instrument was, however, an improved _bombardo_ rather than a new invention. As early as the year 1550, the celebrated wind-instrument maker Schnitzer, in Nürnberg, manufactured bassoons which were considered as very complete. Fig. 73 illustrates a species of bassoon bound with brass with brass keys, and complete with mouth-piece and reed. Various bassoons of small dimensions in use about two centuries ago, and earlier (the _dolciano_, _Quartfagott_, _Quintfagott_, _tenor-bassoon_, _corthol_, etc.), are now antiquated. In the list of musical instruments of Sir Thomas Kytson, of Hengrave Hall, about the year 1600, recorded in the “History and Antiquities of Hengrave, Suffolk,” by John Gage, London, 1822, is mentioned “A Curtall,” which was probably the _corthol_ or French _courtaut_, an early kind of bassoon, a specimen of which, dating from the fifteenth century, is preserved in the Conservatoire de Musique at Paris. According to Prætorius (anno 1619) the _fagotto piccolo_, a small species of bassoon, was called in England _single corthol_.