To return to this Ruckers Virginal--the sound-board is painted with floral devices in Netherlandish fashion, the usual gilt rose appearing in the round opening of the sound-board, bearing the maker's trade mark, which contains his initials, I.R., and near it is written with ink, _Anno_ 1622. Upon the rail above the jacks (plectra) is the inscription, JOANNES RVCKERS FECIT ANTVERPIÆ. There is a picture in the National Gallery in London, from the Peel Collection, painted by Metsu, wherein is depicted a precisely similar instrument, possibly his own, as he has it again in a picture belonging to the collection of Sir Francis Cook, at Richmond, in Surrey. At first sight it is difficult to believe it is not the same. Another occurs at Windsor Castle, in the collection of H.M. the Queen, painted by Ver Meer of Delft. Here, again, the first impression formed is that the painter has represented the instrument shown in the present drawing. Such Virginals must have been, at that time, favourite instruments in polite Dutch Society. Pepys, in his _Diary_, under date of September 2, 1666, has a well-known reference to the popularity of the virginal in London at the time of the Great Fire. "River full of lighters and boats taking in goods, and I observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three, that had the goods of a house in, but there was a pair of virginals in it." The word "virginals," here used, was evidently applied in a general sense, meaning any key-board plectrum instrument. The special virginal was an oblong spinet, and appears to have been the "spinetta," in the form invented by the Venetian Spinetti, about the year 1500. The Italian oblong spinet was furnished with a lid, the instrument being a fixture in the case. It presented to the eye the exact appearance of the cassone or wedding coffer, and was equally an object for decoration. The rich sound of the Bass of the instrument here drawn, not soon to be forgotten, serves to show what the quality of tone throughout the scale must originally have been. It was this supreme excellence which raised the reputation of Hans Ruckers and his sons to a level to be rivalled only, later, by the great Cremona violin-makers; it lasted as long as the spinet and harpsichord remained in vogue. This Virginal represents No. 15 of my Catalogue of existing Ruckers instruments in Sir George Grove's _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, article "Ruckers." London, 1883.