Stephen Keene was a well-known maker of spinets, equal in reputation to his great rivals, Charles Haward, and Thomas and John Hitchcock, The earliest notice known of Keene occurs in an advertisement at the end of the sixth edition of Playford's Introduction (London, 1671), which announces that "Mr. George Dalham, that excellent organ-maker, dwelleth now in Purple-Lane, next door to the Crooked Billet, where such as desire to have new organs, or old mended, may be well accommodated." "And Mr. Stephen Keene, Maker of Harpsycons and Virginals, dwelleth now in Threadneedle-Street, at the sign of the Virginal, who maketh them exactly good, both for sound and substance." It is proved that Keene was long in business by a name-board which is in my possession dated 1719. Indeed, longer than the period occupied by Thomas Hitchcock, whose autograph occurs in spinets from 1664 and 1703. The principal dimensions of the instrument drawn, which belongs to Mr. H.J. Dale, Cheltenham, are--extreme width, 5 feet 6 inches, extreme depth, without the projection of the key-board, 1 foot 9-1/4 inches. The key-board is 2 feet 4-1/4 inches wide, and 3-7/8 inches deep. [Illustration: XXIII] PLATE XXIII. QUINTERNA AND MANDOLINE. The Quinterna or Chiterna, the Italian guitar, was formerly used by the humbler order of musicians. According to Engel, it had three pairs of catgut strings and two single strings covered with wire, and was played guitar-lute fashion with the fingers, and not with a plectrum. But the instrument here drawn, with its ten wire strings, must have been played with a plectrum in cither fashion. It was exhibited by Mr. George Donaldson in the Music Loan Collection at the Royal Albert Hall as a Giterna, an obvious variant of the name. Two views of it are here given. It is of tortoiseshell with arabesques of ivory and a carved ebony head, the back being of ebony and ivory. In length it is 24-1/2 inches, and the neck, measured from the body, is 14 inches. The words, "Joachim Tielke Hamburg fecit, 1676," are inscribed on the back of the instrument; the date, however, suggests a considerable discrepancy when compared with the Quinterna in South Kensington Museum, by Joachim Tielke, 1539. Engel supposes that this famous maker's name was continued through several generations, to account for the difference in dates. Evelyn, visiting Pozzuoli in 1645, says, "The country-people so jovial and addicted to musiq, that the very husbandmen almost universaly play on the guitarr, singing and composing songs in praise of their sweet-heartes." This guitar would be the Quinterna. The Mandoline drawn, also Mr. Donaldson's, is by Domenico Vinaccia, dated Napoli, 1780, and is of tortoiseshell and mother of pearl, with a beautiful pear-shaped back or shell. It is 22 inches long, the neck and head being 11 inches.