The dolciano, to the extreme left of the Plate, will be thus seen to owe the suggestion of its name to the original bassoon. But this instrument has a clarinet or beating reed, not the double reed of the oboe and bassoon. I state this fact upon the high authority of Mr. Henry Lazarus, the clarinet-player, who names it "tenoroon," but Dr. Stone has accepted this name as a synonym of the oboe da caccia, and calls this instrument with a clarinet reed, "dolciano." Mr. Lazarus, when in the Band of the Royal Military Asylum, played upon such an instrument, as he informs me, made by Garrett of Westminster, at a date that must have preceded Sax's invention, which combined the conical tube and clarinet reed in the Saxophone. The basset horn, or corno di bassetto, to the extreme right of the Plate, is the alto clarinet, a fifth lower in pitch than the clarinet in C. It is said to have been invented at Passau in Bavaria in 1770, but the name of the inventor is not recorded. It was improved by Lotz of Presburg in 1782, and again by Iwan Müller in 1812. Mozart wrote two parts for basset horns in his famous Requiem. The relative positions in the Plate of the Oboe and Oboe da Caccia are indicated above. [Illustration: XL] PLATE XL. SITÁRS AND VÍNA. The Sitár is the favourite instrument of Upper India, and was reintroduced and perfected by the poet-musician Amir Khusru of Delhi in the thirteenth century. The name is Persian, and implies "three strings," although the Sitár has now usually five, six, and sometimes seven strings. Sitárs called _Taruffe_ have sympathetic strings of fine wire attached to the side of the neck and passing underneath the frets and bridge, to vibrate in unison with the notes of the same pitch that are played. This contrivance, although of recent date in Europe, is of great antiquity in the East, being mentioned in the Sangíta Ratnâkera, the earliest known work in Sanscrit upon music. The principal strings of the Sitár are sounded by a wire plectrum worn upon the forefinger of the player's right hand; and their accordance, which was noted when given to Mr. A.J. Ellis and myself by H.H. The Rájah Rám Pál Singh, an Indian prince residing in England, who played upon a fine Sitár now in my possession, is [Music]. Here the keynote, or khuruj, is F. This method of tuning, although not so common as tunings given later, is employed in the north of India and the Punjab; and a similar employment of the second and third for open strings may be found in the tuning of the Sur-s'ringâra. The F string is the melody string stopped by the frets. The other strings are occasionally struck, but are rarely fretted, and never to produce harmony. The brass frets are secured to the neck by catgut ties, and are movable, so that by changing their positions different modes are obtained. The classical Sanscrit name for the Sitár, the instrument drawn on the left, was Tritantri (three-stringed) Vína. A form of Sitár, with a flat body, was called