Here also may certain puffing publications be alluded to, which resemble the literary productions of quack doctors. Some are curious, however objectionable they may be. We have guides professing to teach how to become a brilliant player without the trouble of practising an instrument; how to compose fine music with the aid of dice instead of musical knowledge; how to sing in chorus without having a voice; and suchlike tempting propositions. Nor must the fanciful schemes for reform relating to the theory of music, to musical notation, to the construction of instruments, etc., be left unnoticed. Some of these are very extravagant, while others have proved to be of greater practical utility than was expected. Space can only be afforded here for three curious examples of proposed innovations, two of which shall be selected from English publications of this description. 'An Essay to the Advancement of Musick, by casting away the Perplexity of different Cliffs, and uniting all Sort of Musick,--Lute, Viol, Violin, Organ, Harpsechord, Voice, etc.--in one Universal Character;' by Thomas Salmon, London, 1672. 'A New System of Music, both theoretical and practical, and yet not mathematical; written in a manner entirely new; that's to say, in a Style plane and intelligible; and calculated to render the Art more Charming, the Teaching not only less tedious, but more profitable, and the Learning easier by three Quarters. All which is done by tearing off the Veil that has for so many ages hung before that noble Science;' by John Francis De La Fond, London, 1725.--The author proposes to abolish the clefs entirely, as he finds them only troublesome. Wilhelm K¸hnau published in Berlin, in the year 1810, a book entitled "Die Blinden Tonk¸nstler," which contains the biographies of seventy blind musicians. The author discards all the foreign words used in German music, and substitutes for them German words of his own coining. For Kapellmeister he proposes 'Tonmeister;' for Clarinette, 'Gellflˆte;' for Harmonika, 'Hauchspiel;' and so on. He, however, does not stand alone as such a whimsical innovator. Beethoven, ten years later, coined the word 'Hammer-KlaviËr' for Pianoforte, and used it on the title-page of his large sonata in B flat major, Op. 106.