It is curious, however, in these days of penny concerts and music for the million, to look back to that time when the only probable entertainments of a secular character in which music bore a part, were such as could be furnished by the _hautboys_, sackbuts, and _recorders_ of half-a-dozen “waytes,” as we find to have been the case in this city in the sixteenth century, when permission was first granted these performers to play comedies, interludes, plays and tragedies. Will Kempe mentions these same _waytes_ with great praise, and their renown may be inferred from the fact of their being solicited by Sir Francis Drake “to accompany him on his intended voyage” in 1589, upon which occasion the city provided them with new instruments, new cloaks, and a waggon to convey their chattels. The inventory of musical instruments in the possession of the city in 1622, forms a rather striking contrast to a “band” of the nineteenth century, consisting as it did of only four “sackbuts,” four “hautboys” (one broken), two tenor cornets, one tenor “recorder,” two counter tenor “recorders,” five “chaynes,” and five “flagges.” In the seventeenth century, when the country was deluged with civil war, and overrun with Royalist and Puritan soldiers, music declined, and we read little concerning it, here or elsewhere, until that age of strife and commotion had passed away. In 1709, one of the city “waytes” advertised himself as teacher of the violin and hautboy, and in 1734 there appeared another advertisement of a concert to be given, tickets 2_s._ 6_d._, country dancing to be given gratis after the concert, doors to be open at four o’clock, the performance to commence at six, “_by reason of the country dancing_.” In the course of the sixteenth century, the psalmody of the Protestant Church was brought nearly to its present state, and towards the end of that and commencement of the next century, shone that constellation of English musicians, whose inimitable madrigals are still the delight of every lover of vocal harmony. A madrigal differs from a glee, inasmuch as each of its parts should be sung by several voices; its name originated in Italy, and was applied to compositions in four, five, or six vocal parts, adapted to words of a tender character; neither madrigal nor glee should be accompanied by instruments. In the Elizabethan age to sing in parts was an accomplishment held to be indispensable in a well-educated lady or gentleman; and at a social meeting, when the madrigal books were laid on the table, every body was expected to take part in the harmony; any person declining from inability, was regarded with contempt, as rude and ill-bred.