In the MSS. we not unfrequently find the ordinary musical instruments placed in the hands of the angels; _e.g._, in the early fourteenth-century MS. Royal 2 B. vii., in a representation of the creation, with the morning stars singing together, and all the sons of God shouting for joy, an angelic choir are making melody on the trumpet, violin, cittern, shalm (or psaltery), and harp. There is another choir of angels at p. 168 of the same MS., two citterns and two shalms, a violin and trumpet. Similar representations occur very significantly in churches. On the arch of the Porta Della Gloria of Saragossa Cathedral, of the eleventh century, from which there is a cast at the entrance to the South Kensington Museum, are a set of angel minstrels with musical instruments. In the bosses of the ceiling of Tewkesbury Abbey Church we find angels playing the cittern (with a plectrum), the harp (with its cover seen enveloping the lower half of the instrument)[341] and the cymbals. A set of angel musicians is sculptured on the rood loft of York Minster. In the triforum of the nave of Exeter Cathedral is a projecting gallery for the minstrels, with sculptures of them on the front playing instruments.[342] In the choir of Lincoln Cathedral, some of the noble series of angels which fill the spandrels of its arcades, and which have given to it the name of the Angel Choir, are playing instruments, viz., the trumpet, double pipe, pipe and tabret, dulcimer, viol and harp. They represent the heavenly choir attuning their praises in harmony with the human choir below: "Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name." There is a band of musicians sculptured on the grand portal of the Cathedral at Rheims; a sculptured capital from the church of St. Georges de Bocherville, now in the Museum at Rouen, represents eleven crowned figures playing different instruments.[343] On the chasse of St. Ursula at Bruges are angels playing instruments beautifully painted by Hemling.[344] We cannot resist the temptation to introduce here another charming little drawing of an angelic minstrel, playing a psaltery, from the Royal MS. 14 E iii.; others occur at folio 1 of the same MS. The band of village musicians with flute, violin, clarinet, and bass-viol, whom most of us have seen occupying the singing-gallery of some country church, are the representatives of the band of minstrels who occupied the rood-lofts in mediæval times. [Illustration: _The Morning Stars singing together._] [Illustration: _An Angel Minstrel._]