‘I dare not venture on French politics. What a marvellous period in the history of that nation! I think the clergy and many worthy people of the lower class of nobility have been cruelly used, and that the mob is at present too powerful and insolent. Too much has been promised them, and nothing short of an agrarian law will satisfy them. The word tax, _taille_, impost, are carefully avoided in the National Chart. But they must be levied under some denomination or other, and, I fancy, “contribution” will be as detestable a term in France, ere long, as “free-gift” was in England during the last century. I wish the worthy people of France may enjoy the rational liberty which seems now in their power, but I question whether the inhabitants of that kingdom in general will deserve the ample liberty which is offered them, or know how to use it. I think them so fickle and frivolous that I should not be surprised if in a few years they were as tired of their new Government as the English at the death of Oliver Cromwell. In the meantime what has happened in America and France will shake every sovereignty upon earth. The French Guards laying down their arms when ordered to fire on the mob will make mobs formidable things in every country, for whenever a similar defection happens a revolution must be the consequence. ‘I am sorry not to be able to give your friend, Mr. Capel Lofft, an account of any Lyre in modern times having been in use that has been constructed, strung, and tuned on the principles of the antients. Innumerable volumes have been written on their division of the scale and genera. Kircher, indeed, calls a Vielle a hurdy-gurdy, Lyra mendicorum. And a Viol da Gamba, with additional strings and new tuning, was in the last century called a Lyra-Viol. Mace,[146] Playford,[147] Simpson,[148] I believe, and others describe this instrument. But though many modern instruments have had the honour of being called Lyres, yet none of them resemble the antient in their form or in the manner of playing them. The Mandoline is the only modern instrument played with anything like a plectrum. Vicenzio Galileo, the father of Galileo, in his tract, “Della Musica antica e moderna,” published at Florence 1602, speaks much of the similarity of the antient Lyre and Cythara, but gives more proof from antient authors of their _difference_ than _identity_. He tells us, however, that “the modern Harp, which is nothing but the antient Cythara with many strings, was brought into Italy from Ireland.” Now the Irish harp is a single instrument of few strings, partly brass and partly steel, and of such small compass as to admit no bass, being confined to mere melody. Carolan, the celebrated modern Irish Bard, played only the treble part of tunes. And it seems to me as if this simple instrument resembled the antient Lyre and Cythara