“Any subject is inexhaustible if it be fully treated of; that is, if it be treated doctrinally and practically, analytically and synthetically, historically and morally, critically, popularly and eloquently, philosophically, exegetically and æsthetically, logically, neologically, etymologically, archaiologically, Daniologically and Doveologically, which is to say, summing up all in one, Doctorologically. “Now, my good Reader, whether I handle my subject in any of these ways, or in any other legitimate way, this is certain, that I never handle it as a cow does a musquet; and that I have never wandered from it, not even when you have drawn me into a Tattle-de-Moy.” “_Auctor incomparabilis_, what is a Tattle-de Moy?” “_Lecteur mon ami_, you shall now know what to expect in the next chapter, for I will tell you there what a Tattle-de-Moy is.” CHAPTER XCIV. THE AUTHOR DISCOVERS CERTAIN MUSICAL CORRESPONDENCIES TO THESE HIS LUCUBRATIONS. And music mild I learn'd that tells Tune, time and measure of the song. HIGGINS. A Tattle-de-Moy, reader, was “a new-fashioned thing” in the year of our Lord 1676, “much like a Seraband, only it had in it more of conceit and of humour: and it might supply the place of a seraband at the end of a suit of lessons at any time.” That simple-hearted, and therefore happy old man, Thomas Mace, invented it himself, because he would be a little modish, he said; and he called it a Tattle-de-Moy, “because it tattles, and seems to speak those very words or syllables. Its humour,” said he, “is toyish, jocund, harmless and pleasant; and as if it were one playing with, or tossing, a ball up and down: yet it seems to have a very solemn countenance, and like unto one of a sober and innocent condition, or disposition; not antic, apish, or wild.” If indeed the gift of prophecy were imparted, or imputed to musicians as it has sometimes been to poets, Thomas Mace might be thought to have unwittingly foreshewn certain characteristics of the unique opus which is now before the reader: so nearly has he described them when instructing his pupils how to give right and proper names to all lessons they might meet with. “There are, first, Preludes; then, secondly, Fancies and Voluntaries; thirdly, Pavines; fourthly, Allmaines; fifthly, Airs; sixthly, Galliards; seventhly, Corantoes; eighthly, Serabands; ninthly, Tattle-de-Moys; tenthly, Chichonas; eleventhly, Toys or Jiggs; twelfthly, Common Tunes; and, lastly, Grounds, with Divisions upon them.