“The Prelude is commonly a piece of confused, wild, shapeless kind of intricate play, (as most use it) in which no perfect form, shape, or uniformity can be perceived; but a random business, pottering and grooping, up and down, from one stop, or key, to another; and generally so performed, to make trial, whether the instrument be well in tune or not; by which doing after they have completed their tuning, they will (if they be masters) fall into some kind of voluntary or fancical play more intelligible; which (if he be a master able) is a way whereby he may more fully and plainly shew his excellency and ability, than by any other kind of undertaking; and has an unlimited and unbounded liberty, in which he may make use of the forms and shapes of all the rest.” Here the quasi-prophetic lutanist may seem to have described the ante-initial chapters of this opus, and those other pieces which precede the beginning thereof, and resemble A lively prelude, fashioning the way In which the voice shall wander.[1] For though a censorious reader will pick out such expressions only as may be applied with a malign meaning; yet in what he may consider confused and shapeless, and call pottering and grooping, the competent observer will recognize the hand of a master, trying his instrument and tuning it; and then passing into a voluntary whereby he approves his skill, and foreshows the spirit of his performance. [Footnote 1: KEATS.] The Pavines, Master Mace tells us, are lessons of two, three, or four strains, very grave and solemn; full of art and profundity, but seldom used in “these our light days,” as in many respects he might well call the days of King Charles the Second. Here he characterises our graver Chapters, which are in strains so deep, so soothing, and so solemn withal, that if such a Pavine had been played in the hall of the palace at Aix, when King Charlemagne asked the Archbishop to dance, the invitation could not have been deemed indecorous. Allmaines are very airy and lively, and generally in common or plain time. Airs differ from them only in being usually shorter, and of a more rapid and nimble performance.—With many of these have the readers of the Doctor been amused. Galliards, being grave and sober, are performed in a slow and large triple time. Some of the chapters relating to the history of Doncaster come under this description: especially that concerning its Corporation, which may be called a Galliard _par excellence_. The Corantoes are of a shorter cut, and of a quicker triple time, full of sprightfulness and vigour, lively, brisk and cheerful: the Serabands of the shortest triple time, and more toyish and light than the Corantoes. There are of both kinds in these volumes, and skilfully are they alternated with the Pavines: Now the musician Hovers with nimble stick o'er squeaking crowd Tickling the dried guts of a mewing cat—[2] and anon a strain is heard—