“The occasion of its production was my necessity; viz. my great defect in hearing; adjoined with my unsatiable love and desire after the Lute. It being an instrument so soft, and past my reach of hearing, I did imagine it was possible to contrive a louder Lute, than ever any yet had been; whereupon, after divers casts and contrivances, I pitched upon this order, the which has (in a great degree) answered my expectation, it being absolutely the lustiest or loudest Lute that I ever yet heard. For although I cannot hear the least twang of any other Lute, when I play upon it, yet I can hear this in a very good measure, yet not so loud as to distinguish every thing I play, without the help of my teeth, which when I lay close to the edge of it, (there, where the lace is fixed,) I hear all I play distinctly. So that it is to me (I thank God!) one of the principal refreshments and contentments I enjoy in this world. What it may prove to others in its use and service, (if any shall think fit to make the like,) I know not, but I conceive it may be very useful, because of the several conveniences and advantages it has of all other Lutes.” This instrument was on the one side a theorbo, on the other lute, having on the former part twenty-six strings, twenty-four on the latter. It had a fuller, plumper and lustier sound, he said, than any other lute, because the concave was almost as long again, being hollow from neck to mouth. “This is one augmentation of sound; there is yet another; which is from the strange and wonderful secret, which lies in the nature of sympathy, in unities, or the uniting of harmonical sounds, the one always augmenting the other. For let two several instruments lie asunder at any reasonable distance, when you play upon one, the other shall sound, provided they be both exactly tuned in unisons to each other; otherwise not. This is known to all curious inspectors into such mysteries. If this therefore be true, it must needs be granted, that when the strings of these two twins, accordingly put on, are tuned in unities and set up to a stiff lusty pitch, they cannot but more augment and advantage one the other.” Some allowances he begged for it, because it was a new-made instrument and could not yet speak so well as it would do, when it came to age and ripeness, though it already gave forth “a very free, brisk, trouling, plump and sweet sound,” and because it was made by a hand that never before attempted the making of any instrument. He concludes his description of it, with what he calls a Recreative Fancy: saying, “because it is my beloved darling, I seemed, like an old doting body, to be fond of it; so that when I finished it, I bedecked it with these five rhymes following, fairly written upon each belly. “First, round the Theorboe knot, thus, I am of old, and of Great Britain's fame, Theorboe was my name. Then next, about the French Lute knot, thus,