“Near the fireplace are the lutenists’ boxes. We notice on them French and Italian, as well as English, names. If we open any of the boxes we shall find inside them some very lovely instruments. Their vaulted bodies are built up of strips of pine and cedar, and there are exquisite purflings and ornaments of ebony, ivory and silver. In front is at least one beautifully carved and inlaid ‘rose’; while the necks are all ‘fretted,’ semitone by semitone. Each lute has twelve strings of catgut tuned in six unison-pairs. But if we touch two or three lutes in succession, we shall see that all players do not adopt the same tuning. The average lutenist seems to prefer for his six pairs of strings a system of fourths joined by a third in the middle. “The instruments are made in three chief sizes, but the _tenor-lute_, or _theorbo_, from Padua,[30] appears to be a favorite. If we take up one of these lutes and pass our hands across its strings, we shall become aware of a deliciously tender harmony. The instrument has no strength—only a sort of _melancholy quietude_. And this is due, in some measure, to the length of the strings. For much tension is out of the question in an instrument whose bridge is merely glued to the belly. “Here is a tall lute case in the corner, reaching almost to the ceiling. From its appearance it has travelled far, over rough roads. Its owner’s name suggests Italy. Let us take it out very gingerly. It is the latest thing in lutes—a big Roman _Chitarone_,[31] or archlute, or bass-lute, with seventeen strings—practically two instruments in one. For besides the usual _pairs-of-strings_ that run up to the lower ‘nut,’ there is a second series of _single-strings_ stretched to a second nut at the lute head. These are the newly invented _diapasons_, a set of bass-strings which hang free of the fingerboard and can therefore only be plucked to give the one note of their full vibrating length. This addition is naturally a great advantage in _consort_, or ensemble, playing; for it extends the compass diatonically downwards.