From some such sources it seems likely that this form of music made a beginning. Composers then began to turn their attention to the growing requirements of such performers, and we find that many works were issued chiefly in the form of Courantes, Sarabandes, Gavottes, Gigues, and other dance forms. Music called Fancies, and sets of Ayres, and other pieces for lutes (a kind of guitar), and viols (the predecessor of the violin), also incidental music for masques, were much in vogue in England about this time, composed, among others, by Morley, Gibbons, John Dowland, Mace, Sympson, Jenkins, Lawes, and Locke. Hugh Aston, an instrumental composer of distinction, may also be mentioned. He left, among other works, a hornpipe which is remarkable. There is also a virginal book in the library at Cambridge that contains two or three hundred pieces for virginals, which instrument was a kind of harpsichord. In 1611 a collection of music for the same instrument was issued, the compositions of Byrd, Bull, and Gibbons. It was called “Parthenia.” Byrd’s “Variations on the Carman’s Whistle,” and Sellinger’s “Round,” are noteworthy works. John Jenkins published sonatas for two violins and a bass, with thorough bass for the organ and theorbo. This was the great period of English music. Our position as compared with other nations was one of artistic supremacy, and we ought not to forget this as Continental writers are apt to do to-day.[4] [Footnote 4: Such parchments as the “Angelus ad Virginem Hymn” (No. 284 Arundel MSS., Brit. Mus.); Hymn to St. Augustine (No. 572 Bodleian MSS., Oxford); and “Sumer is icumen in” (No. 678 Harleian Collection, Brit. Mus.), indisputably prove that in the tenth and eleventh centuries English musicians were hundreds of years in advance of Continental composers in polyphonic composition.—ED.] [Sidenote: =Musical Position of England=] Later on compositions such as we have mentioned were followed both in England and on the Continent by works of a more highly organised character, and to some of them the titles Sonata and Concerto were applied. These must not, however, be confused with the music of like name of our day, for they were much simpler in construction, and contained little or nothing of what we call development. [Sidenote: =Purcell=] [Illustration: Joh. Brahms [signature]] Thus we find, to name but a few examples, that Reinken (1623-1722), a pupil of the celebrated Amsterdam composer, Sweelinck, wrote a notable Quartett, or Suite, for two violins, viola, and bass, which he called “Hortus Musicus.” Our own Henry Purcell (1658-95), whose compositions in many styles are so justly held in high esteem, left among others the so-called Golden Sonata, one of a fine set for stringed instruments. Corelli (1653-1713) too, a distinguished violinist and composer, of Italian origin, published in 1685 (the year J.S. Bach was born), twelve chamber sonatas for two violins, ’cello, and harpsichord. [Sidenote: =J.S. Bach=]