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In "Henry VI." (Part I. Act i. Sc. 4) Shakespeare uses the lute as a simile which deserves attention; he causes Talbot to soothe the dying Salisbury with

"Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort;
Thou shalt not die, whiles-

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He beckons with his hand and smiles on me;
As who would say, When I am dead and gone,
Remember to avenge me on the French.'.
Plantagenet, I will; and Nero-like,

Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn:
Wretched shall France be only in my name."

This is truer to history than the well-known saying, "Nero fiddled while Rome was burning," for the Romans possessed no instrument resembling the fiddle, but they had some instruments akin to the lute. In "Much Ado About Nothing" (Act iii. Sc. 2) Claudio jests at Benedick and speaks of his dwindling spirits: "Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into a lute-string, and now governed by stops.' These are not all of Shakespeare's allusions to the instrument, but they are the most important. Occasionally, as above, he speaks intelligently of the strings of the instrument, apart from the rest, as, for example, Cloten's rough allusion in "Cymbeline" (Act ii. Sc. 3), or in the tent scene in "Julius Cæsar" (Act iv. Sc. 3). The lute-strings were apt to be present in Shakespeare's mind as separate from the instru

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ment, for it was a dainty custom of the Elizabethan court to make especial gifts of these. On New Year's Day, many an Elizabethan gallant would do up a packet of lute-strings with pretty ribbons, conceal a poem among them, and send it as a species of valentine to his lady-love. The queen herself greatly regarded these presents, as they became a double tribute to her personal attractions and her musical abilities.

A very different use of the lute-string was made by the barbers in the Elizabethan days. As they were often dentists, they would hang a lute-string festooned with the teeth they had drawn, in their shopwindows. This lute-string was usually one that had been broken, by some impatient customer, while playing the instrument that always stood in their shop for the use of the public. Ben Jonson alludes to this custom, when, in "The Silent Woman" (Act iii. Sc. 2), Truewit joins with Morose in cursing the barber, and wishes that he may "draw his own teeth and add them to the lute-string!" But Shakespeare does not allude to this side of lute-string utility.

One of the neatest allusions to the strings of instruments in Shakespeare is found in the First Part of "King Henry IV." (Act ii. Sc. 4), where Prince Henry says, regarding his companionship with the drawers (tapsters), "I have sounded the very base-string of humility." This is not so very unlike

the playful complaint that Chopin once made regarding his own delicate nature among coarse surroundings. He said: "I am a violin E string on a contrabass !”

With allusions to one other instrument (since it is unnecessary to make a mere catalogue of instrumental references, which can be found in any Concordance) we leave this subject. In "The Tempest" (Act iv. Sc. 1) Alonzo says:

"The thunder,

That deep and dreadful organ pipe, pronounced
The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass."

This simple sentence contains more than might appear at first sight. It shows how all things transmuted themselves into poetry in that most receptive and assimilative mind. In 1605, Thomas Dallam set up, in King's College, Cambridge, the first complete two-manual organ of England. In it were some tremendous pedal pipes, still used (we believe) in the deepest register of the instrument. All England, or at least the musical part of it, was interested in this great instrument. According to Furnivall, "The Tempest" was written very soon thereafter, and consequently we find the "deep and dreadful organ pipe" preserved to posterity in a still more imperishableʻplay.

In "King John" there is a less important allusion

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