ing his pupils how to give right and proper names to all lessons they might meet with.

"There are, first, preludes; then, secondly, fancies and voluntaries; thirdly, pavines; fourthly, allmaines; fifthly, airs; sixthly, galliards; seventhly, corantoes; eighthly, serabands; ninthly, tattle-de-moys; tenthly, chichonas; eleventhly, toys or jigs; twelfthly, common tunes; and, lastly, grounds, with divisions upon them.

"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 groping, 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 fanciful play more intelligible; which (if he be a master able) is a way whereby he may more fully and plainly show his excellence 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.*

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 groping, the competent observer will recognise 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.

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 characterizes 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 com

* Keats.

mon or plain time. Airs differ from them only in being usu ally 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 ;*

and anon a strain is heard

Not wanting power to mitigate and swage,
With solemn touches, troubled thoughts, and chase
Anguish, and doubt, and fear, and sorrow,
and pain
From mortal or immortal minds.†

And there are chichonas, also, which consist of a few conceited notes in a grave kind of humour; these are the chapters which the Honourable Fastidious Feeblewit condemns as being in bad taste, and which Lord Makemotion Ganderman pronounces poor stuff; but at which Yorickson smiles, Macswift's countenance brightens, and Fitzrabelais laughs outright.

No prophecies can be expected to go upon all fours; and nothing in this opus corresponds to Master Mace's toys, or jigs, which are "light, squibbish things, only fit for fantastical and easy, lightheaded people;" nor to his common tunes.

Last in his enumeration is the ground: this, he says, is "d set number of slow notes, very grave and stately; which, after it is expressed once or twice very plainly, then he that hath good brains and a good hand, undertakes to play several divisions upon it, time after time, till he hath shown his bravery, both of invention and execution." My worthy friend Dr. Dense can need no hint to make him perceive how happily this applies to the ground of the present work, and the manner of treating it. And if Mr. Dulman disputes the

application, it can only be because he is determined not to see it. All his family are remarkable for obstinacy.

And here taking leave for a while of the good old lutanist, I invite the serious and the curious to another pavine among the stars.

CHAPTER XCV. P. I.

WHEREIN MENTION IS MADE OF LORD BYRON, RONSARD, RABBI KAPOL, AND CO. IT IS SUGGESTED THAT A MODE OF READING THE STARS HAS BEEN APPLIED TO THE RECOVERY OF OBLITERATED ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS; AND IT IS SHOWN THAT A MAY REASON MATHEMATICALLY, AND YET

MATHEMATICIAN
LIKE A FOOL.

LORD BYRON calls the stars the poetry of heaven, having perhaps in mind Ben Jonson's expression concerning bellringing. Ronsard calls them the characters of the sky:

"Alors que Vesper vient embrunir nos yeux,
Attaché dans le ciel je contemple les cieux,
En qui Dieu nous escrit, en notes non obscures,
Les sorts et les destins de toutes creatures.
Car luy, en desdaignant (comme font les humains)
D'avoir encre et papier et plume entre les mains,
Par les astres du ciel, qui sont ses caracteres,
Les choses nous predit et bonnes et contraires.
Mais les hommes, chargez de terres et du trespas,
Meprisent tel escrit, et ne le lisent pas."

The great French poet of his age probably did not know. that what he thus said was actually believed by the Cabalists. According to them the ancient Hebrews represented the stars, severally and collectively, by the letters of their alphabet: to read the stars, therefore, was more than a metaphorical expression with them. And an astral alphabet for genethliacal purposes was published near the close of the

One important rule is to be observed in perusing this great stelliscript. He who desires to learn what good they prefigure, must read them from west to east; but if he would be forewarned of evil, he must read from north to west; in either case beginning with the stars that are most vertical to him. For the first part of this rule, no better reason has been assigned than the conjectural one, that there is a propriety in it, the free and natural motion of the stars being from west to east; but for the latter part a sufficient cause is found in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah: Septentrione pandetur malum. "Out of the North evil shall break forth."

Dionyse Settle was persuaded that Martin Frobisher, being a Yorkshire man, had, by his voyage in search of a northwest passage, repelled the rehearsal of those opprobrious words; not only he, but many worthy subjects more, as well as the said Dionyse, who was in the voyage himself, being "Yorkshire too."

But why should evil come from the North? "I conceive," says Gaffarel, "it would stand with sound philosophy to answer, by reason of the darkness and gloominess of the air of those parts, caused by the great distance of the sun; and also by reason of the evil spirits which inhabit dark places." This reason becomes stronger when it is considered that the word which in the Vulgate is rendered pandetur, may also be rendered depingetur, so that the verse might be translated, "All evils shall be described (or written) from the North;" and if written, then certainly to be read from that direction.

This theory of what Southey has called “the language of the lights of Heaven," is Jewish. Abu Almasar (nominally well known as Albumazar, by which name the knaves called him who knew nothing of him or his history) derived all religions from the planets. The Chaldean, he said, was pro duced by the conjunction of Jupiter with Mars; the Egyptian by Jupiter with the sun; Judaism, by Jupiter with Saturn; Christianity, by Jupiter with Mercury; Mohammedanism, by Jupiter with Venus. And in the year 1460, when, according to his calculation, the conjunction of Jupiter and Mercury would again occur, he predicted that the Christian religion would receive its deathblow, and the religion of antichrist begin. Pursuing these fancies, others have asserted that the reason why the Jewish nation always has been miserable, and always must be so, is because the irreligion was formed under the influences of Saturn:

Spiteful and cold, an old man melancholy.
With bent and yellow forehead, he is Saturn.*

A malevolent planet he is, and also an unfortunate one, and it was he that,

* Wallenstein.