Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,

Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.

Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,

Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss."

The fifth line is here a puzzle and possibly an error. It is not the odd accent on the third word, for envy" was sometimes pronounced "envy' 'envy" in Shakespeare's time, but the "jacks" of the instrument could by no means leap to kiss the lady's hand, any more than the hammers of the piano of the present could touch the fingers of a Paderewski. The same error, it will be noted, occurs in the final lines of the sonnet.

Shakespeare is not the only poet of the time who used the virginal jacks for a metaphor, but none of his contemporaries speak of the hand and the jack coming near each other.

Lord Oxford satirically wrote (or said), referring to Raleigh's favour at court and the execution of Essex: "When 'Jacks' start up, heads go down!" Middleton, in his "Father Hubbard's Tales," describes the frozen Charity with:

"Her teeth chattered in her head and leaped up and down Like virginal jacks.”

Dekker, in "Satiro-Mastix, or the Untrussing of the Humourous Poet" (published in 1602), says:

"Lord ha' mercy upon us! we women fall and fall still; and when we have husbands, we play upon them like virginal jacks, they must rise and fall to our humours, or else they'll never get any good strains of music out of us."

Yet we may acknowledge that the word "jack" may have been substituted for "key," in the sonnet, either by poetic license or by carelessness.

We shall find one or two other musical slips in our poet, in the course of these chapters, but they cannot detract from the tremendous amount of musical knowledge displayed, nor from the glorious enthusiasm with which the poet has gilded our art. We may recall, in this connection, that another most musical poet, Browning, in his "Toccata of Martini Galuppi," speaks of

"Sixths, diminished, sigh on sigh."

There happen to be two horns to this last dilemma. While Richter and some other harmonists do not recognise the diminished sixth, Albrechtsberger (the teacher of Beethoven), in the eighteenth division of his great theoretical book, both recognises the chord of the diminished sixth and gives an example. But he speaks of it as very rare, nor do we discover such intervals "sigh on sigh" in Galuppi's works, and, as the diminished sixth is an enharmonic change of the

perfect fifth, a succession of them would produce something very like consecutive fifths, which Galuppi would have held a crime, although Bach is not altogether innocent of them.

Tennyson has given us a combination (in “Maud”) of "flute, violin, bassoon," that would not please. the teacher of orchestration, and a fairly long list of the musical errors of poets and of novelists might be made out; but it will be readily perceived that the Shakespeare and the Browning errors (if they are such) can be readily defended.

But the sparse allusions that Shakespeare has made to the virginals are the more to be wondered at when it is recalled that his patroness and frequent auditor, Queen Elizabeth, loved the instrument and was very proud of her skill upon it. Her pride in this matter once led Sir James Melvil, the ambassador from the Scottish queen, into rather an awkward position. He thus speaks of the incident in his "Memoirs :

"The same day after dinner, my Lord of Hunsden drew me up to a quiet gallery that I might hear some music (but he said he durst not avow it), where I might hear the queen play upon the virginals. After I had hearkened awhile I took by the tapestry that hung by the door of the chamber, and seeing her back was toward the door, I entered within the chamber, and

'Spite of Elizabeth's parade of her love of music, it must be stated that she was extremely parsimonious to her band of musicians.

stood a pretty space, hearing her play excellently well; but she left off immediately so soon as she turned her about and saw me. She appeared to be surprised to see me, and came forward, seeming to strike me with her hand, alleging she was not used to play before men, but when she was solitary, to shun melancholy. She asked how I came there? I answered, as I was walking with my Lord Hunsden, as we passed by the chamber door, I heard such a melody as ravished me, whereby I was drawn in ere I knew how; excusing my fault of homeliness as being brought up in the court of France where such freedom was allowed; declaring myself willing to endure what kind of punishment her Majesty should be pleased to inflict upon me for so great offence. Then she sate down low upon a cushion, and I upon my knees by her; but with her own hand she gave me a cushion to lay under my knee; which at first I refused, but she compelled me to take it. She inquired whether my queen or she played best. In that I found myself obliged to give her the praise."

Melvil was ambassador from Mary Stuart in 1564, and there is every reason to suppose that the neat little comedy described above had been quietly arranged by Queen Elizabeth herself, for our diplomat informs us that, before the stolen musical interview, she had asked him many questions about his queen: How she dressed? what was the colour of her hair? whether that, or hers, was best? which of the two was fairest? which was higher in stature? Melvil describes the first interview thus:

I an

"Then she asked what kind of exercises she used? swered that when I received my despatch the queen was lately come from the Highland hunting: that when her more serious affairs permitted, she was taken up with the reading of his

tories: that sometimes she recreated herself in playing upon the lute and virginals. She asked if she played well? I said, reasonably for a queen.”

It would be interesting to know just what Queen Elizabeth played for the bold ambassador. There is a piece of virginal music extant which was an especial favourite with the queen, and was, in fact, arranged for her, from an old English melody, by her own music-teacher, Doctor Byrd. It was called “Sellinger's Round," and is probably one of the oldest English country dances extant. The name was probably "St. Leger's Round" originally, and it was also called "The Beginning of the World" in its early days. We append a copy of this as Queen Elizabeth played it on the virginals.