"Sound the tucket-sonance, and the note to mount,"

and here again we have the tucket in the nature of a definite signal; our cavalry bugle-signals are practically "tuckets" in the sense of having some special and definite meaning.

Possibly the "tucket" was a true historical touch, for it is certain that the old heralds used many a private signal of this kind. There is another historical touch in the play last quoted, connected with music; it is where the king, after the victory of Agincourt, says,

"Let there be sung Non Nobis, and Te Deum,”

which is practically what the king did say, after his victory, for when all England was pouring adulation upon him he commanded that thanks be given to God instead; and many sacred musical works followed this behest.

Occasionally bells were used upon the stage, if we may trust the many Shakespearian allusions to them, but these are scarcely to be classed as musical instruments, although Shakespeare sometimes draws delightful musical metaphors from them, as for example in "Hamlet" (Act iii. Sc. 1), where Ophelia speaks of Hamlet thus:

Ophelia.

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword: The expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers ! quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy: O, wo is me!

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!"

There is one phrase here in connection with music, which leads to an interesting bit of etymology, the line regarding "the honey of his music vows;" Shakespeare used the word "honey" about twice as often as the word "sugar," yet he was probably one of the first to make copious use of the latter, both as noun and adjective. The introduction of refined sugar into England from Venice, about a century before Shakespeare's time, gave the poets a new adjective, and the people toothache. Hentzner (in his "Itinerary," 1598) speaks of the black teeth of Queen Elizabeth.

"Next came the Queen, in the 65th year of her age, as we were told, very majestic, her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes small yet black and pleasant: her nose hooked, her lips narrow, and her teeth black, a defect the English seem subject to from their too great use of sugar. She wore false hair, and that red."

It is to be noted that Shakespeare occasionally uses funeral music, and that the first part of "King Henry VI." begins with a dead march.

The pageants, which Shakespeare occasionally introduced into his plays, were always very popular with Elizabethan audiences, who were beginning to cultivate a taste for masques, a form of entertainment still more popular in the Jacobean reign.

We have already fully described the masques and need only state here that the masques in "Henry VIII.," in "Timon of Athens," and the procession in the former play, attracted many of the public who could not rise to the other and greater glories of the poet. The allusions to masques, and their actual introduction, are fairly frequent in the plays, and the character of such entertainments is suggested clearly enough by the following excerpt from "Midsummer-Night's Dream" (Act v. Sc. 1):

"Theseus. Say, what abridgement have you for this evening? What mask? what music? How shall we beguile

The lazy time, if not with some delight?

Philostrate. There is a brief, how many sports are ripe; Make choice of which your highness will see first.

[Giving a paper.

Theseus. [Reads] The battle with the Centaurs, to be

sung,

By an Athenian eunuch, to the harp.'

We'll none of that: that have I told my love,

In glory of my kinsman Hercules.

The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,

Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'
That is an old device; and it was play'd

When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
Of learning, late deceased in beggary.'
That is some satire, keen and critical,
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus,
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'
Merry and tragical? tedious and brief?

That, is hot ice, and wonderous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?"

In the above scene there is a mystical line which is confessedly inaccurate, the allusion to "wonderous strange snow." It is barely possible that (to carry on the contradictions) "wonderous rain-snow" may have been meant, although the true reading can probably never be recovered.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Musical Influence of Shakespeare - Various Kinds of Music Inspired by Shakespeare's Plays - Influence on Wagner — Berlioz and his Shakespearian Subjects - Conclusion.

It may be regarded as an axiom that great poets, IT whether musical themselves or not,' always lead to great music. If a poet arises, in any age or nation, who is dear to the people, there is certain to follow a tone-poet who will set music to the words that have exerted such power, and thus bring them still closer to the popular heart. Thus Goethe led to Schubert, and Heine found his fullest glory in the works of Schumann and Robert Franz.

In the case of Shakespeare the influence was more far-reaching and was exerted upon composers of three centuries and of all the civilised countries of the earth. It is not too much to say that no man, outside of the art, ever inspired as much, or one-quarter as much, music as Shakespeare has done. Goethe's "Faust" has brought forth very much music, but Shakespeare's musical influence is not confined to a

'Tennyson, for example, was not musical, yet his "Break, Break, Break!" has led to many songs, and many other of his poems have inspired much music.