Rustic Sounds, and Other Studies in Literature and Natural History

Appendix I

DRAWINGS AND CARVINGS OF PIPERS

At the risk of being tedious in the way of repetition I have thought it worth while to put together a rough list of the illustrations of pipe and tabor which I have met with.

The earliest representation of a player on the 3-holed pipe, of which I have any knowledge, is the beautiful figure in the Angel Choir at Lincoln. Its date is, I believe, 1270, and it has been injured so that it is not possible to be sure of the manner in which the pipe is held. The tabor is suspended by means of a string round the neck.

The most careful representation of our instrument is that by Luca della Robbia, figured at p. 102, in which what I call the correct grip is given.

In Pierpoint Morgan's Catalogue of Early Printed Books, Vol II., p. 118, are some illustrations from Gafori, 1492. The pipe is quite incorrectly held, more than two fingers being employed while the thumb is free.

Ibid., Vol III., p. 82. In a figure from Pierre Michaud's Dance des Aveugles, 1485, the pipe has four instead of two holes on the upper surface.

Ibid., Vol III., p. 86. The pipe is incorrect, the holes being too far from the lower end of the instrument; the hand is wrongly given according to our standards, the little finger being flourished in the air. The tabor is suspended from the hand as in the English style, and is struck on the snare side.

In Kemp's Nine Daies Wonder (see above p. 102) the drawing of the pipe is not instructive.

In Strutt's Sports and Pastimes there are several early drawings of performers on the 3-holed pipe. The grip in the majority is correct, i.e. there are three fingers visible, two covering the holes and the ring finger gripping against the little finger underneath. The illustrations are also correct in the fingers being close to the lower end of the pipe.

In Betley Hall, Staffordshire, is a painted glass window, probably dating from 1535, in which a piper is represented. Mr. Tollet, a former squire of Betley, gave an account of it in Johnson and Steevens' Shakspeare, which is reprinted in a privately published book by Barthomley. The pipe is a conical tube, on which four fingers are represented; it could not, I believe, have been drawn from a model.

In Mahillon's Catalogue i., p. 375, is a figure of a Basque playing a 3-holed pipe, and accompanying himself on the tountouna, a rough stringed instrument. The grip seems to be carefully drawn, but it is hard to see how it could be efficient, only two fingers being seen on the upper surface of the pipe. On the other hand, in a photograph of a Basque playing the same instrument (which I owe to the kindness of a correspondent), the grip is like that figured by Mahillon.

Finally, in Punch, November 13, 1907, a 3-holed pipe is incorrectly drawn. The bore of the instrument is conical, the holes are incorrectly given, and the hand is wrong.

Appendix Ii

THE FINGERING OF THE 3-HOLED PIPER

The following diagram gives the fingerings which I have found to be best for a 3-holed pipe, a copy of an old one in the possession of Mr. Manning, of Oxford, to whom I am indebted for much kindly assistance.

The fingerings are given for the keys D and G. I have not attempted to play in other keys. For each note the upper circle represents the thumbhole; 1 and 2 are for the first and second fingers respectively. The black circles are supposed to be closed, the white are open. Holes that are half open are represented by circles half white, half black. In the case of A2 and B2 the circles are three-quarter black; this means that a very minute crack is left open.

It is important to remember that each pipe has its individuality. For instance, in one of my instruments G must have the thumb hole completely open, and the alternate fingering (with the index hole closed) is quite out of tune. The note E is sometimes sharp; in the pipe, the fingerings of which are given in fig. 6, this fault is corrected by means of a thin metal lining to the lower hole.

VIII STEPHEN HALES {115} 1677-1761

In attempting to give a picture of any man's life and work it is well to follow the rule of the Dictionary of National Biography, and begin with the dates of his birth and death. Stephen Hales was born in 1677 and died in 1761, having had experiences of the reigns of seven sovereigns.

The authorities for his life are given in my article on Hales in the Dictionary of National Biography. Botanists in general probably take their knowledge of the main facts of his life from Sachs' History of Botany. It is therefore worth while to point out that both the original and the English translation (1890) contain the incorrect statement that Hales was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and that he held the living of Riddington, whereas he is one of the glories of Corpus, and was perpetual curate of Teddington. These inaccuracies, however, are trifles in relation to the great and striking merits of Sachs' History, a work which, to my thinking, exhibits the strength and brilliance of the author's mind as clearly as any of his more technical writings. Sachs was no niggling biographer, and his broad vigorous outlines must form the basis of what anyone, who follows him, can write about the botanists of a past day.

To return to Hales' birth. It is of interest to note how he fits into the changing procession of lives, to see what great men overlap his youth, who were his contemporaries in his maturity, and who were appearing on the scientific stage as he was leaving it.

Sir Isaac Newton was the dominant figure in English science while Hales was developing. He died in 1727, the year in which Hales published his Vegetable Staticks, a book, which like the Origin of Species, appeared when its author was 50 years of age. Newton was at the zenith of his fame when Hales was a little boy of 10--his Principia having been published in 1687, and when Hales went up to Cambridge in 1696 he must have seen the great man coming from his rooms {116a} in the N.E. corner of the Great Court of Trinity--that corner where Newton's and other more modern ghosts surely walk--Macaulay who used to read, pacing to and fro by the chapel, {116b} and Thackeray who, like his own Esmond, lived "near to the famous Mr. Newton's lodgings." In any case there can be no doubt that the genius of Newton cast its light on Hales, as Sachs has clearly pointed out (Hist. Bot., Eng. Tr., p. 477). Another great man influenced Hales, namely Robert Boyle, who was born 1627 and died 1691. John Mayow again, that brilliant son of Oxford, whose premature death at 39 in 1679 was so heavy a blow to science, belongs to the same school as Hales--the school which was within an ace of founding a rational chemistry, but which was separated from the more obvious founders of that science by the phlogiston-theory of Becchers and Stahl. I do not find any evidence that Hales was influenced by the phlogistic writers, and this is comprehensible enough, if, as I think, he belongs to the school of Mayow and Boyle.

The later discoverers in chemistry are of the following dates, Black 1728-1799, Cavendish 1731-1810, Priestley 1733-1804, Scheele 1742-1786, Lavoisier 1743, guillotined 1794. These were all born about the time of Hales' zenith, nor did he live {117} to see the great results they accomplished. But it should not be forgotten that Hales' chemical work made more easy the triumphant road they trod.

I have spoken of Hales in relation to chemists and physicists because, though essentially a physiologist, he seems to me to have been a chemist and physicist who turned his knowledge to the study of life, rather than a physiologist who had some chemical knowledge.

Whewell points out in his History of the Inductive Sciences {118a} that the physiologist asks questions of Nature in a sense differing from that of the physicist. The Why? of the physicist meant Through what causes? that of the physiologist--to what end? This distinction no longer holds good, and if it is to be applied to Hales it is a test which shows him to be a physicist. For, as Sachs shows, though Hales was necessarily a teleologist in the theological sense, he always asked for purely mechanical explanations. He was the most unvitalistic of physiologists, and I think his explanations suffered from this cause. For instance, he seems to have held that to compare the effect of heat on a growing root to the action of the same cause on a thermometer {118b} was a quite satisfactory proceeding. And there are many other passages in Vegetable Staticks where one feels that his speculations are too heavy for his knowledge.

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