he Emperor Nero was a skilled
performer.

A celebrated Italian story-teller of the thirteenth century mentions
that in his time the bagpipe was quite a fashionable instrument. Chaucer
and Spenser both allude to it, and the former says, in _Henry IV._, that
Falstaff was 'as melancholy as a lover's lute, or drone of a bagpipe.'

[Illustration: Old Ornamental Bagpipe.]

It is usually supposed that the bagpipe was brought from the East by the
Crusaders; it was reckoned as a court instrument in the time of Edward
the Second. In France, it was popular in polite society, up to the end
of the thirteenth century, when it was gradually banished to the lower
classes, and chiefly played by blind beggars. Two curious old pictures
exist of that date, representing bagpipe-players, one on stilts, the
other playing for a girl who is dancing on his shoulders.

In the seventeenth century, Louis the Fourteenth of France, casting
about for new amusements for his favourites, rescued the bagpipe, or, as
the French called it, the 'cornemeuse,' from its low surroundings, and
introduced it into his Arcadian festivities. We may picture a dignified
Marquis and Marquise, as Watteau has painted them, in the fantastic garb
of shepherds and shepherdesses, frolicking to the music of the bagpipes,
in the forest glades of Versailles or Fontainebleau.

The great bagpipe of the Highlands is inspiriting in war, and was first
used in battle in the early part of the fifteenth century. Up to that
date, warriors depended for inspiration on the war-songs of the Bards,
but doubtless the piercing tones of the bagpipes carried further, and
were more thrilling.

One of the amusements of a Scotch tour nowadays is to watch the pipers
playing and dancing on the quays where the steamers touch. Their gay
tartan attire and quaint instruments, with their gaudy bags and fringes,
make a bright note of colour, and, judging by the money collected,
bagpiping must be a fairly profitable employment.

[Illustration: Old Irish Bagpipe.]

The Irish bagpipe is a much more complete instrument than the Scotch,
although it is steadily dying out. In the latter, only one of the pipes
has notes. This one is termed the 'Chanter,' the other pipes (known as
'Drones') having only one fixed sound, and causing the curious droning
sound which accompanies the melody, whether lament or merry dance,
played on the 'chanter.' In the Irish form, the drone-pipes also have
notes, ensuring much m