between the organs of the
ancients and those of his day, since there is no mention in the classics of
any musical wheel by means of which tunes could be played in several
parts--the ancients, indeed, seem to have used their fingers on the
keyboard to sound their organs. The eighteen keys drawn in one diagram bear
names, beginning at the left, D, C, B, A, G, F, F#, E, D, C, B, A, G, F, E,
D, C, B; De Caus states that only half the keyboard is given for want of
space; the compass, therefore, probably was as shown, with a few
accidentals. [Notation: D6 to D2.] A barrel-organ, also worked by hydraulic
power, is somewhat fantastically drawn by Robert Fludd in a work[6]
published two years after that of Solomon de Caus. This diagram is of no
value except as a curiosity, for the author betrays a very imperfect
knowledge of the mechanical principles involved. The piece of music
actually set on de Caus' barrel-organ, six bars of which can be made
out,[7] consists of a madrigal, "Chi fara fed' al ciel," by Alessandro
Striggio, written in organ tablature by Peter Philips, organist of the
Chapel Royal, Brussels, at the end of the 16th century.[8] A French
barrel-organ[9] in the collection of the Brussels Conservatoire, bearing
the date "5 Mars 1797," has the following compass with flats, beginning at
the left:--

[Illustration]

Other evidences of the origin of the barrel-organ are not wanting. The
inventory of the organs and other keyboard instruments belonging to the
duke of Modena, drawn up in 1598, contains two entries of an _organo
Tedesco_.[10] In England these organs were also known as "Dutch organs,"
and the name clung to the instrument even in its diminutive form of
hand-organ of the itinerant musician. In Jedediah Morse's description of
the [v.03 p.0434] manners and customs of the Netherlands,[11] we find the
following allusion:--"The diversions of the Dutch differ not much from
those of the English, who seem to have borrowed from them the neatness of
their drinking booths, skittle and other grounds ... which form the
amusements of the middle ranks, not to mention their hand-organs and other
musical inventions." An illustration of the hand-organ of that period is
given in Knight's _London_[12] being one of a collection of street views
published by Dayes in 1789. In a description of Bartholomew Fair, as held
at the beginning of the 18th century, is a further reference to the Dutch
origin of the barrel-organ:--"A band at