the west-end of the town, well
known for playing on winter evenings before Spring Garden Coffee House,
opposite Wigley's great exhibition room, consisted of a double drum, a
Dutch organ, the tambourine, violin, pipes and the Turkish jingle used in
the army. This band was generally hired at one of the booths of the
fair."[13] Mr Thomas Brown relates that one Mr Stephens, a _Poultry_
author, proposed to parliament for any one that should presume to keep an
organ in a Publick House to be fined L20 and made incapable of being an
ale-draper for the future.[14] In 1737 Horace Walpole writes[15]:--"I am
now in pursuit of getting the finest piece of music that ever was heard; it
is a thing that will play eight tunes. Handel and all the great musicians
say that it is beyond anything they can do, and this may be performed by
the most ignorant person, and when you are weary of those eight tunes, you
may have them changed for any other that you like." The organ was put in a
lottery and fetched L1000.

There was a very small barrel-organ in use during the 18th and 19th
centuries, known as the bird-organ (Fr. _serinette_, _turlutaine_,
_merline_). One of these now in the collection of the Brussels
Conservatoire is described by V. C. Mahillon.[16] The instrument is in the
form of a book, on the back of which is the title "_Le chant des oiseaux,
Tome vi._" There are ten pewter stopped pipes giving the scale of G with
the addition of Fb and A two octaves higher. [Notation: G4 A5.] The whole
instrument measures approximately 8 x 5-1/2 x 2-3/4 in. and plays eight
tunes. Mozart wrote an _Andante_[17] for a small barrel-organ.

For an illustration of the construction of the barrel-organ during the 18th
century, consult P. M. D. J. Engramelle, _La Tonotechnie ou l'art de noter
les cylindres et tout ce qui est susceptible de notage dans les instruments
de concerts mechaniques_ (Paris, 1775), with engravings (not in the British
Museum); and for a clear diagram of the modern instrument the article on
"Automatic Appliances connected with Music," by Dr. E. J. Hopkins, in
Grove's _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, vol. i. (1904), p. 134.

(K. S.)

[1] This practice had evidently not been adopted in Germany, as the
following instance will show. The use of barrel-organs (_Drehorgeln_) in
country churches was seriously recommended by an anonymous writer in two
German papers at the beginning of the 19th century (_Beobachter an der
Spree_, Berlin,