Scan 109
Musical instruments, historic, rare and unique, 1888
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1The rich sound of the Bass of the instrument here drawn, not soon to be forgotten, serves to show what the quality of tone throughout the scale must originally have been. It was this supreme excellence which raised the reputation of Hans Ruckers and his sons to a level to be rivalled only, later, by the great Cremona violin-makers; it lasted as long as the spinet and harpsichord remained in vogue.
3This Virginal represents No. 15 of my Catalogue of existing Ruckers instruments in Sir George Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, article "Ruckers." London, 1883.
5The woodcuts above the Contents to this work represent Sir Michael Mercator (1491-1544), a musical instrument maker, it is said virginal maker, to King Henry VIII. The portrait has been engraved from a medal in the British Museum executed by Mercator himself, for he was a goldsmith and medallist as well as instrument maker, by Mr. John Hipkins, who has also engraved the Jewish Shophar and the woodcut on the title-page. The legend upon the medal informs us that Mercator was the first knight created from Venloo by the King. He gained knighthood and other distinctions by his success in secret diplomatic services. The researches of Mr. W. H. James Weale, who called the attention of the present writer to Mercator, have determined his arrival in this country to have been in 1527, when he brought letters of introduction to Cardinal Wolsey from Floris d'Egmont, Count de Buren and Lord of Isselstein, and others, and two musical instruments—as he was an organ-builder, it is to be presumed virginals. The King engaged him at an annual salary. It will be observed in the portrait that Mercator wears, attached to his collar, the Tudor Rose. Mr. Weale has published his discoveries concerning him in Le Beffroi, an artistic and antiquarian periodical printed at Bruges. Mr. Weale's Descriptive Catalogue of the rare manuscripts and printed books in the Historical Music Loan Collection of 1885, for the publication of which we are indebted to Mr. Bernard Quaritch, may be appropriately mentioned in this connection.
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