'viol,' the
double-bass) with harpsichord, for general use; while in the more
important pieces, hautboys, and sometimes flutes as well, were added,
playing, as a rule, with the 1st and 2nd violin parts. This, at any
rate, is the case in Purcell's operas. (Purcell died 1695). Thus the
word Hautboys represented very nearly the climax of power to 17th
century ears. Anything beyond this was supplied by the addition of
trumpets, though this was rare; while Drums were very occasionally
used.

The stage direction in Shakespeare may be taken to mean--'Let the
hautboys be added to the usual band of strings.' In the last of the
above examples, _Coriol._ V, iv, 50, we have the extreme limit of
power of this time provided for--viz., trumpets _and_ hautboys _and_
drums, _all together_. It is interesting to notice the wording of
Menenius's description of this stage music. 'The trumpets, sackbuts,
psalteries, and fifes, Tabors and cymbals.' The 'sackbut' was merely
our modern slide trombone, while the rest of these instruments were in
common use in the 16th century, except the Psaltery, which Kircher (b.
1601) says is the same as the Nebel of the Bible. The picture he gives
is remarkably like the dulcimers which may be seen and heard outside
public-houses to this very day, _i.e._, a small hollow chest, with the
strings stretched across it. An instrument of this kind could be
played with the fingers, like a harp, or with a plectrum, like a
zither, or with two little knob-sticks, like the dulcimer. Mersennus
(b. 1588) also identifies the Psaltery with the Dulcimer.

In the text, the Hautboy is only named once, in _H. 4. B_ III, ii,
332, near the end of Falstaff's soliloquy, on old men and lying, where
he says that Shallow was such a withered little wretch that _the case
of a treble hautboy_ was a mansion for him, a court.

The 'treble' hautboy corresponds with our modern instrument, and was
the smallest in size of the hautboy tribe, of which only two now
survive--viz., the Oboe proper, and its cousin, which is a fifth lower
in pitch, and correspondingly larger, and which has curiously picked
up the name of Corno Inglese, Cor Anglais, or English Horn. None the
less it is the Alto Hautboy. The tenor and bass of the family have not
survived. Hautboys in four parts were the backbone of the French
regimental bands in Lully's time--_i.e._, about 1670. [Appendix.]

The spelling of the word in the old editions of Shakespeare is
'hoeboy,'