icted to the nearest chords of the key. The essential point in
which the construction of the lute differed from that of the guitar,
was in the back, which in the latter is flat, so that ribs are
indispensable for preserving the rigidity of the body against the pull
of the strings. The lute body is very solid, from the mode of its
construction involving an application of the principle of the arch.
The standard appearance of the lute was the following:

[Illustration: Fig. 37.

THE LUTE IN ITS STANDARD FORM.

(From Grove's Dictionary.)]

The stringing and tuning varied much in different periods. According
to Praetorius, the lute had four open strings tuned according to the
scale in _a_ below. Later, a G was added above and below, and the
tuning was that at _b_.

[Music illustration]

Another authority--Baron--gives a tuning for an "eleven-course" lute,
as follows:

[Music illustration]

The F below the bass staff had ten frets, G eleven, and each of the
highest six strings twelve frets. The instrument thus had a compass of
three octaves and a half from the C below the bass. All the strings
were in pairs, two to each unison, excepting the upper two, which were
single. The instrument was a very troublesome one to keep in order.
Mattheson, who wrote in the latter part of the eighteenth century,
when the lute was still cultivated, said that a lutist of eighty years
must have spent nearly sixty in tuning his instrument. The pull of the
strings broke down the sounding board or belly, which had therefore to
be taken off and righted once in every two or three years. The lute
was derived from an Arabian or Persian instrument, of which the Arab
eoud, Fig. 24 (p. 113), was the latest representative.

The problem of locating the frets accurately upon the finger board was
one of the causes which led to close investigation into the
mathematical relation of the tones in the scale; and the directions
given for placing them by various Arab and other writers afford
precise and valuable information concerning their views of
intonation. The lute was made in a great variety of sizes, the largest
being what was called the arch lute, which was more than four feet
long from bottom to the end of the neck. This was employed by Corelli
for the basses of his violin sonatas, and Haendel made similar use of
it. A diminutive lute has come down to our own days under the name of
Mandolin. It is strung with metal strings, however, and played w