Book excerpt: The study of musical instruments now no longer with us is necessary, not only for the musician and composer, but for the man of letters, the artist, and the chronicler of our national life; for many allusions to customs of bygone times cannot otherwise be understood, and we should be spared such a trying ordeal as we were recently subjected to by one of our leading illustrated papers, which introduced into a thirteenth century scene a twentieth century mandoline with an up to date mechanism.