The instrument that is the subject of this paper is the 18 th -century cittern, which has also been called the English guitar, spelled either "guitar" or "guittar". Although David Rutherford calls the instrument "the cittern or guittar" in his tutor 1 , there are few other uses of cittern to describe this instrument. Kitara, cetra and cetera are amoung other terms used, but during the 18 th century the term used most often is guitar or guittar 2 . Use of the adjective "English" to distinguish this cittern-type guitar from other types is now being contested, primarily for lack of contemporary use of the term. Rob MacKillop has made a good case for the Scottish guitar, in terms of style and repertoire, but the instrument used in the Scottish tradition is identical to the socalled English guitar, which developed into the Portuguese guitarra during the 19 th century. Because there was no consistent terminology used to identify this instrument during the 18 th century, the main problem when trying to glean information from original documents like newspapers, letters or diaries is identifying when a guitar is a so-called Spanish guitar and when it is a cittern-type guitar or, as MacKillop calls it, an 18 th -century wire-strung...