Scan 47
Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of Celebrated Violinists, 1877
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1music from his father, who used to play at Christmas-time as one of the waits in the parish above-named—a very different place now to what it was in those days, when it had plenty of green fields, hedges, and hay-ricks about it. In the course of a very short time this Bannister made great progress on his instrument, and, marvellous as it may appear, he actually attracted the attention of Charles II., who sent him to France, no slight journey in those days, to improve his musical education; and, on his return, appointed him leader of the Royal Violins—an institution which, as we stated before, King Charles II. was induced to form in imitation of Louis XIV.
3The first leader of this band of violins in England was a German from Lubeck, named Baltzar, who possessed considerable execution and a brilliant style of performance, such as had not yet been heard in England, when the best violin-player of the period was an amateur, a clockmaker, named Davis Mell. An old author, whose remarks are sometimes very amusing, states that, "After Baltzar came to England and showed his most wonderful parts on that instrument—the violin—Mell was not so much admired; yet he
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