Books › Chats on violins, 1905 › scan 60
Scan 60
Chats on violins, 1905
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 42. See the scan on archive.org.
1"English fiddles surpassed French ones," and Pelham Humphreys who hustled and bustled the king's musicians into playing French music and enlivening the Court with Lulli's graceful airs and gavottes. The gay monarch appeared particularly charmed with Master Humphrey's innovation and was seen to nod the Royal head and beat the Royal foot in appreciation.
3So greatly did this prince favour his band that he would have them play before him on every possible occasion, even in church. This last practice of the king's greatly irritated John Evelyn, who, in his description of a visit to the Royal Chapel, says:
5"Instead of an organ a concert of the king's four and twenty violins was introduced, better suiting a tavern than a church."
7Pepys, who himself played on several instruments, and often "rose by candle-light and spent the morning in fiddling till time to go to the office," heard the "Four and Twenty Fiddlers" on more fitting occasions. Once at Whitehall, where he considered that they had been "brought by practice to play very just." Another time on Coronation Day, 23rd April, 1661, he describes taking a great deal of
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