Books › De fidiculis bibliographia: being an attempt towards a bibliography of the violin and all other instruments played with a bow in ancient and modern times, 1890 › scan 25
Scan 25
De fidiculis bibliographia: being an attempt towards a bibliography of the violin and all other instruments played with a bow in ancient and modern times, 1890
2 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1very arduous character, the most unremitting attention to the book market, and the most persistent endeavour to track down certain books, having been the first essential towards a fortunate issue. When in the new year of 1879 I first entered upon my task I thought that in a year or two at the outside I should have reached the ultimate goal of my ambition, and that a twenty-page pamphlet would represent all the possible effort in this branch of Bibliography. To-day I have before me a quarto of over five hundred pages, containing over fourteen hundred items, and I know that I am practically as far from the end of my labours as I was when I wrote the first sheet of my manuscript. The reason of this is not far to seek. Had the violin world stood still in 1879, and waited for me to accomplish my self-allotted task, I might have speedily disposed of, at any rate, Part I. of this Bibliography. A glance at its pages, however, and especially at the pages that compose the supplements, will show how great a renaissance has taken place in the study of the violin since 1879, and you will allow me, Sir, to say that in this country, at least, your Royal Highness has been largely responsible for this renaissance. Prior to 1879 the books on the subject were few, and not highly valued. The works of Sandys and Forster, of Hart, of Davidson, and of Dubourg, were the only well-known native works, and these were easily obtainable at their published prices. The monumental work of Vidal was published, it is true, but it seemed to be the "dernier mot possible" in the literature of the violin; in Germany the works of Bachmann and Wettengel stood practically alone—and forgotten on the
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