Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 32
Scan 32
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
15 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 10. See the scan on archive.org.
1viol already brought to perfection, and does not resemble a primitive essay. The goudok also derives its origin from the East.
3No traces of the existence of bow-instruments appear on the continent of Europe before the end of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century; but a poet—Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poictiers, who died about 609, and who is thought to have composed his elegiac poems about 570—tells us that the crûth or crouth of the Gaelic [? Celtic] or Welsh bards was then known, and that it probably existed in England a long while before. The poet renders this barbarous name by chrotta, in the following verses:
5Romanusque lyra plaudat tibi, Barbarus harpa,
6Græcus achilliaca, chrotta Britanna canat.*
8* "Let the Roman applaud thee with the lyre, the Barbarian with the harp, the Greek with the phorminx of Achilles (?) a; let the British crouth sing [to thee]." These verses, addressed to Loup, Duke of Champagne, the friend of Fortunatus (Carm. 8, lib. vii), are specimens of the habitual poetic exaggeration of these barbarous times. I know not why Du Cange has substituted the word placet for canat in quoting these verses (Gloss. ad script. mediae et infim. cætatis, voc. Chrotta). He corrects an error in quantity [? Tr.] in the first verse, giving it thus;
9Romanus lyra plaudat tibi, Barbarus harpa.
11Nothing is more amusing than the note of the Jesuit Brower, editor of the works of Venantius Fortunatus, on the word chrotta (Notæ diversæ, p. 186), which, says he, has an evident affinity with crotale. Yet he thinks that the instrument referred to must have borne some resemblance to the shell of the tortoise, the name of which, in ancient German, was crotte or krote, from whence originated the name of a shield in the form of a tortoise, schildkrote!—AUTHOR.
13a M. Fétis having rendered the word Achilliaca by la cithare, and his translation being in other respects different from mine, I subjoin his own version, in order that he may not be held responsible for what does not belong to him:
14"Le Romain t'applaudit sur la lyre, le Grec te chante avec la cithare, le Barbare avec la harpe et le crouth breton."—Tr.
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