Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 33
Scan 33
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
9 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 11. See the scan on archive.org.
1The Saxons took possession of a part of England in the year 449, that is to say, upwards of a century before the period in which Venantius Fortunatus wrote his poems. We know that they governed the part of Great Britain which was subdued by them; for their predecessors, the Romans, were only encamped there. It might be supposed that the use of a bow-instrument was introduced by them among the Britons; but we must not forget that Wales was never brought under the Saxon rule, and that the crouth, the use of which appears to have been preserved to the descendants of the Celts, seems to have been long unknown to the other people of England. The name of the instrument is evidently Celtic, and the original orthography of the word (crûth) cannot belong to any other language than the Gaelic.* Now, the Welsh w, with an accent, has precisely the sound of the vowel ॐ (ū) of the Sanscrit language. Edward Jones, bard to the Prince of Wales, remarks that crouth, or crowd, is an English alteration of the primitive word, from whence is derived crowther, or crowder, to play on the crouth.† The Welsh name of the instrument (crûth) comes from the Celtic primitive one of two readings
2The Saxons took possession of a part of England in the year 449, that is to say, upwards of a century before the period in which Venantius Fortunatus wrote his poems. We know that they governed the part of Great Britain which was subdued by them; for their predecessors, the Romans, were only encamped there. It might be supposed that the use of a bow-instrument was introduced by them among the Britons; but we must not forget that Wales was never brought under the Saxon rule, and that the crouth, the use of which appears to have been preserved to the descendants of the Celts, seems to have been long unknown to the other people of England. The name of the instrument is evidently Celtic, and the original orthography of the word (crwth) cannot belong to any other language than the Gaelic.* Now, the Welsh w, with an accent, has precisely the sound of the vowel ॐ (ū) of the Sanscrit language. Edward Jones, bard to the Prince of Wales, remarks that crouth, or crowd, is an English alteration of the primitive word, from whence is derived crowther, or crowder, to play on the crouth.† The Welsh name of the instrument (crwth) comes from the Celtic primitive one of two readings
4* The frequent use of the term Gaelic, in this part of the work, seems considerably to impair the author's meaning; it being presumed he has no intention of alluding to the Highlanders of Scotland, or their language.
6A friend, deeply versed in the language and antiquities of Wales, and who is also a native of the Principality, suggests that the little inconsistencies here observable have doubtless been induced through the inaccuracies in foreign works, particularly French, in reference to details of Welsh history. It is therefore hoped that these remarks, together with a few interpolations within brackets, will shield the learned author from being misunderstood.—Tr.
8† See A Dissertation on the Musical Instruments of the Welsh, p. 114, Note 2.
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