Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 39
Scan 39
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
18 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 17. See the scan on archive.org.
1of the crouth. M. Coussemaker has done more: in reproducing the bad figure of Bottée de Toulmont, instead of reverting to the Archæologia, he writes beneath this new copy: crout à six cordes.—Mss. du XIe. siècle.*
2Now, it is neither a matter which concerns a manuscript—since the instrument was drawn from nature—nor the eleventh century; for it relates to an instrument comparatively modern and brought to perfection, which existed towards the end of the eighteenth century. This blunder is tantamount to presenting the harp with three rows of strings, as now used by the bards of Caernarvon and Merioneth, for that of the sixth century of which Venantius Fortunatus speaks.
4To determine the epoch when the crouth with six strings succeeded the crouth trithant, would be impossible; for no positive information on this subject has been discovered up to the present time†. The first had not ceased to exist when the other became adopted, since the bard, Edward Jones, informs us that it was less esteemed, because it could not produce such full
6* Essai sur les instruments de musique du moyen âge, in the Annales archéologiques, published by Didron Sen., vol. iii, p. 150.
8† "We have," says Mr. Bingley, "no authentic information respecting the crwth of more ancient date than the fifteenth century."—North Wales, including its scenery, antiquities, customs, &c. vol. ii, p. 332.
10The information referred to by this learned writer is doubtless the description of the instrument with six strings by the Welsh bard, Graf-fydd Davydd ab Howel, who really lived in the fifteenth century, and the original of which is subjoined, together with an English version, from the work of Edward Jones (loc. cit. p. 115).
12Crwth.
14Prennol têg bwa a gwregis,
15Pont a brân, punt yw ei brís;
16A fair coffer with a bow, a girdle,
17a finger-board, and a bridge; its value is a pound;
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