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Scan 138
Old violins, 1905
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 120. See the scan on archive.org.
1monised pieces for it, and who imparted the knowledge to other kingdoms."
3Mace, an old writer and quite a musical expert (1676), mentions the viols of Ross (1598) and Smith (1633) as "old instruments" in his day. But the movement did not go on, and I cannot for a moment doubt that what checked the rise of music and the manufacture of musical instruments in this country was that same Puritan craze which snubbed art, smashed the stained glass, and mutilated our cathedrals throughout the land.
5Viols had by this time crept out of the cloister and joined hands with the frivolous Rebek, used at fairs and pothouses. At all events, in Cromwell's time and the "Barebones-praise-God period," everything that savoured of festivity was tabooed, and the fury against art seemed part and parcel of all sincere religion, according to the masses at least.
7To Cromwell's honour be it set down that he was personally no such extremist, and that he, moreover, saved for us Raffael's cartoons; but still music in any of its secular forms was mightily discouraged by the Puritans, whilst in its higher religious form it was associated with Prelacy and Papacy, and we have to wait for that reaction in favour of the world, the flesh, and the devil, which marked the Restoration, and which also made provision for the more innocent as well as the more perilous delights of music in the home, the concert room, the theatre, and the sanctuary.
9In Charles I.'s band (1625) there were "eleven
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