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Scan 204
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 190. See the scan on archive.org.
1faculties and affections (for the time)"—as he gravely adds in brackets—"and disposing us to solidity, gravity, and a good temper, making us capable of heavenly and divine influences." After naming the authors of these useful compositions, he informs us that they were performed upon so many "equal and truly scized viols, and so exactly strung, tuned, and played upon, as no one part was any impediment to the other—the organ evenly, slowly, and sweetly acchording to all. Whereas now the fashion has cry'd these things down, and set up others in their room, which, I confess, make a greater noise; but which of the two is the better fashion, I leave to be judged by the judicious." And again: "But now the modes and fashions have cry'd these things down, and set up a great idol in their room. Observe with what a wonderful swiftness they now run over their brave new ayres, and with what high prized noise, viz., ten or twenty violins, &c., as I said before, to some single souled ayre, it may be of a 2 or 3 parts, or some coranto, serabrand, or Brawle (as the new-fashioned word is), and such like stuff, seldom any other, which is rather fit to make a man's ears glow, and fill his brains full of frisks, &c., than to season and sober his mind or elevate his affection to goodness." Most lugubrious over the decline of viol patronage, he blames the great and wealthy, and particularly, "unskilful lords and ladies," for praising "some upstart fiddler" until his head is turned, and the "confident young upstart"—designated also "this all-to-be dignified young man"—is described as being a "very weaklin" in the art, who, if brought to the "true touchstone or right examination would be"—and so on. He admits, however, that this
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