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Scan 323
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 309. See the scan on archive.org.
1nor yet for connoisseurs. A great public performer occupies a totally different position, and it is, perhaps, necessary in these days of unutterable refinement that he possess one or two instruments. With the collector who cannot play and does not try to learn, I have no sympathy whatever. I look upon him as a public affliction, who should be compelled, by the passing and rigid application of a sumptuary law, to dispossess himself of his fiddles. What an absurdly greedy sentiment it must be that captivates the mind of a collector of this class who, with his teeth set close like those of a rat-trap, keeps his violins in dark and dumb durance, when they might all be discoursing most eloquent music in the hands of those without whose aid the best that Stradivari ever turned out is not worth 2s. 6d. for ordinary veneers! No antiquarian enthusiasm can ever justify the preservation in cabinets of violins, except such as have been played out or otherwise rendered useless. To bequeath a great violin to a museum is another act which can only be accounted for on the supposition that it is done in a moment of thoughtlessness, or at the dictate of even a more miserable sentiment than vanity. What benefit has anybody derived from that bequest of Paganini's to Genoa? The great "Joseph Guarnerius" lies there in silent state, having only once been played since its master's death. The most fervid fancy cannot see any poetical fitness in a legacy like that, for although no hand has since his day claimed the same magical power, his favourite violin's artistic life would have received a fresh impulsion—if of lesser magnitude—under the touch of his own and only pupil Sivori, had
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