Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 133
Scan 133
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
10 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OLD VIOLINS
3forsooth, because the first, he must needs be the best authority.
5At the name of Benjamin Banks all tenor and 'cello players lift their hats; for although the later importation into England of Cremonas has somewhat obscured our countryman's fame, his splendid work—even surpassed, as some think, by his sons James and Henry—is bound to hold the market again; and a name extolled by the great virtuoso Lindley, whose favourite instrument was a Banks, is not likely to be neglected by Lindley's successors, even though they may be the happy possessors of Stradivari basses.
7Benjamin Banks (1727–1795) was a contemporary of Old Forster (1713–1801), but there is no reason to suppose that the two artificers ever met or materially interfered with each other; for Banks worked at Salisbury, whilst Forster worked in London, and no express trains bore fiddles or fiddle-buyers swiftly to and fro in those days.
9Benjamin Banks copied Nicolo Amati very closely; but Mr. Sandys speaks of a rare long-shaped violoncello of his quite of the Stainer pattern, with the round-topped Stainer sound-holes. This was none other than the great Lindley's famous instrument which so nearly escaped destruction in a coach accident. The passengers had a bad shaking and a bad spill, and Lindley and his violoncello among them; but the rare enthusiast, in the midst of the confusion, had but one thought. He flew to his 'cello-case, and was found seated in a ditch, quietly play-
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