Books › The History Of The Violin, 1864 › scan 52
Scan 52
The History Of The Violin, 1864
8 lines. Read by computer on 24 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1feats of magic, which are foreign to our purpose; the extract, however, shows the symphonie and rote to have been different as well as the vielle and the gigue. This symphonie is also mentioned as the lyra mendicorum, and a figure of it is given by Mersennus and other writers, proving its similarity to the hurdy-gurdy. Happily this instrument is now very rarely heard in our streets since the departure of blind Sally of Westminster notoriety, whom many of our readers may remember; a slight suspicion of it only occasionally occurring in the hands of some wandering Italian boy.
3In a MS. of the fourteenth century at Ghent, referred to by M. de Coussemaker, there is the figure of an instrument to which no name is attached, said to have been invented by one Albinus. The celebrated Alcuin, who died in 804, travelled on the Continent under that name, and was skilled in music, having written a treatise on the subject, although it is not now extant. It may not, perhaps, be assuming too much to consider him the Albinus referred to. The instrument is somewhat of guitar-shape, and has four strings marked c, g, d, c. There are considerable inward curvatures, but no bridge or finger-board; the tail-piece is broad, and there is a semi-lunar sound-hole on each side (Fig. 9).
5On a capital of the eleventh or twelfth century, from Boscherville, stated to be in the Museum at Rouen, there are eleven figures playing on different instruments, while a twelfth is tumbling.
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