Books › the history of the violin, 1864 › scan 167
Scan 167
the history of the violin, 1864
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 145. See the scan on archive.org.
1CHAPTER XI.
3It would seem from some accounts that Cromwell was not insensible to the charms of music, when he could unbend, or was in his own private domestic circle, although publicly he yielded to the Puritan feeling of his age. Theatrical representations were restrained, and music checked, although still practised in private; and in 1656-7 an act was passed against vagrants, forbidding any fiddlers or minstrels to go about to inns, ale-houses, or taverns, &c.
5On the restoration of Charles II, music and festive meetings again flourished, and the revels and gaieties of the court spread in different degrees through society in general. The superiority of the violin over the viol was gradually established, as it was found to be more capable of producing power, and better adapted for execution than the latter instrument, of which the tone was frequently sweet, but at the same time of a nasal quality, and deficient in vigour. The violin proper, as we have shown, was known in England at least a century before this time, and we may have received some suggestions tending towards the modification of the viol to the form and details of the violin from the Low Countries in the time of Elizabeth, when the intercourse between the countries was not unfrequent. The first violin-makers,
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