Books › The history of the violin, and other instruments played on with the bow from …, 1864 › scan 21
Scan 21
The history of the violin, and other instruments played on with the bow from …, 1864
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1to pay no attention to the trumpet marine, and looked as if he would give all the instruments in the world for a mouse. Cats, however, are capricious, for while some that we have known have remained stretched on the rug in a state of the utmost indifference to the sound of the violoncello, others have shown the greatest objection to it (perhaps the fault of the performer), particularly to those notes producing what is called the wolf. A gentleman frequently practising on the instrument, observed that if those notes often occurred, the cat then reposing on the rug became restless, and gave indications of displeasure, but if he dwelt on the note the animal would look up at him with anger, and if he persisted would begin to growl, and finally spit and hiss, and run away in violent indignation. There is a singular but well authenticated anecdote related of an officer of the regiment of Navarre, confined in the Bastille for six months for having spoken too freely of M. de Louvois. He was allowed the use of his lute, but on beginning to play he was surprised to see the mice come out of their holes, and the spiders descend from their webs. The intendant of Madame de Vendôme assured M. Bonnet that he had tried the same experiment himself with a violin, and that within a quarter of an hour a great number of spiders had descended towards his table. Playford, in his "Introduction to the Skill of Musick," says, that as he was once travelling near Royston he met a herd of about twenty stags following the sounds of a bagpipe and a violin, walking on while the music was played, but stopping when it ceased; and in this manner they were brought from Yorkshire to Hampton Court; a dance that beats Kempe's "nine daies morris daunce" from Norfolk.
3One of the most ludicrous anecdotes, however, of the
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