Books › The History of the Violin and Other Instruments Played on with the Bow from the Remotest Times to the Present by William Sandys and Andrew Forster, 1864 › scan 20
Scan 20
The History of the Violin and Other Instruments Played on with the Bow from the Remotest Times to the Present by William Sandys and Andrew Forster, 1864
12 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Jewish instruments, as supposed by him, mentioning that some were played on with a bow, but there is no authority for this. Rousseau, eager to prove the antiquity of the viol, refers to Kircher's description of the neghinoth, as being similar to it, having three gut strings, and played on with a horse-hair bow; and Baptiste Folengius considers the nablum, or psalterium, to have been the same as the viol. The passage in the old play of "Lingua" may be considered of equal authenticity.
3 " 'Tis true the finding of a dead horse-head
4 Was the first invention of string instruments,
5 Whence rose the gitterne, viol, and the lute."
7Numerous musical instruments are mentioned in the Old Testament, and in the early times, as now, the Jews were skilled in the science; but it would be foreign to our purpose to enter into any account of these instruments, as there is no proof, or even a probability, of any of them having been of the violin or bowed class. It is true, according to our version, Isaiah says, speaking of the feasts of Israel, "the harp and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts;" and Amos speaks of the melody of viols, and says, "they chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music like David;" but the word viol was only used by the translators as the name of an instrument known to them, to express the Hebrew word nebel, of which instrument nothing distinctly was known.
9The kinnor, translated harp, was probably like the portable harp, or lyre, used by the early Egyptians and Ninevites, to which we shall presently refer; and thus David could play on it, even while dancing before the ark, and the Jewish captives could readily hang it up by the waters of Babylon.
11Julius Bartoloccius, cited by Gerbert, in his valuable
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