Books › The history of the violin, and other instruments played on with the bow from the remotest times to the present. Also, an account of the principal makers, English and foreign, with numerous illustrations, 1864 › scan 18
Scan 18
The history of the violin, and other instruments played on with the bow from the remotest times to the present. Also, an account of the principal makers, English and foreign, with numerous illustrations, 1864
6 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 6. See the scan on archive.org.
1with the Creation, and after thirty years' labour was surprised by death, when he had only reached the time of the Sabine War, yet we have honestly endeavoured to give such a chronicle as may prove useful and interesting not only to the musician but to the general reader, so that we may not be asked, as Ariosto was by the Cardinal d'Este, "Dove diavolo avete pigliato tante coglionerie?"
3Jean Rousseau, the great violist of his age, in his "Traité de la Viole," 1687, seeking to prove the antiquity and excellence of his instrument, says, that as Adam was acquainted with all arts and sciences, and the viol is the most perfect instrument, if he had any instrument, it must have been that. We may, however, refer to Jubal as the father of all such as handle the harp (i.e. the kinnor) and organ; or, in the quaint words of Capgrave, "Jubal, he was fader to alle hem that singe in the orgoun, or in the crowde."—"He was fynder of musick, not of the very instrumentis which be used now, for thei were founde long after."
5The words translated into harp and organ in the Old Testament may probably be considered as representing the stringed and wind instruments, and though the learned Kircher describes the kinnor, or harp, as something like a dulcimer with thirty strings, he cannot be relied on. Peter Walker may as well be taken for an authority for ancient fiddles, where, in his "Life and Death of Three Famous Worthies," referring to the destruction of Sodom and the surrounding country by fire and brimstone from heaven, while the wicked people were enjoying "fulness of bread and idleness," he says, "their fiddle strings and hands went all in a flame; and the whole people in thirty miles of length, and ten of breadth, as historians say, were all made to fry in their skins." Kircher describes several others of the ancient
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