Books › The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871 › scan 23
Scan 23
The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871
7 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1porary writer the struggles it had to encounter ere it attained priority. In allusion to a concert of various instruments, the author remarks—
3"The scoulding violins will out-top them all;"
4and whilst he is willing to admit a couple of violins amongst the other instruments adapted for a "merry-making," he takes the precaution to have also "a pair of lusty well-sized theorboes"—the reason being that the violins "may not outcry the rest of the musick, the basses especially."* Violers, or performers on the viol, were quite numerous throughout Britain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and even formed a part of the Royal Household. They wore red bonnets and were clothed in livery, and received a small gratuity. The terms, Fiddle and Fiddler, so frequently mentioned by some of the early authors, sometimes certainly refer to the viol and violer, as well as to the violin and violinist, as those words have been, by many ancient historians and poets, used without any due regard to proper distinction. The viol was in universal use throughout Scotland in the seventeenth century; but at this period it must not be supposed that the violin was unknown, as frequent reference is made to it several centuries earlier. From ancient documents we learn that four violers played at the Cross in Edinburgh on the day of the Coronation of Charles II., 1660; and many more quotations might be cited, verifying the common use of the viol in Edinburgh and other Scottish towns. In concluding the few preceding remarks upon the viol, it may not be out
6* Mace, Musick's Monument, 1676.
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