Books › The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871 › scan 30
Scan 30
The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871
8 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1And coach-drivers may be drunk, like gentlemen,
2With wine; nor will three fiddlers upon holidays,
3With aid of bagpipes, that called in the country
4To dance and plough the hall up with their hobnails,
5Now make my lady merry."
7The violin about this time was used as a military musical instrument in France, Spain, and several other parts of the Continent, as well as in Britain. In the Memoirs of Count Grammont, a description is given of the siege of Lerida in 1647, by the Prince de Condé, who "ordered the trenches to be mounted at noonday by his own regiment, at the head of which marched four and twenty fiddlers. Night approaching, we were all in high spirits, our violins were playing soft airs, and we were comfortably regaling ourselves," he thus pleasantly goes on; whilst in the British army there was also a complement of violinists, and who at this time were spoken of as being anything but a "teetotal society." Twenty-four was the number employed in the royal household of King Charles II., as well as in that of Henry IV. of France. In a letter of King Charles to his aunt, the Queen of Bohemia, written at Cologne, he complains of "the want of good fiddlers, and of some capable of teaching new dances;" and this Sovereign, adopting the French fashion, "would have twenty-four violins playing before him while he was at meals, as being more airie and brisk than viols." In France, almost every one of the wealthier classes had violinists attached to their household, and from an authoress who wrote about this time, we learn the following particulars relative to King Charles:—"At
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