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Scan 22
The Violin and its Music, 1881
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 2. See the scan on archive.org.
1and no expense of breath. But as to the invention, which is so perfectly novel as not to have bin ever heard of before Augustulus, the last of the Roman Emperors, I cannot but esteem it perfectly Gothick, and entered with those barbarous nations setled in Italy, and from thence spread into all the neighbour nations round about, and now is in possession, and like to hold it, as a principall squadron in the instrumentall navy."
3These, then, were the opinions of King James the Second's Attorney General, the Hon. Roger North, relative to the early history of the Viol, and contained in a manuscript entitled, "The Memoires of Musick," a work Dr. Rimbault rightly describes as an exceedingly lucid and well-drawn sketch of the progress of the art, from the period of the ancient Greeks down to the commencement of the eighteenth century. In ignoring Nero's fiddling and the bow of Orpheus, our author has given us evidence of his ability to separate fact from fiction in his pursuit of truth; but let us follow him a little further, keeping intact his diction and orthography, the quaintness of which seems to be in harmony with its Gothic subject.
5"I doe suppose that at first it was like its native country, rude and gross, And that at the early importation it was of the lesser kind, which they called Viola da Bracchia, and since the Violin; and no better then as a rushy Zampogna used to stirr up the vulgar to dancing; or perhaps to solemnize their
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