Books › The violin and its music, 1881 › scan 27
Scan 27
The violin and its music, 1881
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1ments of various kinds; among these was one of oval shape having four strings, which they called a Fithele. This love of minstrelsy and knowledge of rude Fiddles, surely belonged not to the Romanized Britons, and if not, the Anglo-Saxons must necessarily either have invented this minstrelsy and Fiddling, or brought these arts from their German homes. In taking the latter view we follow Thomas Percy, who asks in his celebrated Essay on the Ancient Minstrels, "For if these popular bards were confessedly revered and admired in those very countries which the Anglo-Saxons inhabited, before their removal into Britain, and if they were afterwards common and numerous among the other descendants of the same Teutonic ancestors, can we do otherwise than conclude, that men of this order accompanied such tribes as migrated hither, that they afterwards subsisted here, though perhaps with less splendour than in the North; and that there never was wanting a succession of them to hand down the art, though some particular conjunctures may have rendered it more respectable at one time than another?"
3Though I have named the Goths as the possessors of a bowed instrument which gave rise to the Viol, I have done so for the sake of simplicity, rather than from conviction; inasmuch as at this distance of time, it would be impossible to decide which tribe of adventurers from the North first bowed a musical instrument. This, however, is of
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.