Scan 470
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1875
17 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1"Johnson: 'Nay, sir, that is not to the purpose of our argument; that will as much prove that he can play upon the Fiddle as well as Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian.'
3'Goldsmith: 'The greatest musical performers have but small emoluments; Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven hundred a-year.'
5'Johnson: 'That is indeed but little for a man to get, who does best that which so many endeavour to do. There is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in playing on the Fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first; any man will forge a bar of iron if you give him a hammer: not so well as a smith, but tolerably; and make a box, though a clumsy one; but give him a Fiddle and a Fiddlestick, and he can do nothing.'"—Boswell's Life of Johnson.
7DR. JOHNSON'S EPITAPH ON PHILIPS, THE WELSH VIOLINIST.
9"Johnson and Garrick were sitting together, when among other things Garrick repeated an epitaph upon Philips, by a Dr. Wilkes, which was very commonplace, and Johnson said to Garrick, 'I think Davy, I can make a better.' Then stirring about his tea for a little while in a state of meditation, he, almost extempore, produced the following verses:
11"'Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove
12The pangs of guilty power or hapless love;
13Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more,
14Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;
15Sleep, undisturbed within this peaceful shrine,
16Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!'
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