Scan 491
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1875
15 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. Printed page 337. See the scan on archive.org.
1instruments. Who can forget that the young Templar, Master Lowestoffe ("Fortunes of Nigel," chap. xvi., 138) "performed sundry tunes on the Fiddle and French Horn" in Alsatia; and that Counsellor Pleydell, on the eventful night in "Guy Mannering" (chap. xlix. 255) being a "member of the gentlemen's concert in Edinburgh," was performing some of Scarlatti's sonatas with great brilliancy upon the Violoncello to Julia's accompaniment upon the harpsichord?
3"Busts, cameos, gems—such things as these
4Which others often show for pride,
5I value for their power to please
6And selfish churls deride;
7One Stradivarius, I confess,
8Two meerchaums, I would fain possess.
9Extract from Oliver Wendell Holmes' Lines on Contentment.
11The "Monthly Mirror," of March, 1800, says that Gainsborough, the great painter, was a famous player on Violin and Violoncello, then called Viol-di-gamba; and that Abel, the chief Bass-player, composed a fugue especially for Gainsborough. The same periodical suggests that the high notes of the Violin are neither pleasant nor certain; the Fiddle, it thinks, should be only played in lower keys! In fact it is Queen Elizabeth's answer to Sir W. Raleigh's—
13"Fain would I climb but that I fear to fall."
14"If thy heart fail thee do not climb at all."
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