Scan 533
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
8 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 437. See the scan on archive.org.
1corresponding chink in the belly, both as sharply cut as though a centre-bit had done the work. His Violin bore witness to his miraculous escape; the bullet lodged in the ceiling had taken his Montagnana in its course. The instrument referred to in this anecdote has been in my possession more than once.
3FIDDLE MARKS AND THE CREDULOUS DABBLERS.
5It is said a drowning man will catch at a straw; the truth of the remark applies to the half-informed in Fiddle connoisseurship. It is very amusing to note the pile of nothings that these persons heap up under the name of "guiding points" in relation to Fiddles. I will endeavour to call to mind a few of these. I will begin with those little pegs seen on the back of Violins near the button, and at the bottom; the position of these airy nothings without habitation or name "is deemed indisputable evidence of certain makers' handicraft." One is supposed to have put his pegs to the right, another to the left; another used three, four, and so on. I have frequently heard this remark—"Oh, it cannot be a Stradivari, because the pegs are wrong!"
7The purfling also forms an important item in the collection of landmarks; certain makers are supposed to have invariably used one kind of purfling, no variation being allowed for width or material adopted. Original instruments are pronounced
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