Scan 545
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
12 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 449. See the scan on archive.org.
1and the laughter of his audience, and (as I have described him doing in the verses) would now give you the notes of birds in trees, and even hens feeding in a farm-yard (which was a corner into which I meant to take my companion), and now melt you into grief and pity, or mystify you with witchcraft, or put you into a state of lofty triumph like a conqueror. The phrase of smiting the chord—
3 'He smote; and clinging to the serious chords
4 With godlike ravishment,' etc.
6was no classical commonplace; nor, in respect to impression on the mind, was it exaggeration to say, that from a single chord he would fetch out—
8 'The voice of quires, and weight
9 Of the built organ.'
11'Paganini, the first time I saw and heard him, and the first time he struck a note, seemed literally to strike it—to give it a blow. The house was so crammed, that being among the squeezers in the standing-room at the side of the pit, I happened to catch the first glance of his face through the arm a-kimbo of a man who was perched up before me, which made a kind of frame for it; and there on the stage, in that frame, as through a perspective glass, were the face, bust, and the raised hand of the wonderful musician, with the instrument at his chin,
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