Scan 61
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 15. See the scan on archive.org.
1He quotes writers of different epochs relative to the meaning of the word Lyre as used by them, the tendency of his remarks apparently being to establish a connection between the German Fiddle (named a Lyre in the manuscript) and the Rebec. The representation we have of the instrument certainly conveys the idea of its having been a progenitor of the Rebec of the French, the Ribeca of the Italians, and the Fithele and Geige of the Germans. The mention of an instrument of the kind in a German manuscript, discovered in an ancient German monastery, together with the record being dated by Gerbertus as not far removed from the sixth century, lends much weight to the opinion of Roger North with regard the part played by the Teutonic race in the early history of bowed instruments.
3It is now necessary to refer to the well-known origin of Lutes, Fiddles, and catgut is classic and picturesque. Tradition and myth have played parts of much consequence in the work of civilization: they have, however, at length fallen upon a critical and remarkably sceptical age, and rapidly fade and die under the inquisitorial torture of modern enquiry—a result at least to be expected from the contact of their own dreamy and delicate nature with unromantic matter. It is perhaps safer to refer the origin of the name Cheli or tortoise, as applied to corded instruments, to the fact of their having sound chambers, constructed with the tortoise-shell, as was the case with the Greek Lyre, or to the circumstance of the bodies of the instruments being shaped like the tortoise. The Germans used the word Chelys to designate their Viols; and Christopher Simpson, in his famous treatise on the "Viol da Gamba" names it Chelys. The application of the word Chelys to bowed instruments is suggestive of their remote connection with the ancient Lyre.
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