Scan 350
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
13 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1George Tavern, in Whitefriars. Roger North informs us the shopkeepers and others went to sing and "enjoy ale and tobacco," and the charge was one shilling and "call for what you please."
3In the year 1683, Henry Purcell, organist of the Chapel Royal, published twelve sonatas for two Violins and a Bass. These famous instrumental compositions were written, the author tells us, in "just imitation of the most famed Italian masters, principally to bring the seriousness and gravity of that sort of musick into vogue." Purcell, in conformity with an age of dedications, thus addressed the Merry Monarch:—
5"May it please your Majesty, I had not assum'd the confidence of laying ye following compositions at your sacred feet, but that, as they are the immediate results of your Majestie's Royal favour and benignity to me (which have made me what I am), so I am constrained to hope I may presume amongst others of your Majestie's over-obliged and altogether undeserving subjects that your Majesty will, with your accustomed clemency, vouchsafe to pardon the best endeavours of your Majestie's
7"Most humble and obedient subject and servant,
8"H. PURCELL."
10Charles II. is said to have understood his notes, and to sing in (in the words of one who had sung with him) a plump bass, but that he only looked upon music as an incentive to mirth, not caring for any that he could not "stamp the time to." The endeavour of his accomplished and gifted young organist to lead the King and his people to admire what he terms "the seriousness and gravity" of Italian music, and "to loathe the levity and balladry of our neighbours," was indeed worthy of England's greatest musician.
12In the year 1678, Thomas Britton, known as the "musical
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