Scan 397
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1had been exhibiting his then unrivalled powers on the Violin. His excellent performance made Gainsborough enamoured of that instrument; and conceiving, like the servant-maid in the Spectator, that the music lay in the Fiddle, he was frantic until he possessed the very instrument which had given him so much pleasure—but seemed much surprised that the music of it remained behind with Giardini. He had scarcely recovered this shock (for it was a great one to him) when he heard Abel on the Viol da Gamba. The Violin was hung on the willow; Abel's Viol da Gamba was purchased, and the house resounded with melodious thirds and fifths from 'morn to dewy eve!' Many an Adagio and many a Minuet were begun, but none completed; this was wonderful, as it was Abel's own instrument, and, therefore, ought to have produced Abel's own music!
3"Fortunately my friend's passion had now a fresh object—Fischer's Hautboy"—but I do not recollect that he deprived Fischer of his instrument; and though he procured a Hautboy, I never heard him make the least attempt on it. The next time I saw Gainsborough it was in the character of King David. He had heard a Harper at Bath—the performer was soon Harpless—and now Fischer, Abel, and Giardini were all forgotten—there was nothing like chords and arpeggios! He really stuck to the Harp long enough to play several airs with variations, and would nearly have exhausted all the pieces usually performed on an instrument incapable of modulation (this was not a pedal Harp), when another visit from Abel brought him back to the Viol da Gamba. He now saw the imperfection
5* Fischer was a celebrated Oboe-player. He made his first appearance in London in 1768. Gainsborough painted two portraits of him, one of which is at Hampton Court.
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