Scan 347
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 285. See the scan on archive.org.
1informed of the array of makers that England has at different times produced, and is yet capable of producing, did but the new Violin command the price that would be a fair return for the time and skill required in the production of an instrument at once useful and artistic. It will be my endeavour to show forth the qualities of those of our makers whose names, as yet, seem never to have crossed the Channel, so that when these pages on the English School are read by distant connoisseurs, and the merits and shortcomings of the makers therein are fairly weighed by them, the good shall be found so to outweigh the indifferent as to entirely change the opinions formed of us as makers of the leading instrument.
3Until the early nineteenth century makers of Violins in England would appear to have been comparatively numerous, if we take into consideration the undeveloped state of stringed instrument music at that period in this country. Among those makers were men of no ordinary genius—men who worked lovingly, guided by motives distinct from commercial gain, so long as they were allowed to live by their work. When, however, the duties on foreign musical instruments were removed, the effect was to partially swamp the gallant little band of Fiddlemakers, who were quite unable to compete with the French and German makers in price (not excellence, be it distinctly understood, for we were undoubtedly ahead of our foreign competitors, both in style and
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