Scan 476
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
6 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 398. See the scan on archive.org.
1were to be paid to play for you as substitutes for your own personal degradation, came to be remembered, possibly, more on account of the laxity of his precepts than for any other reason.
3In the days of Lord Chesterfield lived Michael Christian Festing, who was particularly zealous in the cause of music. He was a pupil of Geminiani, and wrote several solos. Festing still further carried out the idea of Britton, the "small-coal man," by bringing together a number of noblemen and gentlemen amateurs for the practice of concerted music. They met at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand, and named their society the "Philharmonic." So much for his furtherance of the art. It now remains to notice the great boon which Festing conferred upon his brother professors and their descendants. It is this which has given his memory lasting life in the annals of English music.
5We are indebted to Festing as the chief instrument in the formation of the Royal Society of Musicians, which he may be said to have founded in the year 1738. This society derived its origin from the following curious circumstance. Festing being one day seated at the window of the Orange Coffee House, then at the corner of the Haymarket, observed a very intelligent-looking boy, who was driving an ass and selling brickdust. The lad was in a deplorable condition, and excited the pity of the kind-hearted musician, who made inquiries con-
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