Scan 477
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
4 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 399. See the scan on archive.org.
1cerning him, and discovered that he was the son of an unfortunate professor of music. Struck with grief and mortification that the forlorn object before him should be the child of a brother musician, Festing resolved to attempt something for the boy's maintenance. Shortly after, with the help of other benevolently-disposed persons, he raised a fund for the support of decayed musicians and their families, and thus laid the foundation of the society, which is the first of its kind in Europe. Handel was one of its first and principal members, and left it a legacy of £1,000. Little did Festing and his supporters dream that their society, humble enough in 1738, would grow into a society possessing £80,000 in 1874—a sum which, however high-sounding, was all-insufficient to permit the committee to dispense the amount of good desired.
3Returning again to our subject, we find that in Festing's lifetime there were several patrons of the art, the chief of whom were the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Earl of Mornington. Speaking of the Earl, the Hon. Daines Barrington says he "furnishes an instance of early attention to musical instruments. His father played well for a gentleman, on the Violin, which always delighted the child while in his nurse's arms, and long before he could speak." When he was nine years old, "an old portrait-painter came to the family seat, who was a very indifferent performer on the Violin, but persuaded the child that if he tried to play on
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