Scan 491
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
35 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 413. See the scan on archive.org.
1Just where the hangman does dispose,
2To special friends, the knot or noose;
3For 'tis great grace, when statesmen straight
4Dispatch a friend, let others wait.
5His warped ear hung o'er the strings,
6Which was but souse to chitterlings;¹
7For guts, some write, ere they are sodden,
8Are fit for music, or for pudding;²
9From whence men borrow ev'ry kind
10Of minstrelsy, by string or wind.
11His grisly beard was long and thick,
12With which he strung his Fiddle-stick;
13For he to horse-tail scorned to owe
14For what on his own chin did grow.
16And now the field of death, the lists,
17Were enter'd by antagonists,
18And blood was ready to be broach'd,
19When Hudibras in haste approach'd
20With Squire and weapons, to attack 'em;
21But first thus from his horse bespok 'em,
22'What rage, O citizens! What fury
23Doth you to these dire actions hurry?'
25In name of King and Parliament
26I charge ye all—no more foment.
28first surrender
29The Fiddler as the prime offender,
30Th' incendiary vile, that is chief
31Author and engineer of mischief;
33¹ Dr. Nash says, "Souse is the pig's ear, and chitterlings the pig's guts; the former alludes to Crowdero's ear, which lay on the Fiddle; the latter to the strings of the Fiddle, which are made of catgut."
34² Black pudding and sausages are placed in skins of gut.
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