Books › The violin: its famous makers and their imitators. : With several wood engravings from photographs of the works of Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, Amati, and others, 1880 › scan 270
Scan 270
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators. : With several wood engravings from photographs of the works of Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, Amati, and others, 1880
4 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 252. See the scan on archive.org.
1the 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.
3We are indebted to Festing as the chief instrument for 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 enquiries concerning 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
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