Books › The violin: some account of that leading instrument, and its most eminent professors, from its earliest date to the present time;, 1878 › scan 44
Scan 44
The violin: some account of that leading instrument, and its most eminent professors, from its earliest date to the present time;, 1878
13 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1But if this same fiddle you fain would play bold,
2You must go to his son, who'll be Young when he's old.
3There's old Young and young Young, both men of renown,
4Old sells, and Young plays, the best fiddle in town;
5Young and old live together, and may they live long,
6Young, to play an old fiddle; old, sell a new song!
8The zealous, ingenious, minute and gossiping Anthony Wood, to whose journalizing propensity we are indebted for a free insight into the state of music at Oxford, during the time of the Civil War (when musical sounds were scarcely any where else to be heard in the kingdom), was an ardent admirer of the violin, while its admirers were yet scarce; and has left us, in his life, written by himself, some particulars relating to the instrument, that are too pleasant, as well as curious, to be here passed by. Let me introduce this quaint worthy, speaking of himself in the third person, and under the abridged designation of A. W.
10In 1651, "he began to exercise his natural and insatiable genie to music. He exercised his hand on the violin, and, having a good eare to take any tune at first hearing, he could quickly draw it out from the violin, but not with the same tuning of the strings that others used. He wanted understanding, friends and money, to pick him out a good master; otherwise he might have equalled in that instrument, and in singing, any person then in the University. He had some companions that were musical, but they wanted instruction as well as he."
12The next year, being obliged to go into the country, for change of air and exercise, with a view to rid himself of an ague, he states that "while he continued there, he followed the plow on well-days, and sometimes plowed: and, having had, from his most tender years, an
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