Scan 213
Voice and violin : sketches, anecdotes, and reminiscences, 1898
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 193. See the scan on archive.org.
1and he was compelled to hawk his violins about the country to procure food for his poverty-stricken family. He was imprisoned for debt for six months, and on his liberation his business grew smaller and smaller, and his debts greater; so much so, that he was unable to pay the dues levied on all Court tradesmen; and when he petitioned the Emperor to be forgiven the sum—as was, now and then, done to others in misfortune—his application was, for some reason, unheeded. Finally, he died, a raving lunatic, in the year 1683.
3Stainer had only one son, born in 1657, who died the following year. His beautiful wife and eight daughters survived him.
5During my long residence abroad I met many French ecclesiastics who played the violin or violoncello remarkably well. They were the successors of the well-known and enthusiastic Abbé Sibire, who, in the early years of this century, penned the following lines about his Stainer violin:—
7"When in the course of a laborious day a desire for dissipation compels me to interrupt my useful work, I turn to my violins, and I must confess that in the presence of a glorious sunshine I play, by preference, and with greater delight, upon an excellent Cremona, which for me, as for you, will always possess inexpressible charms. But when
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