Can anything be more _bizarre_ than this union of the work of good John Bull Norman and Lorraine Duiffoproucart? Imagine such methods applied to other beautiful and valuable works of art, and we might come across such incongruities as, Cleopatra’s Needle nicely finished off with a druidical stone, or the statue of Wellington supporting Napoleon’s head upon its shoulders, or Raphaël’s beautiful madonnas seated upon Chesterfield couches: one might go on endlessly summing up such horrors were vandalism a ruling power, but fortunately it is not; even the remotest cottage dweller now knows the value of his various household gods, and only parts with them “at a price.” The third example of Duiffoproucart’s work is known as the “_basse de viole au Vieillard à la chaise d’Enfant_.” A drawing of this instrument by M. Hellemacher is included in M. Vidal’s “Instrument à Archet” (Paris, 1876-78), and M. Soubie also gives a clear representation of it in his “Histoire de la Musique Allemande” (Paris 1896). In form and size, this viola da gamba resembles the two already mentioned. It is small, the same horse’s head surmounts the peg-box, and the picture on the back is said to have been copied from a design of Baccio Dardinelli, which was engraved by Duiffoproucart’s contemporary, Augustin Venetien. The inlaying is in the characteristic style of the maker, in several coloured woods. The fourth gamba by this maker--according to Monsieur Chardon--exists in Switzerland and completes the number of known examples of violas da gamba by this maker. Not many yards away from this graceful Duiffoproucart viol of Sir George Donaldson’s is a viola da gamba of strikingly beautiful workmanship. The inlaying is exquisitely rich in ivory and tortoise-shell, reminiscent of the luxurious decorations lavished by past makers on that much-treasured instrument--the lute. As you gaze at this viol’s profuse charms, you are seized with a longing to assume a mantle of gorgeous ostentation, to powder your hair, and wrap rich brocades around you, to dance stately minuets, to discuss my Lady Castlemaine and that pretty, witty jade, Nell Gwynne, behind your fan, to traverse London in a _chaise à porteur_, to listen to the King’s “four-and-twenty fiddlers” at Whitehall: in short,--to comport yourself as a loyal subject of Charles II.