In the delightful monograph of this maker’s life--already mentioned--among the excellent summary of the instruments made by him, there is an interesting description of a quartet of instruments generally known as the “Dumas Set,” from its having once belonged to a family of that name. In an ancient château near Lyons the members of the Dumas household passed through the terrors of the first Revolution and saw the establishment of the Empire. They were enthusiastic musical amateurs--friends of Beethoven--and inspired by a genuine love of chamber music they collected together four magnificent examples of Maggini’s skill. Of the four instruments--_i.e._ violin, viola, violoncello and double-bass--which comprise the “set,” the violin and viola are of the most characteristic and perfect type, although the violoncello is also excellent. According to Lady Huggins’s description of the last, “it has two lines of purfling, but no ornamental device. The bottom circle of the sound-holes is smaller than the top. There is the same under-bevelling of the inside edge of the sound-holes, as in Maggini’s other instruments, the same arching of the model. The wood of the back and the sides is cut on the slab” (parallel with the growth of the tree--a favourite practice with the ancient viol-makers). “The back is joined, also the belly, the latter having the wood the ordinary way of the grain, the coarse grain being outside.” As we look at the instrument, the thought involuntarily rises in us--“to Maggini we owe our modern violoncello.” What a curious mixture of the “old” and the “new” is to be found in this instrument. The back cut on the “slab”--in accordance with the long-standing custom--and the belly cut in the improved manner. Maggini, although a great innovator, and the first to cut the wood in the new way--_i.e._ wedge-ways from the tree--was evidently in a state of uncertainty when he made this violoncello. To balance matters he mingled the divers ways, yet, in spite of his hesitation, he came nearer to gauging the most equitable proportions for the violoncello than any other maker of his time. It would be of great interest if it were possible to discover by what means Maggini and his predecessors arrived at their conclusions. Whether it was in the manner of old Mrs Tibbins, who made a fiddle by means of a blunt knife, a piece of glass, and a bent file, or, on the principles of Monsieur Felix Savart. If the ancient _luthier_ planned his work on the latter’s scientific basis, then he was accurate in every detail, for no more satisfactory experiments on the construction of bow instruments have been attempted. The idea of these experiments was suggested by a guitar-shaped violin made by Stradivarius and owned by the elder Chanot. Imagining that so eminent a maker would not have constructed such a violin without good reason, Monsieur Savart--a doctor of medicine--threw up his profession for that of science and