As for the biography of the big bass before us, it is short but honourable. Made in Italy--that happy land of _lutherie_--it was once the property of Domenico Dragonetti, who came to England in 1794 and gathered victorious laurels in this country until the day of his death. Amusing anecdotes are said to have flowed incessantly from the lips of this whimsical artist, yet nothing he said surpassed his ridiculous habit of making up a “no-language” out of several tongues. Although Dragonetti resided in London for upwards of forty years, yet until his dying day he could not converse for ten minutes without running into several different languages, and when he exchanged opinions with his bosom friend, Lindley, who stuttered frantically, the effect defied both description and imitation. There is a story on record that Dragonetti and Lindley were one day lounging down Wardour Street, which was then--as it is now--the haunt of the connoisseur, when they came upon a shop where, among other attractions, a parrot was put out for sale. The friends contemplated the bird for some time without speaking, until they attracted the attention of the shopman, who at once came out to them. Lindley began stumbling out endless questions to him, for the bird had taken his fancy, and Dragonetti poked in a query now and again in his own curious jargon. How old was the bird? What did it like to eat? Where did it come from? Was it a clever bird? Was it tame? and so on, ending, with a tremendous effort on Lindley’s part: “Ca-ca-can-can he-he-e et-t-t-talk?” The salesman, impatient of having been kept so long to no purpose, felt he would lose nothing by a little outburst of temper, so he turned upon his heel with the sarcastic reply: “Talk! I should think so, and a jolly sight better than either of you, or I’d wring his blooming neck.” Dragonetti had no rival in his day, though Bottesini, about half-a-century later, could accomplish all that Dragonetti did. Indeed he did more, for he proved what wonderful effects could be produced by utilising the double-bass as a solo instrument, whereas Dragonetti was more particularly an orchestral genius. It is said that in private, however, he frequently amused his friends with wonderful flights on one string, or jocularly played a second violin part in a Quartet on his bulky instrument. Like Paganini his disproportionately long knobby fingers gave him a wonderful command and grip of the fingerboard, and he produced a tone like the great rolling pedal notes of an organ. So vast and penetrating was its quality, and so spirited his leadership of the double-basses, that his absence invariably called forth a comment from the audience on the weakness of the bass at such-and-such a concert.