From the year 1610 until 1810 the list of those who played in public is extremely short, numbering only about twenty, and of these several were gambists. That women did, once upon a time, play on the violin, or the corresponding string and bow instruments which were its ancestors, there is evidence. On the painted roof of Peterborough Cathedral, in England, which is said to have been built in the year 1194 A.D., there is a picture of a woman seated, and holding in her lap a sort of viol, with four strings and four sound-holes. This seems to indicate that in very early days ladies sometimes played on stringed instruments, if only for their own amusement. Among the accounts of King Henry VII., dated November 2, 1495, is the following item, "For a womane that singeth with a fiddle, 2 shillings." Anne of Cleves after her divorce comforted herself by playing on a viol with six strings. Queen Elizabeth, also, amused herself not only with the lute, the virginals, and her voice, but also with the violin. These, however, were amateurs, and the earliest professional violinist known was Mrs. Sarah Ottey, who was born about 1695, and who about 1721-22 performed frequently at concerts, giving solos on the harpsichord, violin, and bass viol. Previous to her there was one Signora Leonora Baroni, born at Mantua about 1610, but she played the theorbo and the viol di gamba. The next is "La Diamantina," born about 1715, who is referred to by the poet Gray in 1740, when he was at Rome, as "a famous virtuosa, played on the violin divinely, and sung angelically." Anne Nicholl, born in England about 1728, played the violin before the Duke of Cumberland at Huntley in 1746, and her granddaughter, Mary Anne Paton, also, who was better known as a singer and who became Lady Lenox, and afterwards Mrs. Wood, was a violinist. The celebrated Madame Gertrude Elizabeth Mara, one of the greatest singers of her time, was a violinist when young. Her father took her to England, hoping by means of her playing to get sufficient money to give her a thorough musical education. She was then a mere child, and as she grew to womanhood her voice developed and she became one of the celebrities in the history of song. There is no doubt that the training in intervals which her practice on the violin gave her proved invaluable as an aid to her in singing. In later days several of the most celebrated singers have been also good violinists, as, for instance, Christine Nilsson and Marcella Sembrich. Maddalena Lombardi Sirmen, born about 1735, had an almost European reputation toward the end of the eighteenth century. She visited France and England about 1760-61, and was so good a player that she was looked upon almost as a rival of Nardini. She will always be celebrated in history because of the letter which was written to her by Tartini, and which is not only one of the rarities of musical literature, but constitutes also a valuable treatise on the use of the violin.