[Footnote 1: "_Some_ joint" is very good; it gives such liberty in the way of choice.] This must have been rather a crude form of _spiccato_. It is, however, plainly evident that with heavy bows, destitute of elasticity, and held underhand, it was quite impossible to allow the bow to rebound naturally from the string for this effect. Mace, whose book, "Musick's Monument," is one of the most amusing works extant, in speaking of the bowing of the viol, _i.e._, viola da gamba, or, as he calls it, "the generous viol," quotes Sympson's direction for holding the bow and then adds:-- "Yet I must confess, that for _my own Part_, I could never _Use it so well_ as when I held it 2 or 3 _Inches off the Nut_ (more or less) according to the _Length or Weight of the Bow_, for _Good Poyzing of It_: But 'tis possible, that by _Vse_ I might have made It _as Familiar to_ Myself, as It was to _Him_." He, also, was greatly exercised in his mind as to the stiffness or the reverse of the elbow, and delivered himself thuswise thereon:-- "So likewise, for the _Exact Straitness of the Bow-Arm_, which some do _Contend for_, I could _never do so well_, as with my _Arm_ (_straight enough, yet_) _something Plying, or Yielding to an Agile Bending_: and which I do conceive most _Familiarly Natural_. (For I would have no _Posture, Vrged, Disputed_, or _Contended for_; that should _Cross_, or _Force Nature_.") There is much to commend in the spirit of this last sentence. The hand and arm should never be made to do anything that is unnatural. But herein must be exercised the greatest possible judgment that the unfamiliar be not mistaken for the unnatural. Returning to the position of the thumb in violin playing we find nearly every teacher insisting on a different posture. In the "Methode de Violon," by Baillot, Rode and Kreutzer, it is set down as being correct to have the thumb opposite the middle finger. David, in his "Violin School," says that the thumb should be opposite the _first_ finger. This is to my mind most extraordinary, and I can hardly conceive it possible that so great a violinist and teacher could have maintained such an unscientific method to be correct. The loss of leverage resulting from the thumb being so far forward would be almost certain to cause the elbow to rise and give, by the dead weight of the arm, the pressure that should come from the sentient elasticity of the first and second fingers. De Beriot says the thumb should be between the second and third fingers, which is naturally the best position. Papini, with greater perception of the fact of anatomical difference in hands, says the thumb should be as near the centre of the four fingers as possible.