Finally we would express our obligations to Mr. Robert Harrison for the time and thought which he has devoted to the collation of materials for the memoir, and to his congenial task of editing the whole work. W. E. HILL & SONS. NEW BOND STREET, _March, 1891_. The block on the cover represents the Arms of the town of Cremona. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _TO A STRADIVARI VIOLIN._ O precious treasury of sounds exquisite, The music of all time within thee sings! Old melodies, and quaint strange whisperings Of bye-gone songs that linger and invite. Earth’s cry of pain, heaven’s anthems of delight. The hopes and fears of love’s imaginings, All found a voice upon thy thrilling strings! Thou singest still, with changes infinite, The heights and depths of this strange human life With all its sorrows or its ecstasies, Its thoughts unuttered, its most voiceless cries; One pure tone rising always through the strife Intense, heart-searching. Sorrow in such setting Is a sweet dream and a more sweet forgetting. F. S. [Illustration] [Illustration: Back of the Salabue Stradivari. _Vincent Brooks, Day & Son Lith._ ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] _THE SALABUE STRADIVARI._ THE Exhibition of Ancient Musical Instruments, held at the South Kensington Museum in 1872, comprised a Collection of Violins such as had never before been brought together, and afforded to the musical amateur an unprecedented opportunity of studying the beauties of some of the most precious instruments in Europe. Of these, perhaps none excited so much interest among connoisseurs as a Violin by Stradivari, lent by M^{sr}. Vuillaume, the celebrated Parisian maker and dealer, and thus described by him in the official Catalogue of the Exhibition.[1] 91. Violin. By A. Stradivarius, 1716. “_Le Messie._”