“A. W. was now advised to entertain one Will James, a dancing master, to instruct him on the violin, who by some was accounted excellent on that instrument, and the rather, because it was said that he had obtained his knowledge in dancing and musick in France. He spent, in all, half a yeare with him, and gained some improvement from him; yet at length he found him not a compleat master of his facultie, as Griffith and Parker were not; and, to say the truth, there was no complete master in Oxon for that instrument, because it _had not hitherto been used in consort_ among gentlemen, only by common musitians, who played but two parts. The gentlemen in private meetings, which A. W. frequented, played three, four, and five parts with viols, as treble-viol, tenor, counter tenor, and bass, with an Organ, virginal or harpsicon joyn’d with them; and they esteemed a violin to be an instrument only belonging to a _common fiddler_, and could not endure that it should come among them, for feare of making their meetings to be vaine and fiddling. But before the restoration of King Charles II, and especially after, viols began to be out of fashion, and only violins used, as treble-violin, tenor, and bass violin; and the King, according to the French mode, would have 24 violins playing before him while he was at meales, as being more airie and brisk than viols.” Under the year 1658 he informs us that: “Tho. Baltzar, a Lubecker borne, and the most famous artist for the violin that the world had yet produced, was now in Oxon. And this day (July 24th), A. W. was with him and Mr. Ed. Low at the Meeting house of Will Ellis. A. W. did then and there, to his very great astonishment, heare him play on the violin. He then saw him run up his fingers to the end of the finger-board of the violin, and run them back insensibly, and all in alacrity and in very good tune, which he nor any in England saw the like before. A. W. entertained him and Mr. Low with what the house could then afford, and afterwards he invited them to the tavern; but they being engag’d to goe to other company, he could no more heare him play or see him play at that time. Afterwards he came to one of the weekly meetings, at Mr. Ellis’s House, and he played to the wonder of all the auditory; and exercising his fingers and instrument several wayes to the utmost of his power. Wilson, thereupon, the public professor (the greatest judge of musick that ever was) did, after his humoursome way stoope downe to Baltzar’s feet to see whether he had a huff (hoof) on, that is to say, to see whether he was a devil or not, because he acted beyond the parts of man.”