It is conceivable that a manufacture so successful as Violin-making proves itself to have been in Italy during the seventeenth and part of the eighteenth centuries, should give rise to scientific inquiry, in order to discover the reason of the excellence of the best Italian instruments, and, if possible, the principles or laws which guided the makers in the exercise of their genius. That investigations of this character should be attended with important results in connection with the science of acoustics, is to be expected. As to laws or principles of a scientific character, I doubt whether such were recognised or understood when the excellence of the manufacture was greatest, believing that Violin makers of the order of Stradivari must be like poets, "born artificers, not made." The chief merits of Stradivari and his contemporary makers were intuitive. Their rules, having their origin in experience, were applied as dictated by their marvellous sense of touch and cunning, with results infinitely superior to any obtained with the aid of the most approved mechanical contrivances. When to these considerations we add that devotedness of purpose, without which nothing really great in art has been accomplished, we have a catalogue of excellences sufficient to account for the greatness of their achievements. Turning again to the manuscript of Arisi, we find that "On the 12th of May, 1701, Don Antonio Cavezudo, leader of the private orchestra of King Charles II. of Spain, wrote a highly complimentary letter to Stradivari from Madrid, assuring him that though he had received bow instruments from several makers, for different courts, yet he had never been able to obtain them of such a refined and beautiful tone as those made by him." Arisi adds that Don Antonio Cavezudo was also in the service of the Duke of Anjou. M. Fetis, in his notice of Stradivari,[26] remarks: "The life of Antonio Stradivari was as tranquil as his calling was peaceful. The year 1702, alone, must have caused him much disquiet, when, during the war concerning the succession, the city of Cremona was taken by Marshal Villeroy, retaken by Prince Eugene, and finally taken a third time by the French; but after that period Italy enjoyed a long tranquillity, in which the old age of the artist glided peacefully away." [Footnote 26: "Notice of Anthony Stradivari," by F. J. Fetis, translated by John Bishop. 1864.]