them to follow his example, which they invariably do. Scarcely a day passes without my hearing of a Cremona having been secured in the manner I have attempted to describe. My experience, however, teaches me that the whole thing is a delusion, and that the thoroughbred Cremona does not fall away from the companionship of its equals, once in the space of a lifetime, and that when this does happen, the instrument rarely falls to the bargain-hunter. The following exceptional incident will, I hope, not be found wanting in interest as bearing on this theme. A votary of the Violin purchased an old Fiddle for some two or three pounds from a general dealer in musical instruments in his neighbourhood. He was well satisfied with his acquisition; and after subjecting it to a course of judicious regulation, so great were the improvements effected that the vendor regretted having sold it for such a trifling sum, and the more so when it was whispered about that the instrument was a veritable Amati--a report, by the way, very far wide of the mark, as it was simply an old Tyrolean copy. Some little time after the occurrence related, the lover of Violins heard that the same instrument-seller from whom he purchased the imagined Amati, had secured a job lot of some half-dozen old Fiddles, the remnant of an old London music-seller's stock, and that he was offering them for sale. Our hero decided to pay another visit, and judge of the merits of the new wares, with a view to a second investment. Upon presenting himself to the local seller of Violins, he was at once informed that if he selected _any_ instrument from the lot, he must be prepared to pay 10 pounds, the dealer having no intention of again committing his former error in selling a Cremona for some forty shillings. Upon this understanding the visitor proceeded to examine the little stock, which he found in a very disordered condition--bridgeless, stringless, and dusty. Among the whole tribe, however, was a Violin which seemed to elbow its way to the front of the group, and clamour for the attention of which it appeared to deem itself worthy. Unable to resist its seeming appeal, the intending purchaser decided to remove it from the atmosphere of its companions, and begged that he might be permitted to take the importuning Fiddle and string it in order to test its qualities. His request being acceded to, he carried it away. Upon reaching home, he took it from its case, and gently removed the dust of years. The varnish appeared to him as something very different from any he had ever seen before on a Violin; and being an artist by profession, qualities of colours were pretty well understood by him. With the Violin poised on his knee, somewhat after the manner seen in the well-known picture of Stradivari in his workshop, he thus communed with himself: "I have never seen the much-spoken-of Cremonese varnish, but if this instrument has it not, its lustre must indeed be more