Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 40289-h.htm or 40289-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40289/40289-h/40289-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40289/40289-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through the the Google Books Library Project. See http://books.google.com/books?vid=7y0DAAAAQAAJ&id Transcriber's note: Unmatched double quotation marks appear as they did in the original book. THE VIOLIN: Some Account of That Leading Instrument, and Its Most Eminent Professors, from Its Earliest Date to the Present Time; with Hints to Amateurs, Anecdotes, etc. by GEORGE DUBOURG. FOURTH EDITION, Revised and Considerably Enlarged. LONDON: Robert Cocks and Co. Publishers to the Queen, New Burlington Street; Simpkin, Marshall and Co. Stationers'-Hall Court. MDCCCLII. London: Printed by J. Mallett, Wardour Street. PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. After a lapse of nearly sixteen years since this little work first appeared in print, I have been called upon to prepare it anew for the press, incorporating with it the additional matter necessary for the extension of the subject to the present time. My new readers may like to know, at the outset, what is the intended scope of the following pages. This is soon explained. My object has been to present to the cultivators of the Violin, whether students or proficients, such a sketch (however slight) of the rise and progress of that instrument, accompanied with particulars concerning its more prominent professors, and with incidental anecdotes, as might help to enliven their interest in it, and a little to enlarge what may be called their _circumstantial_ acquaintance with it. This humble object has not been altogether, I trust, without its accomplishment;—and here, while commending my renovated manual to the indulgent notice of the now happily increasing community of violin votaries, I would not forget to acknowledge, gratefully, the liberal and generous appreciation with which, when it first ventured forth, it was met by the public press, and introduced into musical society. G. D. _Brighton, August, 1852._ CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE VIOLIN.