Germany and Italy may _each_ be regarded as an abiding realm of sweet sounds, a special nursery and _home_ of music. They are the two countries from which, since the days of modern civilization, the great supplies of musical thought and feeling have been diffused abroad, for the delight of nations;—the _feeling_, for the most part, proceeding from Italy, and the _thought_ from Germany, comformably to the characteristics of the two people respectively. Impulse and passion predominate on the Italian side—intellect and fancy on the German, and the division into two great schools, or systems, marked severally by these opposite qualities, takes its date from about the commencement of the 18th century. The two musical _natures_, thus distinguished from each other, have found each a different channel for its _expression_—that of Italy becoming essentially _vocal_, that of Germany, _instrumental_. Italian music is fresh from the heart, spontaneous, and _glowing_ with melody: German music, true to the spirit of its birth-place, is either grave and solid, or wild and fantastic. Less simple than the Italian in its elements, the German musical genius has sought its chief glory amid the intricate combinations of orchestral science, where its laborious and meditative turn can have fullest exposition. Passing from these general remarks to a consideration of the German School of the _Violin_, in particular, we may observe, that, although derived originally, like all the others, from that of Italy, and contracting no inconsiderable obligations to it in its progress, it has been, on the whole, much less indebted to the Italians for resources and support, than the School either of France or England. The cause of this arises out of the admitted fact, that the Germans are essentially a more musical people[50]—are more deeply imbued with a musical character of their own—than the natives of the two latter countries. They have been less willing, as well as less needing, than these, to incur the debt to Italy—and certainly less willing to add to its amount. The love of the instrument diffused itself very speedily among them (the Germans), and their own powerful musical organization enabled them not only to modify more promptly, after their own character, the hints which they received from its original Italian cultivators, but to be satisfied with a smaller quantity of confirmation from the same source. Their comparative independence, however, or disinclination to borrow, has been somewhat unfavourable to the completeness of their success as _performers_ on the violin. They have, as it were, impressed their own stamp and character upon it —that is to say, they have attained an honest solidity of execution, of high value in orchestral playing; but, with a few prominent exceptions, such as Kiesewetter and Mayseder, they seem to have neglected, as uncongenial to them, the lighter graces and refinements which have been so readily caught up by the more imitative Frenchman.