As violinists of _display_, therefore, they must be content to rank below the French. They are below them in that which their dignity has not thought proper to make the subject of competition—the “manual exercise” of the instrument. They are inferior in _execution_, and therefore less effective as solo-players; for though the German violinists have, in recent times, enjoyed some repute for their skill in fingering difficult passages with the left hand, they have frequently been deficient with the right; that is to say, indifferently versed in the dexterities of the bow. The ingenious author of “A Ramble among the Musicians of Germany” has considered the Violin School of that country, at present, to be inferior, not only to the French—which there is no contesting—but also to that of England. In this latter notion I cannot help thinking him mistaken—and I would appeal to his own declaration, that although in Germany “one may find no band equal to that of the Philharmonic Society, fifty may be found, _only_ inferior to it.” This fact supposes of necessity a very large body of good sound violin-players, whose united merits render it scarcely possible to regard the state of the art in their country as _inferior_ to what it is in ours. The Germans have, after all admitted drawbacks, a high renown in connection with that leading instrument which it is the business of these pages to celebrate. They have the renown that justly attaches to the production of the greatest _writers_ of all for the _Violin Family_. Their compositions for the instrument, in its _single_ state, are perhaps over-laboured, over-full of chromatic passages, and wanting in the broad, simple, vocal character of the Italian music of the same class;—they have been content, individually, to _talk_ with the violin, whilst the Italians have _sung_ with it;—but—they have tasked their own genius to find scope for its powers in the aggregate—to develop its resources _in combination_ with those instruments that are its immediate relatives; and, in this collective character, they have given new triumphs to it. The names of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, at once suggest themselves, and assert for their country, under this view, a superiority which the world does not seek to dispute. In the _quartetts_, and other instrumental pieces, up to _symphonies_ inclusive, which have been produced by these great men, all the higher capabilities of bowed instruments are consulted and brought forward, with a nicety of discernment, and a richness, variety, and grandeur of effect, which excite equally our surprise and gratification.—Let us now consider, in their order, the principal German masters whose eminence relates particularly to the violin.