Towards the end of the 16th century, the Violin is found indicated in some Italian scores, thus:—_piccoli Violini alla Francese_; which circumstance has been sometimes alleged as rendering it probable, that the reduction of the old viol or viola to the present dimensions of the Violin took place in _France_, rather than in Italy: but the fact does not seem to offer a sufficient basis for the conjecture, when it is considered that no instruments of French construction, corresponding with the Violin in its present form, and of as early a date as those which can be produced of Italian make, are known to exist. It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that these _piccoli Violini_, or little Violins, were not identical with the Violin proper;—although Mr. Hogarth[3] (from whose respectable authority I am rather loth to differ) quotes the phrase as one tending to the support of the French claim. The term in question, which occurs, particularly, in Monteverde’s Opera of _Orfeo_, printed at Venice in 1615, seems to me to imply merely some French modification of the already invented Italian model—a modification applying to the size, and possibly also to some minor details in the form. The French writer, Mersennus, who designates all instruments of the violin and viol class under the term _barbiton_, describes one of them, the least of the tribe, as the _lesser barbiton_. This latter was a small violin invented for the use of the dancing-masters of France, and of such form and dimensions as to be capable of being carried in a case or sheath in the pocket. It is the origin of the instrument which in England is called a _Kit_, and which is now made in the form of a violin.—Is it too great a stretch of conjecture, to hint, that this may, possibly, have been the kind of thing intended by the term above quoted? That curious enquirer, Mr. Gardiner, in his “Music of Nature,” assigns to Italy the local origin of the Violin, but without placing the date as near to exactness as it might have been. He makes it to have been “about the year 1600.” He might safely have gone thirty or forty years farther back, at least, notwithstanding that the shape of the instrument, towards the end of the 16th century, has been supposed, by Hawkins, to have been rather vague and undetermined[4]. The transition from the old shapes to the new _had_ occurred, though it was as yet far from universal. It is sufficient that the change had commenced. Admitting the genuine and perfect violin to be rightfully assignable to the Italians, it may be of some interest, now, to present a few more records relating, principally, to the instrument in its _imperfect_ character, when it bore only that sort of analogy to the true instrument, that the ‘satyr’ is said to have borne to ‘Hyperion.’