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.Dubourg, George
History
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.
Dubourg, George
Violin; Violinists -- Biography
_A Device for a Dinner._—Doctor Arne once went to Cannons, the seat of
the late Duke of Chandos, to assist at the performance of an oratorio in
the Chapel of Whitchurch, but such was the throng of company, that no
provisions were to be procured at the Duke’s house. On going to the
Chandos Arms, in the town of Edgeware, the Doctor made his way into the
kitchen, where he found only a leg of mutton on the spit. This, the
waiter informed him, was bespoken by a party of gentlemen. The Doctor
(rubbing his elbow—his usual habit) exclaimed, “I’ll have that
mutton—give me a _fiddle-string_.” He took the fiddle-string, cut it in
pieces, and, privately sprinkling it over the mutton, walked out of the
kitchen. Then, waiting very patiently till the waiter had served it up,
he heard one of the gentlemen exclaim—“Waiter! this meat is full of
_maggots_: take it away!” This was what the Doctor expected.—“Here, give
it _me_.”—“O, sir,” says the waiter, “you can’t eat it—’tis full of
maggots.”—“Nay, never mind,” cries the Doctor, “fiddlers have strong
stomachs.” So, bearing it away, and scraping off the catgut, he got a
hearty dinner.
_A “Practising” Coachman._—Too true it is that Nature has not gifted all
mortals with a taste for music. Shakspeare tells us that the man who
hath not music in his soul is fit for “broils;” and the Duchess of
Ragusa appears to have inclined to his opinion, if we may judge from an
occurrence in which she was concerned some years since. Finding herself
offended that the coachman of a certain Miss Ozenne, her neighbour,
should practise the violin too much in the vicinity of her ducal ears,
she summoned the lady, the coachman, and the violin, before the
_Tribunal de Police_, for making a “tapage injurieux et nocturne.” In
vain the lady pleaded the right of her domestics to make musicians of
themselves, if they could: the Duchess declared it was done solely and
purely for her annoyance; the _Commissaire du Quartier_ declared that
the noise consisted of “sons aigus, bruyans, et dissonans;” and Miss
Ozenne was condemned to be imprisoned one day, and to be fined to the
amount of ten shillings.—(_New Monthly Magazine._)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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