[This section of the Work, which should have formed Chapter VIII, having been accidentally omitted in the printing, there remained no other course than, either to insert it here (as is actually done), or, by a dismissal utterly at variance with the laws of gallantry and of justice, to exclude it altogether, and so to debar the fairer portion of the community from all participation in the honours connected with the “King of Instruments”—an idea not to be for a moment entertained. If, in this volume, as in a campaigning army, the ladies find themselves placed altogether in _the rear_—let them attribute the position, in _this_ case as in _that_, to anything but disrespect.] Instead of a _bow-arm_, must ladies be allowed only the _arm_ of a _beau_? Why should not a lady play on the Violin? The common objection is, that it is ungraceful. The ladies in Boccaccio’s Decameron, however—and who shall charge _them_ with want of grace?—played on the _viol_, a bowed instrument requiring from the performer a similar position and handling to those exacted by the violin. If this latter instrument, considered in relation to a lady, _should_ be admitted to be somewhat deficient in grace,—has not the lady, out of the overflowing abundance of this quality, which is her sex’s characteristic, some of it to spare for communication to the instrument? Can she not impart some of it to whatsoever object she chooses to associate with herself? Surely, she who can transform the rudest of beings from a bear to a man, and from a man to a gentleman, can lend a few spare charms to so grateful a receiver as the fiddle, which is found to repay in so eloquent a manner the attentions bestowed on it. But if the doubters continue to shake their heads at this, I would ask them whether, after all, we are to expect grace in _every_ act and habit of a lady’s life, and call on her to reject every thing that may be thought inconsistent with it? Our modern respected fair one may, like Eve, have “heaven in her eye;” but really, looking at some of the offices which we are content to thrust upon her, it seems rather too much to insist that she shall also, like our original mother, have “grace in _all_ her movements.” Is there grace in making a pie, or cutting bread and butter, or darning a stocking? If we have grace in the _effect_, shall we be rigid to require it in the _means_ also? Now, the grace which belongs to violin-playing is _audible_ rather than _visible_, residing in the effect more than in the means: nor ought we to be such cormorants of pleasure, as to demand that the person who is filling our _ears_ with rapture, shall, at the same time, be enchanting to the utmost our _eyes_. If, then, a lady, full of soul and intelligence, is capable of expressing these through the fine medium which this instrument offers, should she be debarred from it, and restricted perhaps to the harp, because, forsooth, the grace that is merely external is found most in