Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1880-04-23
Old NiOIins.

llFOm lue lsDuuou AimtHsl
The Theatre of the Royal Institution was
crowded on the occasion Of Mr. Haweis's lee
ture on Friday evening Among other yio-
Inns he exhibited two by Stradimarius, one be-
longing to the Emperor of Russia, the other
lent by his Royal Highness the Duke of Ed
inburgh-a Gaspar di Salo bass, found in the
late Tarsio's bedroom with his corpse. The
lecturer began by saying that the collection
of viOlins and lassCs now before the audience,
weighing but a few ounces each, represented
several thousand pounds worth. The variety
in shape and style of the yiol-tribe ancient
and modern, showed the inexhaustible fasci-
nation it possessed over the mind
deal tonight with the construction, the
history aud the sound of the violin. To be-
gin with the wood. At Brescia makers used
pear, lemon and ash at Cremona, maple,
sycamore and, Of course, pine. The wood
came into the markets of Mlntua, Brescia,
Cremona, Venice and Milan from the Swiss
Southern Tyrol, unlimited in supply often
mighty timbers of great age-plentiful then,
scarcer now. The makers had their pick /;
they tested it for instensity and quality. Cut
strips of wood and strike them, you will see
how they will vary in musical sound When
a good acoustic beam was found the maker
kept 1t for his best work. In Joseph Guar
nerius and Stradmarius the same pine tree
crops up at intervals Of years. good maker
will patch and join and inlay to retain every
particle of tried timber Old wood is oddly
vocal. As | sat in my room surrounded by
these instruments / could not cough or move
without ghostly voices answering me from
the sixteenth seventeenth aud eighteenth
centuries and even the old-scaSoned backs
aud bellies of unstrung yiolns are full of
echoes.
Taking violin and tearing it open the lee
turer continued The violin is made Of
fifty-eight or seventy pieces. 1t is a miracle
Of construction. 1t is as light AS a feather
aud aS strong As n horse. Wood about as
thick as half crown, by exquisite adjustment
resists for centuries a pressure Of several
hundred weight. The belly of soft deal, the
back Of hard sycamore, are united 10y six ribs
Of sycamore supported by twelve blocks with
Innings The souud.bar running obhqucly
under the left foot OF the bridge is the nery-
Gus system Of the violin, the sound. post sup
porting the bridge is the soul, through it pass
all the heart -throbs or vibrations generated
between the back and the belly on its posi-
ton depends mcllowness. tightuess, or inten-
sity of sound. The prodigious strain of the
strings is resisted first by the arch of the
belly, then 10y the ribs. strengthened with the
upright blocks, the pressure among which is
evenly distributed by the Innings which unite
aud sound post and back
After describing the other parts Of the in
strument Mr.. Haweis alluded TO the Gre moua
varnish, which he described after Mr.. Charles
Reade rs probably heterogeneous yarnish,
first of oil with gum in solution, then of color
evaporated in spirit. "A red and yellow
gum appear to have been used and combined.
Although it was said that the secret was now
lost bod, as late AS $3.50, who employed the
Fendts and Lott and always vanished HIM
self, had the receipt for something very like
the Cremona varuish and, ately, Mr.. Per-
kns has not only aualyzed the varnish of
Joseph Guarnerius and found amber in it,
but has himself produced varnish of an ex-
traordinary quality.
The violin is not an invention, it is a
growth it has come together, it is the sur
yival of the fittest. About the eleventh cen
tury AL instrument of the viol tribe emerged
with frrts. but $50 yearsNyere required to get
rid Of these marplots before even a step
toward the true viol could be made Before
the end of the fourteenth century viols were
made in great profusion of every size and
shape-the knee viol, the bass viOl, viol de
GAMBIA, of which certain South Kensington
specimens are before you. But the rise Of
the true violin tribe begins with the rise of
modern music. About the time when CARTS
simi and nteyerde-1jSj-lG7 lG72-discovere
the true octave and the perfect cadence, part
singing received a new impulse the human
voice was discovered to fall naturally into
soprano. contralto, tenor and bass, and yiol
instruments being adapted to these four di-
visions, the violin, tenor, base, and later con-
trabaSso. before me, gradually separated
themselves from the confused HebUtR of yiols
behind ne, and shone out clearly as the true
planetary system of the musical firmament."