308 Bev. H. B. Haweis on Old Violins. [Feb. 20, 



of beauty ; on each side the undulating lines, as from the bosom of a 

 wave, flow down and seem to eddy up into the four corners, where 

 they are caught and refined away into these inimitable angles. The 

 scroll is strong and elegant, the sound-holes exquisitely cut. The 

 varnish is not hard and silicate, but mellow as amber or sunlit water. 

 There is a violin of 1736, bearing date and name ; it was made in the 

 master's ninety- second year. He made down to the last, but latterly 

 seldom signed his work. Alas ! that has been since done for him by 

 thousands who would be at pains to make even a respectable tub." 



Mentioning Carlo Bergonzi as the chief pupil of Stradiuarius, 

 Mr. Haweis alluded briefly to the other Italian schools of Venice, 

 Naples, &c., and then passed to the French school, dwelling on Pique 

 and Lupot, 1758-1824 ; the German school, showing a specimen of 

 Jacob Steiner, 1684, but slightly touched with the Cremonese in- 

 fluence ; the " English Amati " Banks, Foster, and Duke, and calling 

 attention to the fact that while France clave to Cremona from the 

 first, England adopted the popular German Steiner, for nearly 100 

 years before returning to the Italian model. 



In the course of the lecture His Eoyal Highness the Duke of 

 Edinburgh's fine Stradiuarius, 1728, made by the master for Count 

 Platen, given by him to the present Duke of Cambridge's father, and 

 by the present Duke to His Eoyal Highness of Edinburgh, was 

 exhibited — and another which, His Royal Highness had informed 

 Mr. Haweis, had belonged to the Emperor Alexander II., and was, in 

 fact, the property of the Eussian Royal Family. 



After noticing the reasons of the Cremonese supremacy as con- 

 sisting in the selection and arrangement of wood, obedience to certain 

 curves and thicknesses, which would vary endlessly according to the 

 acoustical properties of each piece, the wood being cut thicker when 

 soft and thinner when hard, the varnish, the sunny climate, the 

 workmanship, and the lapse of years, Mr. Haweis closed the lecture 

 by some practical illustrations on the sound of the violin, playing a 

 few passages on several violins to illustrate their different qualities. 



