lians as Scarlatti, Geminiani, Vivaldi, Locatelli,
Boccherini, Tartini, Piccini, Viotti, and Nardini; while in France it
was the epoch of Lecler and Gravinies, composers of violin music of
the highest class. Under the stimulus of such a general art culture the
makers of the violin must have enjoyed large patronage, and the more
eminent artists have received highly remunerative prices for their
labors, and, correlative to this practical success, a powerful stimulus
toward perfecting the design and workmanship of their instruments. These
plain artisans lived quiet and simple lives, but they bent their whole
souls to the work, and belonged to the class of minds of which Carlyle
speaks: "In a word, they willed one thing to which all other things were
made subordinate and subservient, and therefore they accomplished it.
The wedge will rend rocks, but its edge must be sharp and single; if it
be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces and will rend nothing."

II.

So much said concerning the general conditions under which the craft
of violin-making reached such splendid excellence, the attention of the
reader is invited to the greatest masters of the Cremona school.

"The instrument on which he played
Was in Cremona's workshops made,
By a great master of the past,
Ere yet was lost the art divine;
Fashioned of maple and of pine,
That in Tyrolean forests vast
Had rooked and wrestled with the blast.

"Exquisite was it in design,
A marvel of the lutist's art,
Perfect in each minutest part;
And in its hollow chamber thus
The maker from whose hand it came
Had written his unrivaled name,
'Antonius Stradivarius.'"

The great artist whose work is thus made the subject of Longfellow's
verse was born at Cremona in 1644. His renown is beyond that of all
others, and his praise has been sounded by poet, artist, and musician.
He has received the homage of two centuries, and his name is as little
likely to be dethroned from its special place as that of Shakespeare
or Homer. Though many interesting particulars are known concerning
his life, all attempt has failed to obtain any connected record of the
principal events of his career. Perhaps there is no need, for there
is ample reason to believe that Antonius Stradiuarius lived a quiet,
uncheckered, monotonous existence, absorbed in his labor of making
violins, and caring for nothing in the outside world which d