ficult, unless the repairer has considerable artistic
knowledge, to keep or reproduce the exact form if the half or more of
the peg-box and adjacent portions are cut clean away as is often done.

Scrolls of masterly design and execution are frequently met with
mounted on a peg-box, selected or carved, without the least reference
to the style of the original, imparting to the whole a hideously mixed
and vulgar aspect. Save then, every morsel of the original work that
you possibly can, especially if it be the work of old Italian makers,
as it will be sure to have about it some points of interest, or that
will call for your admiration of its artistic merits. Bear in mind that
at the present day utility and low price are "to the front."
Unfortunately for art, a very large section of the public called
musical, ignore the artistic aspect of the violin, apart from its
individual authorship and monetary equivalent, and think almost
solely--not always in the right way--about its working or sounding
capacity. To them one sort of curled heading to the peg-box is as good
as another, if strong enough, the whole of this part of the mechanism
being simply dedicated to the winding up of unwilling "catgut." The
old masters, their pupils, and modern imitators, have thought
otherwise and treated this portion of the structure as that in which
they could concentrate much of their best artistic talent. To them it
has been the crowning head piece of the work, and requiring for effect
the closest attention in detail. Every part of it has received, by each
master, a distinctive touch of tool, or conception of design, that the
modern repairer should earnestly "read, mark, learn, and inwardly
digest," so that if a small portion is by carelessness, or unavoidable
accident, chipped off, the contour may not by restoration (?) be spoilt,
or the flow of line ruinously disturbed. Some remarks might be made
by some admirers of high finish in its simple sense, about the bold
unfinished gouging of some of the old Italian makers, and queries
whether the irregularities should be studiously followed up by the
repairer, as it should unquestionably be with work of high refinement
and minute finish. The answer is at once simple and conclusive, every
part that can be preserved should be so, and well studied, that the
new work may be a continuation of the old to the minutest detail, even
to the accidental emphasis of tooling left by the maker.

The fact must not