e evidence,
however, serves in some instances to counterbalance the lack of
detail.

Enquiry into the history of any science seldom fails to make us
acquainted with men whose views and opinions were formulated prior to
the production of well-digested evidence in favour of their
premises--a condition of things resulting oftentimes in their
judgments being post-dated, and their names in consequence severed
from them; in short--

"Elder times have worn the same,
Though new ones get the name."

In relation to our subject, the Hon. Roger North, Attorney-General to
King James the Second, occupies a position of the kind described. In
his work entitled "Memoirs of Music," written in the early part of the
eighteenth century, we have the ingenious author's views as to the
source from whence sprung the progenitor of the long line of Fiddle
and Viol. His treatment of the subject displays a truly commendable
amount of skill and judgment, and more so when we consider the limited
sources of information at his disposal in comparison with those at the
service of subsequent musical authors. He says, "There is no hint
where the Viol kind came first in use." "But as to the invention which
is so perfectly novel as not to have been heard of before Augustulus,
the last of the Roman Emperors, I cannot but esteem it perfectly
Gothic." "I suppose that at first it was like its native country, rude
and gross, and at the early importation it was of the lesser kind
which they called Viola da Bracchia, and since the Violin." He
concludes by expressing his belief that the Hebrews did not sound
their "lutes and guitars with the scratch of an horse-tail bow." These
opinions of Roger North are for the most part identical with those
held by well-known promoters of the Northern view of our subject.[12]

[Footnote 12: Paul Lacroix remarks, in "The Arts of the Middle Ages":
"Stringed instruments that were played on by means of bows were not
known before the fifth century, and belonged to the Northern races."
Sir Gore Ouseley, in his English edition of Naumann's "History of
Music," commenting upon the author's statement that "the Rebab was
introduced by Arabs into Southern Europe, and may be the precursor of
all our modern stringed instruments," says, "From this view I am
compelled to dissent," and speaks in favour of the Northern origin.
William Chappell, "Popular Music of the Olden Times," remarks: "I will
not follow M. Fetis in his newly adopt