declarations, in prose, in verse, and in hautboy
music. She listened to them with that
perfidious show of favour of which coquettes
possess the secret. This lasted until her hospitable
and inconsolable heart began to tire of his
attentions, preferring another's. The hautboy
helped her to get rid of him.

"Monsieur Charles," she said one evening,
"I should like to see you perfect, and you have
one defect."

"What is it?" asked Charles, much
surprised.

"You play the hautboy ill."

"Very well; I will leave off playing, if you
desire it."

"On the contrary, I wish you to play it well.
Go to Paris, take lessons of good masters, and
when you come back we will see if I can
accept you as my husband."

The lover, after making a few timid objections,
yielded to the caprice of the woman he
adored. He took lessons in Paris, and
practised six hours a day. On his return, he
selected the first moonlight night, and stole
under his beloved widow's window, hautboy in
hand, and treated her to an unexpected serenade.
But, whether through emotion, or need
of more practice, he "quacked" louder and
more frequently than ever. The serenade was
interrupted by peals of laughter from the widow's
window. That very night he started for
America, where he pined away and died, sighing
with his last breath, " The hautboy has been the
bane of my happiness. If I had not played the
hautboy she would have loved me—perhaps. If
I had only thought how easy it is, not to play the
hautboy!"

The date of the invention of the violin is
very doubtful. Some think it was introduced
by the Crusaders, who obtained it from some
Indian population. Others hold that it is of
French origin, as appears to be indicated by the
earliest Italian scores, where it is designated as
the "piccolo violino alla Francese," the little
violin after the French fashion. The oldest
violin known, was made by Jean Kerlin, a Breton
lute-maker, whose name it bears, with the
date 1449. It was in the possession of M.
Koliker, in Paris, at the beginning of the
present century. The etymology of the word
violin is as uncertain as the exact time of its
invention.

To judge by the numerous experiments, all
unavailing, which have been made to modify the
form of the violin, we are led to conclude that
it has long since attained its architective
perfection. The fiddle-maker's art is the only one
which makes no progress. Its efforts tend to
no improvement, but simply to remain stationary,
by imitating the productions of Maggini,
Steiner, Guarnerius, and Stradiverius. The
structure of the violin, apparently so simple
that it seems to be formed merely of four boards
of unequal size, a handle, and four pegs, is
nevertheless very complicated. There are in its
structure impenetrable mysteries which puzzle
and bewilder men of science. Still, it cannot
be doubted that the old makers were guided by
certain principles, based on acoustics and
mathematics. Chance does not produce good
results unfailingly and constantly. However that
may be, the tradition of those principles was
lost; as is proved by the enormous number of
inferior violins manufactured in Europe during
the close of the last century.

The violin is undoubtedly the most poetic,
the most passionate, the most expressive, of all
instruments. In the orchestra, it maintains such
a pre-eminence over wind instruments, that they
can never be considered as its rivals. In
symphonies, as well as in accompaniments, the
violin constantly keeps up the musical conversation.
Its four strings give it more than four
octaves. The quality of its tone, which combines
sweetness with vivacity, gives it an immense
superiority; and in the power of modifying its
sounds and expressing the accents of passion, it
competes with the human voice.

The violin's sympathetic and expressive tones,
and the passionate music of which it is the
dramatic interpreter, have incontestably a
sensible influence on the "morale" of the violinist.
He is usually impassioned, irritable, of uncertain
temper, proud, impressionable to excess,
but timid. His gaiety, like the violin's, has a
touch of folly— of the burlesque often. In his
pleasantries, he juggles with words, exactly as
he juggles with notes when he performs Paganini's
"Carnival of Venice," or Pilet's " Malbrook."
He is sad with no cause for sadness,
and passes without transition from the sombre
fourth string of his humour to the petulant
merriment of his treble string. You speak to
him, and his thoughts are occupied with some
totally different subject. The violinist has
presentiments and visions, and is fond of reading
fairy tales. " The Devil's Sonata," necessarily,
is the composition of a violinist.

'In person, the violinist is eminently distinguished.
His countenance, perfectly oval,
is pale; his nose is long and fantastic; his
mouth is wide; his eyes are small but full of
fire and fascination. His figure is slender. Did
you ever see a violinist of real genius, who was
fat? As an additional characteristic, he wears
his hair long.

In dress he is extremely particular, and likes
to bedeck himself with jewellery. Several of
the trinkets he wears were given by great personages
in token of their satisfaction; but others
were purchased by himself, although he passes
them all off as royal gifts. The violinist was
the last man in France to give up wearing straps
to his trousers. He always keeps his coat
buttoned, and the varnish of his boots is
irreproachable. The hat alone, among all the
details of the toilette, is sometimes of the shocking
bad sort; but a bad hat passes in certain
societies where the head takes precedence of the
thing which covers it.

When he performs in public, the violinist
endeavours to excite the interest of his audience
by strange attitudes and flashing glances. His