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Updated: June 21, 2025
He could have passed a peaceful life gloating over Pynsons and Caxtons, and Wynkyn de Wordes, and Grolier binding, and Stradivarius, and Guarnerius, and Ming, and Maestro Giorgio of Gubbio. But Debrett got wind of the intentions of Providence, and clapped a coronet upon the head of their intended bénéficiaire without so much as with your leave or by your leave, and there he was an Earl!
In the year 1885 Jean Bott, a native of Hesse Cassel, Germany, emigrated with his wife Matilda to this country, bringing with him a celebrated violin known as "The Duke of Cambridge Stradivarius," which he had purchased in 1873 for about three thousand thalers a sum representing practically the savings of a lifetime.
This Joseph of Cremona figures in story as a man of fascinating, restless personality, who for weeks would squander time and talents and then set to work with a zeal equalling that of Master Stradivarius.
Among household curios old flutes beautifully inlaid stowed away in antique leather cases are interesting relics of former days. Violins and Harps. To many the chief charm of old instruments is found in the delicious tones and notes produced by an old violin, which, if the work of a well-known maker, commands a fancy price; among the most valuable being an authentic Stradivarius.
Paganini also gave Berlioz a commission to write a concerto for his Stradivarius viola, which resulted in a grand symphony, "Harold en Italie," founded on Byron's "Childe Harold," but still more an inspiration of his own Italian adventures, which had had a strong flavor of personal if they lacked artistic interest.
OSIER: We shall be sensible for long of that vibration from the touch of a master hand. ARDEN: An accomplished player can make a toy-shop fiddle sound you a Stradivarius. DAME DRESDEN: Have you a right to a remark, Mr. Arden? What could have detained you? ARDEN: Ah, Dame. It may have been a warning that I am a discordant instrument. I do not readily vibrate.
His ownership is limited by the necessities of his trade; when the customers are gone, he eats and sleeps in the bar-parlour. Nor is the instrument of his performances a thing of his choice; the poorest skill of the violinist may exercise itself upon a Stradivarius, but the actor is reduced to fiddle for the term of his natural life upon the face and fingers that he got from his mother.
It is a Stradivarius; Paganini knows it, takes it home with him, guards it as the apple of his eye; from an instrument that for me would never have been more than a resonant wooden box he draws chords that make men weep, and love, and fall into a very ecstasy; he directs in his will that they bury this violin with him in his coffin.
Last of all, a little fellow crouching in the mud, almost lost in a cauldron, which he was scraping with a tile, and from which he was evoking a sound that would have made Stradivarius swoon. Near the fire was a hogshead, and on the hogshead a beggar. This was the king on his throne.
The violin which my brother was in the habit of using was a fine Pressenda, given to him on his fifteenth birthday by Mr. Thoresby, his guardian. It was of that maker's later and best period, and a copy of the Stradivarius model. John took this from its case and laid it side by side with his new discovery, meaning to compare them for size and form.
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