ur
power, and resembling each other as much as you can cut them, but--
cut by an artist.

[Illustration: PLATE XIII.]

Proceeding to put you in the way of doing this, I bore a small hole
with the little piercer tool 0, and, inserting the fine cutter of
fret saw, tool 69, inside the belly, so that I have the upper side
to the eye, I press the said fine saw into the slot of the screw,
and, with spring pliers 51, I fix it for cutting. Then I hold the
belly with the left hand level against the lower part of my breast,
and cut out a rough passage round the inner part of the soundhole,
never touching the line, though, but leaving that for the knife 8,
which follows.

Where I must especially caution you in the use of this fret saw, is
at the upper and lower points which face the holes, as they are so
liable to snap there, especially at the lower. Still, with care, you
will manage to do this neatly and safely, as you see I have done
one, and now proceed to work with the knife mentioned.

This knife, as you see, is very much worn, and is very thin and very
sharp. And the two latter characteristics it _must_ possess, as you
will one and all of you find when you come to use such, for, as I
cut from the inside, the steel continually cropping up here and
there, in curves and near to corners, I must be prepared at any
moment to work up or down, backwards or forwards, with the grain or
against it, until I get somewhat of the shape I wish. But not nearly
all I want; so I trim the longer lines until they bend gracefully,
ready to fall as does the head of a rocket before it bursts, or give
a majestic sweep at the base where they terminate in the spread
wing. The apertures at the summit and base I round carefully off;
the cuts at the centre of the figure, as a break, as finish to what
was unfinished without it, and as a guide to determine the position
of the bridge.

And you will conclude this finishes the one soundhole; but it does
not, for after I have dressed down the work on the outside with No.
0 sandpaper, there is not a clean bit about it--not a curve or sweep
or any part true; and when I retouch it all over, and damp it all
over after doing that, when it dries, there are still bits I don't
like, and patiently trim it and touch it once or twice again, as I
have done to many a poem, to be, perhaps, only engraved in water, or
ice at the best; typical, not only of its reception by the world,
but of its ultimate starvation and