a MS.
in the Bodleian Library) and last show a return to the ninth century
form in Fig. 16.

[Illustration: FIG. 19.]

This is a form that is found so continually through all the
centuries, down to the seventeenth and eighteenth, that I am inclined
to the belief that it is fairly accurate. It is very much like the
outline of the modern double bass bow. In Fig. 20 are given some
thirteenth century bows: the one with the curious sword-hilt is
remarkable. In the others we find a return to more primitive lines.

[Illustration: FIG. 20.]

The fourteenth century bows have very little to distinguish them from
those of preceding ages, and I give the most noticeable examples I
have found in Fig. 21. The second is a very advanced type. Against
these must be set those in Fig. 22.

[Illustration: FIG. 21.]

[Illustration: FIG. 22.]

These appear to me as being most probably conventional
representations, or copied from older works as suggested above.

Of fifteenth century bows, the pictorial and plastic arts record
those shown in Fig. 23, together with the usual atavism or return to
earlier types.

[Illustration: FIG. 23.]

This atavism, if credible, is most marked in the sixteenth century as
witness those in Fig. 24.

[Illustration: FIG. 24.]

Here are bows that take us back to before the Norman Conquest, drawn
by artists who were contemporary with Gasparo da Salo and Andreas
Amati. It is quite out of the question to suppose that such bows were
used at that time.

The drawings of seventeenth century bows are more convincing. We then
get a more definite idea of the nut, which was in most cases a
fixture. Also, the head begins to mould itself into something
approaching the form of the modern "hatchet."

Although there are cases of bows in drawings as far back as the
eleventh century (see Fig. 18, etc.) showing great advances, it is
not until reaching the seventeenth century, that one can say with any
degree of confidence that the perfect bow is on the horizon.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MODERN BOW--ORNAMENTATION--A POSSIBLE
STRADIVARI BOW--THE MOVABLE NUT--THE CREMAILLERE--THE SCREW NUT.

I find it a matter for extreme regret that there should be such a
large element of uncertainty in what I am able to bring forward of
the earlier historical aspect of the bow. Of its primitive use one
can do little more than examine contemporary evidence in the East,
and then assume, albeit with some show of