ose instead the trade of
Violin-making. Amongst the rumours concerning this maker may be
mentioned that of his having been a pupil of Niccolo Amati. It is
certain there is no direct evidence in support of it, neither is it
shown that his work is founded on that of Amati. I am satisfied that
Stainer was assisted neither by the Brothers Amati nor Niccolo Amati,
and I am strengthened in this opinion by the steadfastly German
character of a model which no pupil of Amati could have persisted in
using, even though based on his earliest traditions.

The marriage of Stainer took place October 7, 1645. On the 9th of
October, 1658, he was appointed by the Archduke Leopold (of Austria,
Governor of Tyrol) one of the "archducal servants," and on the 9th of
January, 1669, he obtained from the Emperor the title of "Violin-maker
to the Court." About this period he is said to have incurred the
displeasure of the Jesuits, which led to his being accused of the
crime of heresy. The accusation seems to have been based on the fact
of books of a controversial kind--chiefly Lutheran--having been found
in his possession. The penalty he suffered for daring to indulge in
polemical literature was six months' imprisonment, and his future
prospects were completely shattered. Prior to this misfortune he
appears to have been in pecuniary difficulties, and frequently at law
with one Salomon Hubmer, of Kirzchdorf, from whom he had obtained
money loans. In the year 1677 he petitioned the Emperor Leopold--who
was a great patron and lover of music--to render him pecuniary
assistance, but failed to procure it. Over-burdened with troubles, he
was bereft of his reason, and died insane and insolvent in the year
1683.

"Alas! misfortunes travel in a train,
And oft in life form one perpetual chain."

His widow was left with a family of eight daughters, she dying in
poverty in 1689, which chronological fact disposes of the fiction, so
widely circulated, that in consequence of the great grief he
experienced upon the death of his wife he withdrew from the world, and
became an inmate of a Benedictine monastery, and that he made within
its walls the famous instruments known as "Elector Stainers," which he
presented to the twelve Electors. Whether he made them to order, in
the usual manner, whether he presented them, or where he made them,
matters little; they are works of great merit, and need no mysterious
surroundings to call attention to them. The follo