To Benjamin Banks we
are indebted for having led the English makers to adopt the pattern of
Amati. He had long laboured to popularise the school which he so much
loved, but met with little encouragement in the beginning, so strong
was the prejudice in favour of the high model. However, he triumphed
in the end, and completely revolutionised the taste in England, till
our Fiddle-fanciers became total ab-_Stainers_! Then commenced the
taste for instruments of flat form. Where were they to be found? If
the few by the early English makers be excepted, there were none but
those of the Italians to be had, and perhaps a few old French
specimens. Attention was thus directed to the works of the Cremonese,
and the year 1800 or thereabouts may be put down as the time when the
tide of Italian Violins had fairly set in towards France and England.
The instruments by the Amati were those chiefly sought after; the
amount of attention they commanded at this period was probably about
equal to that bestowed upon the works of Stradivari and Guarneri at
the present time. Violins of Amati and other makers were, up to this
time, obtainable at nominal prices. The number in Italy was far in
excess of her requirements, the demand made upon them for choir
purposes in former days had ceased, and the number of Violins was thus
quite out of proportion to the players. The value of an Amati in
England in 1799 and 1804 may be gathered from the following extracts
from the day-book of the second William Forster, who was a dealer as
well as maker--"20th April, 1799. A Violoncello by Nicholas Amati,
with case and bow, 17 pounds 17s. 0d.;" and further on--"5th July,
1804, an Amati Violin 31 pounds 10s. 0d." These prices were probably
less than those which William Forster received for many instruments of
his own make. It is certain that these low prices did not long
continue; the price increased in due proportion to the vanishing
properties of the supply. The call for Violins by the Amati was so
clamorous as speedily to effect this result; the prices for them were
doubled, trebled, and often quadrupled, until they no longer found a
home in their native land. The value set on them by the French and
English so far exceeded that which the Italians themselves could
afford, even though inclined to indulge in such things, that the
sellers were as eager to sell as the buyers to buy. During the time of
this scramble for instruments of Cremona, the theory of the flat