Upon this understanding the visitor
proceeded to examine the little stock, which he found in a very
disordered condition--bridgeless, stringless, and dusty. Among the
whole tribe, however, was a Violin which seemed to elbow its way to
the front of the group, and clamour for the attention of which it
appeared to deem itself worthy. Unable to resist its seeming appeal,
the intending purchaser decided to remove it from the atmosphere of
its companions, and begged that he might be permitted to take the
importuning Fiddle and string it in order to test its qualities. His
request being acceded to, he carried it away. Upon reaching home, he
took it from its case, and gently removed the dust of years. The
varnish appeared to him as something very different from any he had
ever seen before on a Violin; and being an artist by profession,
qualities of colours were pretty well understood by him. With the
Violin poised on his knee, somewhat after the manner seen in the
well-known picture of Stradivari in his workshop, he thus communed
with himself: "I have never seen the much-spoken-of Cremonese varnish,
but if this instrument has it not, its lustre must indeed be more
wondrous than my imagination has painted." After again and again
examining the Violin, he retired to rest, but not to sleep. The Fiddle
persisted in dodging him whichever way he turned on his couch. At the
dawn of day--five o'clock--he was up, with the Fiddle again on his
knee, thinking he might have been labouring under some infatuation the
night before which the light of day might dispel. Convinced he was
under no such delusion, he soon made for the music-seller's
establishment, whom he delighted by paying the price demanded for the
Violin. It was now time, he felt, to obtain professional advice on the
matter; in due course he paid me a visit. Upon his opening the case I
was unable to restrain my feelings of surprise, and demanded if he had
any idea of the value of the Violin. "None whatever," he answered.
Without troubling the reader further, I informed him that his Violin
was an undoubted Giuseppe Guarneri, of considerable value. He then
recounted the circumstances attending its purchase, with which the
reader is familiar.

DOMENICO DRAGONETTI--HIS GASPARO DA SALO.

Signor Dragonetti succeeded Berini as _primo basso_ in the orchestra
of the chapel belonging to the monastery of San Marco, Venice, in his
eighteenth year. The procurators of the monastery, wishin