irely
mistress in the execution and expression of whatever can be played or
sung, within the compass and ability of your instrument. Your first
study, therefore, should be the true manner of holding, balancing, and
pressing the bow lightly but steadily upon the strings; in such a
manner as it shall seem to breathe the first tone it gives, which must
proceed from the friction of the string, and not from percussion, as
by a blow given with a hammer upon it. This depends on laying the bow
lightly upon the strings at the first contact, and on gently pressing
it afterwards, which, if done gradually, can scarcely have too much
force given to it, because, if the tone is begun with delicacy, there
is little danger of rendering it afterwards either coarse or harsh.

"'Of this first contact and delicate manner of beginning a tone you
should make yourself a perfect mistress in every situation and part of
the bow, as well in the middle as at the extremities; and in moving it
up as well as in drawing it down. To unite all these laborious
particulars into one lesson, my advice is, that you first exercise
yourself in a swell upon an open string--for example, upon the second
string; that you begin _pianissimo_, and increase the tone by slow
degrees to its _fortissimo_; and this study should be equally made
with the motion of the bow up and down, in which exercise you should
spend at least an hour every day, though at different times, a little
in the morning and a little in the evening; having constantly in mind,
that this is, of all others, the most difficult and the most essential
to playing on the Violin. When you are a perfect mistress of this part
of a good performer, a swell will be very easy to you; beginning with
the most minute softness, increasing the tone to its loudest degree,
and diminishing it to the same point of softness with which you began,
and all this in the same stroke of the bow. Every degree of pressure
upon the string which the expression of a note or passage shall
require will by this means be easy and certain; and you will be able
to execute with your bow whatever you please. After this, in order to
acquire that light pulsation and play of the wrist, from whence
velocity in bowing arises, it will be best for you to practise every
day one of the _Allegros_, of which there are three in Corelli's
Solos, which entirely move in semiquavers. The first is in D, in
playing which you should accelerate the motion a littl