THE V I O LIN AND ITS MUSIC, GEORGE HART, "HE VIOLIN: ITS ...

.THE VIOL. GOTHIC. 5
ments of various kinds ; among these was one of
oval shape having four strings, which they called a
Fithele. This love of minstrelsy and knowledge
of rude Fiddles, surely belonged not to the Roman­
ized Britons, and if . not, the Anglo-Saxons must
necessarily either have invented this minstrelsy and
Fiddling, or brought these arts from their German
homes. In taking the latter view we follow Thomas
Percy, who asks in his celebrated Essay on the
Ancient Minstrels, " For if these popular bards were
confessedly revered and admired in those very
countries which the Anglo-Saxons inhabited, before
their removal into Britain, and if they were after­
wards common and numerous among the other
descendants of the same Teutonic ancestors, can
we do otherwise than conclude, that men of this
order accompanied such tribes as migrated hither,
that they afterwards subsisted here, though perhaps
with less splendour than in the North ; and that
there never was wanting a succession of them to
hand down the art, though some particular conjunctures
may have rendered it more respectable at one
time than another ?"
Though I have named the Goths as the
possessors of a bowed instrument which gave rise
to the Viol, I have done so for the sake of simplicity,
rather than from conviction ; inasmuch as at this
distance of time, it would be impossible > to decide
which tribe of adventurers from the North first
bowed a musical instrument. This, however, is of