CREMONA FIDDLES.

BY CHARLES READE.

I.

UNDER this heading, for want of a better, let me sing the four-stringed instruments that were made in Italy, from about 1560 to 1760, and varnished with high-colored, yet transparent, varnishes: the secret of which, known to numberless families in 1745, had vanished off the earth by 1760; and has now for fifty years baffled the laborious researches of violin-makers, amateurs, and chemists. That lost art I will endeavor to restore to the world through the medium of your paper. But let me begin with other points of connoisseurship, illustrating them as far as possible by the specimens on show at the South Kensington

Museum.

The modern orchestra uses four-stringed instruments, played with the bow: the smallest is the king; its construction is a marvel of art; and, as we are apt to underrate familiar miracles, let me analyze this wooden paragon by way of showing what great architects in wood those Italians were who invented this instrument and its fellows at Brescia and Bologna. The violin itself, apart from its mere accessories, consists of a scroll or head, weighing an ounce or two; a slim neck; a thin back, that ought to be made of Swiss sycamore; a thin belly of Swiss deal; and sides of Swiss sycamore no thicker than a sixpence. This little wooden shell delivers an amount of sound that is simply monstrous; but, to do that, it must submit to a strain of which the public has no conception. Let us suppose two claimants to take opposite ends of a violin-string, and to pull against each other with all their weight: the tension of the string so produced would not equal the tension which is created by the screw in raising that string to concert-pitch. Consider, then, that, not one, but four strings tug night and day, like a team of demons, at the wafer-like sides of this wooden shell. Why does it not collapse? Well, it would collapse with a crash, long before the strings reached concert-pitch, if the violin was not a wonder inside as well as out. The problem was to withstand that severe pressure without crippling the vast vibration by solidity. The inventors approached the difficulty thus: they inserted six blocks of lime or some light wood; one of these blocks at the lower end of the violin, one at the upper, and one at each corner,- the corner blocks very small and triangular; the top and bottom blocks much larger, and shaped like a capital D, the straight line of the block lying close to the sides, and the curved line outwards. Then they slightly connected all the blocks by two sets of linings: these linings are not above a quarter of an inch deep, I suppose, and no thicker than an old penny piece; but they connect those six blocks, and help to distribute the resistance.

Even so the shell would succumb in time; but now the inventor killed two birds with one stone: he cunningly diverted a portion of the pressure by the very means that were necessary to the sound. He placed the bridge on the belly of the violin; and that raised the strings out of the direct line of tension, and relieved the lateral pressure at the expense of the belly. But as the belly is a weak arch, it must now be strengthened in its turn. Accordingly, a bass-bar was glued horizontally to the belly, under one foot of the bridge. This bass-bar is a very small piece of deal, about the length, and half the size, of an old-fashioned lead pencil; but, the ends being tapered off, it is glued on to the belly, with a spring in it, and supports the belly magically. As a proof how nicely all these things were balanced, the bass-bar of Gasparo da Salo, the Amati, and Stradiuarius, being a little shorter and shallower than a modern bassbar, did admirably for their day, yet will not do now: our raised concert-pitch has clapped on more tension; and straightway you must remove the bass-bar even of Stradiuarius, and substitute one a little longer and deeper, or your Cremona sounds like a strung frying-pan.

Remove, now, from the violin, which for two centuries has endured this strain, the finger-board, tail-piece, tail-pin, and screws, since these are the instruments or vehicles of ten

sion, not materials of resistance, and weigh the violin itself. It weighs, I suppose, about twenty ounces; and it has fought hundred-weights of pressure for centuries. A marvel of construction, it is also a marvel of sound. It is audible farther off than the gigantic pianoforte; and its tones, in a master's hand, go to the heart of man. It can be prostituted to the performance of difficulties, and often is; but that is not its fault. Genius can make your very heart dance with it, or your eyes to fill; and Niel Gow was no romancer, but only a deeper critic than his fellows, when, being asked what was the true test of a player, he replied, "A mon is a player when he can gar himsel greet wi' his feddle."

Asking forgiveness for this preamble, I proceed to inquire what country invented these four-stringed and fourcornered instruments.

I understand that France and Germany have of late raised some pretensions. Connoisseurship and etymology are both against them. Etymology suffices. The French terms are all derived from the Italian; and that disposes of France. I will go into German pretensions critically, if any one will show me as old and specific a German word as viola and violino, and the music composed for those German instruments. "Fiddle" is of vast antiquity; but pearshaped till Italy invented the four corners, on which sound, as well as beauty, depends.

THE ORDER OF INVENTION. - Etymology decided with unerring voice that the violoncello was invented after the violono or double-bass, and connoisseurship proves by two distinct methods that it was invented after the violin. First, the critical method: it is called after the violon, yet is made on the plan of the violin, with arched back, and long inner-bought. Second, the historical method: a violoncello made by the inventors of the violin is incomparably rare; and this instrument is disproportionately rare even up to the year 1610. Violino being a derivative of viola would seem to indicate that the violin followed the tenor; but this, taken alone, is dangerous; for viola is not only a specific term for the tenor, but a generic name that was in Italy a hundred years before a tenor with four strings was made. To go then to connoisseurship: I find that I have fallen in with as many tenors as violins by Gasparo da Salo, who worked from about 1555 to 1600, and not quite so many by Gio Paolo Maggini, who began a few years later. The violin being the king of all these instruments, I think there would not be so many tenors made as violins, when once the violin had been invented. Moreover, between the above dates, came Corelli, a composer and violinist. He would naturally create a crop of violins. Finding the tenors and violins of Gasparo da Salo about equal in number, I am driven to the conclusion that the tenor had an unfair start, in other words, was invented first. I add to this that true four-stringed tenors by Gasparo da Salo exist, though very rare, made with only two corners, which is a more primitive form than any violin by the same maker appears in. For this, and some other reasons, I have little doubt the viola preceded the violin by a very few years. What puzzles me more is to time the violon, or, as we childishly call it (after its known descendant), the doublebass. If I was so presumptuous as to trust to my eye alone, I should say it was the first of them all. It is an instrument which does not seem to mix with these fourstringed upstarts, but to belong to a a much older family, viz., the viole d'amore, da gamba, &c. In the first place, it has not four strings; secondly, it has not an arched back, but a flat back, with a peculiar shoulder, copied from the viola da gamba; thirdly, the space between the upper and lower corners, in the early specimens, is ludicrously short; and it is hard to believe that an eye which had observed the graceful proportions of the tenor and violin could be guilty of such a wretched little inner-bought as you find in a double-bass of Brescia. Per contra, it must be admitted: first, that the sound-hole of a Brescian double-bass seems copied from the four-stringed tribe, and not at all from the elder family; secondly, that the violin and tenor are instruments of melody or harmony, but the violon of harmony only. This is dead against its being invented until

after the instruments to which it is subsidiary. Man invents only to supply a want. Thus, then, it is: first, the large tenor, played between the knees; then the violin, played under the chin; then (if not first of them all) the small double-bass; then, years after the violin, the violoncello; then the full-sized double-bass; then, longo intervallo, the small tenor, played under the chin.

However, I do not advance these conclusions as infallible. The highest evidence on some of these points must surely lie in manuscript-music of the sixteenth century, much of which is preserved in the libraries of Italy; and if Mr. Hatton, or any musician learned in the history of his art, will tell me for what stringed instruments the immediate predecessors of Corelli, and Corelli at his commencement, marked their compositions, I shall receive the communication with gratitude and respect. I need hardly say that nothing but the MS. or the editio princeps is evidence in so nice a matter.

The first known maker of the true tenor, and probably of the violin, was Gasparo da Salo. The student who has read the valuable work put forth by Monsieur Fétis and Monsieur Vuillaume might imagine that I am contradicting them here; for they quote as "luthiers" - antecedent to Gasparo da Salo-Kerlino, Duiffoprucgear, Linarolli, Dardelli, and others. These men, I grant you, worked long before Gasparo da Salo: I even offer an independent proof, and a very simple one. I find that their genuine tickets are in Gothic letters, whereas those of Gasparo da Salo are in Roman type; but I know the works of those makers; and they did not make tenors nor violins. They made instruments of the older family, viole d'amore, da gamba, &c. Their true tickets are all black-letter tickets; and not one such ticket exists in any old violin, nor in a single genuine tenor. The fact is, that the tenor is an instrument of unfixed dimensions, and can easily be reconstructed out of different viole made in an earlier age. There are innumerable examples of this; and happily the Exhibition furnishes two. There are two curious instruments strung as tenors, Nos. 114 and 134 in the catalogue: one is given to Joan Carlino, and the year 1452; the other to Linaro, and 1563. These two instruments were both made by one man, Ventura Linarolli, of Venice (misspelled by M. Fétis, Venturi), about the year 1520. Look at the enormous breadth between the sound-holes: that shows they were made to carry six or seven strings. Now look at the scrolls; both of them new, because the old scrolls were primitive things with six or seven screws: it is only by such reconstruction that a tenor or violin can be set up as anterior to Gasparo da Salo. No. 114 is, however, a real gem of antiquity: the wood and varnish exquisite, and far fresher than nine Amatis out of ten. It is well worthy the special attention of collectors. It was played upon the knee.

Ob

There are in the collection two instruments by Gasparo da Salo worth especial notice: a tenor, No. 142, and a violono, or primitive double-bass, 199. The tenor is one of his later make, yet has a grand primitive character. serve, in particular, the scroll all round, and the amazing inequality between the bass sound-hole and the purfling of the belly: this instrument, and the grand tenor assigned to Maggini, and lent by Mme. Risler, offer a point of connoisseurship worthy the student's attention. The back of each instrument looks full a century younger than the belly. But this is illusory. The simple fact is, that the tenors of that day when not in use were not nursed in cases, but hung up on a nail, belly outwards. Thus the belly caught the sun of Italy, the dust, &c., and its varnish was often withered to a mere resin, while the back and sides escaped. This is the key to that little mystery. Observe the scroll of the riolono 199. How primitive it is all round: at the back a flat cut, in front a single flute, copied from its true parent the viola da gamba. This scroll, taken in conjunction with the size, and other points, marks an instrument considerably anterior to No. 200. As to the other doublebasses in the same case, they are assigned by their owners to Gasparo da Silo, because they are double purfled, and look older than Cremonese violins; but these indicia are valueless: all Cremona and Milan double-purfled the violon

as often as not; and the constant exposure to air and dust gives the violono a color of antiquity that is delusive. In no one part of the business is knowledge of work so necessary. The violoni 201-2-3, are all fine Italian instruments. The small violon, 202, that stands by the side of the Gasparo da Salo, 199, has the purfling of Andreas Amatus; the early sound-hole of Andreas Amatus; the exquisite corners and finish of Andreas Amatus; the finely-cut scroll of Andreas Amatus; at the back of the scroll, the neat shell and square shoulder of Andreas Amatus; and the back, instead of being made of any rubbish that came to hand, after the manner of Brescia, is of true fiddle-wood, cut the bastard way of the grain, which was the taste of the Amati; and, finally, it is varnished with the best varnish of the Amati. Under these circumstances, I hope I shall not offend the owner by refusing it the inferior name of Gasparo da Salo. It is one of the brightest gems of the collection, and not easily to be matched in Europe.

II.

GIO PAOLO MAGGINI is represented at the Kensington Museum by an excellent violin, No. 111, very fine in workmanship and varnish, but, as to the model, a trifle too much hollowed at the sides, and so a little inferior to some of his violins, and to the violin No. 70, the model of which, like many of the Brescian school, is simple and perfect. (Model, as applied to a violin, is a term quite distinct from outline.) In No. 70 both belly and back are modelled with the simplicity of genius, from a centre, which is the highest part, by even gradation down to all the borders of the instrument. The world has come back to this primitive model after trying a score; and prejudice gives the whole credit to Joseph Guarnerius, of Cremona. As to the date of No. 70, the neatness, and, above all, the slimness, of the sound-hole, mark, I think, a period slightly posterior to Gasparo da Salo. This slim sound-hole is an advance, not a retrogression. The gaping sound-holes of Gasparo da Salo and Maggini were their one great error. They were not only ugly they lessened the ring by allowing the vi bration to escape from the cavity too quickly. No. 60, assigned to Duiffoprugcar and a fabulous antiquity, was made by some 'prentice hand in the seventeenth century; but No. 70 would adorn any collection, being an old masterpiece of Brescia or Bologna.

THE SCHOOL OF CREMONA. Andreas Amatus was more than thirty years old, and an accomplished maker of the older viole, when the violin was invented in Brescia or Bologna. He does not appear to have troubled his head with the new instrument for some years: one proof more that new they were. They would not at first materially influence his established trade: the old and new family ran side by side. Indeed, it took the violin tribe two centuries to drive out the viola da gamba. However, in due course, Andreas Amatus set to work on violins. He learned from the Brescian school the only things they could teach a workman so superior; viz., the four corners, and the soundhole. This Brescian sound-hole stuck to him all his days; but what he had learned in his original art remained by him too. The collection contains three specimens of his handiwork: violin 202; Mrs. Jay's violin, with the modern head, erroneously assigned to Antonius and Hieronymus; and violoncello No. 183. There are also traces of his hand in the fine tenor 139. In the three instruments just named, the purfling is composed in the best proportions, so that the white comes out with vigor: it is then inlaid with great neatness. The violoncello is the gem. Its outline is grace itself: the four exquisite curves coincide in one pure and serpentine design. This bass is a violin soufflé; were it shown at a distance, it would take the appearance of a most elegant violin: the best basses of Stradiuarius alone will stand this test (apply it to the Venetian masterpiece in the same case). The scroll is perfect in design, and chiselled as by a sculptor; the purfling is quite as fine as Stradiuarius; it is violin purfling: yet this seems to add elegance without meanness. It is a masterpiece of Cremona, with the hideous sound-hole that alone connects this master with the Brescian school.

His sons Antonius and Hieronymus soon cured themselves of that grotesque sound-hole, and created a great school. They chose better wood, and made richer varnish, and did many beautiful things. Nevertheless, they infected Italian fiddle-making with a fatal error. They were the first scoopers. Having improved on Brescia in outline and details, they assumed too hastily that they could improve on her model. So they scooped out the wood about the sound-holes, and all round, weakening the connection of the centre with the sides of the belly, and checking the fulness of the vibration. The German school carried this vice much further; but the Amati went too far, and inoculated a hundred fine makers with a wrong idea. It took Stradiuarius himself fifty-six years to get entirely clear of

it.

The brothers Amati are represented in this collection, first, by several tenors that once were noble things, but have been cut on the old system, which was downright wicked. It is cutting in the statutory sense, viz., cutting and maiming. These ruthless men just sawed a crescent off the top, and another off the bottom; and the result is a thing with the inner bought of a giant, and the upper and lower bought of a dwarf. If one of these noble instruments survives in England uncut, I implore the owner to spare it to play on a £5 tenor with the Amati set before him to look at while he plays. Luckily, the scrolls remain to us; and let me draw attention to the scroll of 136. Look at the back of this scroll, and see how it is chiselled, the centre line in relief, how sharp, distinct, and fine: this line is obtained by chiselling out the wood on both sides with a single tool which fiddle-makers call a gauge; and there is nothing but the eye to guide the hand.

There are two excellent violins of this make in the collection, Mrs. Jay's, and the violin of Mr. C. J. Read, No. 75. This latter is the large pattern of those makers, and is more elegant than what is technically called the grand Amati, but not so striking. To appreciate the merit and the defect of this instrument, compare it candidly with the noble Stradiuarius Amatisé that hangs by its side, numbered 82. Take a back view first. In outline they are much alike. In the details of work the Amati is rather superior: the border of the Stradiuarius is more exquisite ; but the Amati scroll is better pointed, and gauged more cleanly, the purfling better composed for effect; and the way that purfling is let in, especially at the corners, is incomparable. On the front view, you find the Amati violin is scooped out here and there, - -a defect the Stradiuarius has avoided. I prefer the Stradiuarius sound-hole per se ; but, if you look at the curves of these two violins, you will observe that the Amati sound-holes are in strict harmony with the curves; and the whole thing the product of one original mind that saw its way.

Nicholas Amatus, the son of Hieronymus, owes his distinct reputation to a single form, called by connoisseurs the Grand Amati. This is a very large violin, with extravagantly long corners, extremely fine in all the details. I do not think it was much admired at the time. At all events, he made but few; and his copyists, with the exception of Francesco Rugger, rarely selected that form to imitate. But nowadays these violins are almost worshipped; and, as the collection is incomplete without one, I hope some gentleman will kindly send one in before it closes. There is also wanting an Amati bass; and if the purchaser of Mr. Gillott's should feel disposed to supply that gap it would be a very kind act. The Rugger family is numerous it is represented by one violin (147).

Leaving the makers of the Guarnerius family-five in number-till the last, we come to Antonius Stradiuarius. This unrivalled workman and extraordinary man was born in 1644, and died in December, 1737. There is nothing signed with his name before 1667. He was learning his business thoroughly. From that date till 1736 he worked incessantly, often varying his style, and always improving, till he came to his climax, represented in this collection by the violins 83 and 87, and the violoncello 188.

He began with rather a small, short-cornered violin, which is an imitation of the small Amati, but very superior.

He went on, and imitated the large Amati, but softened down the corners. For thirty years

:

:

from 1672 to 1703

he poured forth violins of this pattern: there are several in this collection, and one tenor, 139, with a plain back but a beautiful belly, and in admirable preservation. But while he was making these Amatisé violins by the hundred, hs had, nevertheless, his fits of originality, and put forth an anomaly every now and then sometimes it was a very long, narrow violin, with elegant, drooping corners: and sometimes, in a happier mood, he combined these drooping corners with a far more beautiful model. Of these varieties No. 86 gives just an indication,- no more. These lucid intervals never lasted long: he was back to his Amati next week. Yet they left, I think, the germs that broke out so marvellously in the next century. About the year 1703 it seems to have struck him like a revelation that he was a greater man than his master: he dropped him once and forever; and for nearly twenty years poured forth with unceasing fertility some admirable works, of which you have three fine examples, under average wear, hard wear, and no wear, 90, 92, 91. Please look at the three violins in this order, to realize what I have indicated before: that time is no sure measure of events in this business. Nevertheless, in all these exquisite productions, there was one thing which he thought capable of improvement: there was 2 slight residue of the scoop, especially at the lower part of the back. He began to alter that about 1720; and by degrees went to his grand model, in which there is no scoop at all. This, his grandest epoch, is represented by the Duke of Cambridge's violin, Mr. Arkwright's, and M. le Comte's this last has the additional characteristic of the stiffer sound-hole, and the wood left broad in the wing of the sound-hole. One feature more of this his greatest epoch the purfling, instead of exactly following the corner, is pointed across it in a manner completely original. He made these grand violins, and a bass or two, till about 1729 after that, the grand model is confined to his violins, and the details become inferior in finish. Of this, there is an example in No. 84, a noble but rough violin, in parts of which certain connoisseurs would see, or fancy they saw, the hand of Bergonzi, or of Francesco, or Homobuono, Stradiuarius. These workmen undoubtedly lived, and survived their father a few years. They seem to have worked up his refuse wood after his death; but their interference with his work while alive has been exaggerated by French connoisseurs. To put a difficult question briefly: their theory fails to observe the style Stradiuarius was coming to even in 1727: it also ignores the age of Stradiuarius during this his last epoch of work, and says that there exists no old man's work by Stradiuarius himself; all his old man's work is done by younger men. However, generalities are useless on a subject so difficult and disputed. The only way is to get the doubtful violins or basses and analyze them; and should the museum give a permanent corner to Cremonese instruments, this Francesco and Homobuono question will be sifted with examples. The minutiae of work in Stradiuarius are numerous and admirable; but they would occupy too much space, and are too well known to need discourse. His varnish I shall treat along with the others. A few words about the man: he was a tall, thin veteran, always to be seen with a white leathern apron, and a nightcap on his head in winter it was white wool, and in summer white cotton. His indomitable industry had amassed some fortune, and "rich as Stradiuarius" was a byword at Cremona, but probably more current among the fiddle-makers than the bankers and merchants. His price, towards the latter part of his career, was four louis d'or for a violin: his best customers, Italy and Spain. Mr. Forster assures us on unimpeachable authority that he once sent some instruments into England on sale or return, and that they were taken back, the merchant being unable to get £5 for a violoncello. What, ho! Hang all the Englishmen of that day, who are alive to meet their deserts! However, the true point of the incident is, I think, missed by the narrators. The fact is that, then as now, England wanted old Cremonas, not new ones. That the Amati had a familiar reputation here, and probably a ready market,

This was certainly said during the lifetime of Stradiuarius, and proves that the Cremona fiddle had a fixed reputation: it also proves that an Irishman could make a better Latin pun than any old Roman has left behind him.

Since I have diverged into what some brute calls anec-dotage, let me conclude this article with one that is, at all events, to the point, since it tells the eventful history of an instrument now on show.

THE ROMANCE OF FIDDLE-DEALING. - Nearly fifty years ago, a gaunt Italian called Luigi Tarisio, arrived in Paris one day with a lot of old Italian instruments by makers whose names were hardly known. The principal dealers, whose minds were narrowed, as is often the case, to three or four makers, would not deal with him. M. Georges Chanot, younger and more intelligent, purchased largely, and encouraged him to return. He came back next year with a better lot; and yearly increasing his funds, he flew at the highest game, and, in the course of thirty years, imported nearly all the finest specimens of Stradiuarius and Guarnerius France possesses. He was the greatest connoisseur that ever lived or can live, because he had the true mind of a connoisseur, and vast opportunities. He ransacked Italy before the tickets in the violins of Francesco Stradiuarius, Alexander Gagliano, Lorenzo Guadagnini, Giofredus Cappa, Gobetti, Morgilato Morella, Antonio Mariani, Santo Magini, and Matteo Benti, of Brescia; Michael Angelo Bergonzi, Montagnana, Thomas Balestrieri, Storioni, Vicenzo Rugger, the Testori, Petrus Guarnerius, of Venice, and full fifty more, had been tampered with, that every brilliant masterpiece might be assigned to some popular name. To his immortal credit, he fought against this mania; and his motto was, "A tout seigneur tout honneur." The man's whole soul was in fiddles. He was a great dealer, but a greater amateur. He had gems by him no money would buy from him. No. 91 was one of them. But for his death you would never have cast eyes on it: he has often talked to me of it; but he would never let me see it, for fear I should tempt him.

Well, one day, George Chanot, sr., who is, perhaps, the best judge of violins left, now Tarisio is gone, made an excursion to Spain, to see if he could find any thing there. He found mighty little; but, coming to the shop of a fiddlemaker, one Ortega, he saw the belly of an old bass hung up with other things. Chanot rubbed his eyes, and asked himself, was he dreaming? the belly of a Stradiuarius bass roasting in a shop-window! He went in, and very soon bought it for about forty francs. He then ascertained that the bass belonged to a lady of rank. The belly was full of cracks: so, not to make two bites of a cherry, Ortega had made a nice new one. Chanot carried this precious fragment home, and hung it up in his shop, but not in the window; for he is too good a judge not to know the sun will take all the color out of that maker's varnish. Tarisio came in from Italy; and his eye lighted instantly on the Stradiuarius belly. He pestered Chanot till the latter sold it him for a thousand francs, and told him where the rest was. Tarisio no sooner knew this than he flew to Madrid. He learned from Ortega where the lady lived, and called on her to see it. "Sir," says the lady, "it is at your disposition." That does not mean much in Spain. When he offered to buy it, she coquetted with him; said it had been long in her family; money could not replace a thing of that kind; and, in short, she put on the screw, as she thought, and sold it to him for about four thousand francs. What he did with the Ortega belly is not known: perhaps, sold it to some person in the tooth-pick trade. He sailed exultant for Paris with the Spanish bass in a case. He never let it out of his sight. The pair were caught by a storm in the Bay of Biscay. The ship rolled: Tarisio clasped his bass tight, and trembled. It was a terrible gale; and for one whole day they were in real

Was not this a true connoisseur? a genuine enthusiast? Observe! there was also an ephemeral insect, called Luigi Tarisio, who would have gone down with the bass; but that made no impression on his mind. De minimis non curat Ludovicus.

He got it safe to Paris. A certain high-priest in these mysteries, called Vuillaume, with the help of a sacred vessel, called the glue-pot, soon rewedded the back and sides to the belly; and the bass, being now just what it was when the ruffian Ortega put his finger in the pie, was sold for twenty

A LONG, Oval tent, half stable, half green-room, of Harman's circus; for it was a travelling circus, and not given to overloading itself with superfluous baggage; badly lighted, strong smelling, the canvas brown with wear and old age, the grass underfoot beaten down by the hoofs of the horses, and trodden into the miry ground: an animated scene, with the riders and attendants and musicians scattered about; but strange and novel to me, standing there, while John Harman, first groom to my father, rested himself after the fatigues of the erst part of the programme. He was sitting astride his chair, with his thumbs caught in the armholes of his waistcoat, and his round, red face alternately serious and merry, as he ran over his history of the last ten years. He left us to help his brother, who was always in the horsemanship line, in the management of the circus; but since then Tom Harman had died, and our old groom become the sole proprietor.

"Tom would be pleased to see the old place and the people to-night," he said, nodding at the curtain, which shut off the ring, and the crowded seats, where the spectators were awaiting the second part of the programme; "and he would be pleased to see Ali and mamzelle there, poor Tom would. And to see her ride too. Look at them, Mr. George. They look like a picture, don't they?"

He pointed to a white Arab horse, standing close behind me, with a girl in a tall riding-hat and dark-blue habit upon the saddle. She looked up with a slight smile at Harman's remark; and then flushed, and started visibly, as our eyes "Did you

met.

“Hullo, mamzelle!" laughed Harman. fancy he was going to join us? and were you thinking what a pretty clown he would make?"

He rose from his chair, and, leaning against the horse's shoulder, looked up at the girl with a merry grimace. But she took no notice of him: there came no answering smile this time upon her face. It was a beautiful face, too, with delicate, regular features, and a warm, southern tint, dark as a Spaniard's; but it seemed haughty and fierce as the flush and the smile died out; and her large eyes were fixed upon mine with a troubled look, as if I reminded her of some one whom she had seen before, and her thoughts were busy in recalling the past.

66

Well, well, mamzelle!" said Harman, as though she had answered his last question: "if you don't think he will do for a clown, we'll put him upon a horse, and he can go in for your line. He can ride a little. I taught him to ride almost before he could walk. Didn't I, Mr. George?" appealing to me. "And what a mite you looked upon old

Thistledown that day, to be sure; and now you are a man and an officer, and will be marrying soon, no doubt, and having mites of your own."

The girl's lips moved when Harman said that I was an officer; but he turned away, without waiting for her to speak, and called out to the men at the other side of the tent, "Come, come, make haste there! That's enough, Bill," singling out one poor fellow who showed less alacrity than the others: "put down that can. an. Time's up, I tell you." But Bill, winking apologetically over the rim of the can, finished the beer before obeying the order; and Harman busied himself in examining the girth and trappings of the Arab.

"You may make your fortune to-night, mamzelle," he said, glancing up at her. "There are a lot of swells in the front row. There goes the music. Are you all ready? Good!" and pushing aside the curtain, he led the horse a few steps into the ring.

It was the first night of the circus at Helstonleigh; and the words of the programme, "Cheval de la haute école, 'Ali,' introduced by Mademoiselle Celestine Dupont," had probably perplexed the rustics not a little as to what was coming; but when the white Arab and his splendid rider appeared they applauded loudly. Their applause was louder by and by as the performance went on they were not insensible to the girl's beauty and grace; for she rode wonderfully well, sitting as square as a die upon her saddle, with her rounded figure in its close-fitting habit swaying, as the horse galloped and capered and danced, as easily as a well-built carriage swings in its straps.

Mademoiselle "told" as Harman had expected she would; and, if she pleased the rustics, she created quite a sensation among the "swells in the front row." They were mostly officers; many of them cavalry-men, for both branches were quartered at Helstonleigh. Hitherto they had not been bored more than was proper at a country circus. They were quietly indifferent to the charms of the young lady who jumped through hoops and over banners lowered nearly on to the horse's back; and they had been altogether callous to the sublimity of the shipwrecked sailor saying his prayers on a "bare-backed steed;" but here was a performance more to their taste: perfect grace in both horse and rider, such as they had not expected to see. It was they who applauded the most: it was they who led the recall when the performance was over. Harman was in ecstasies of delight. "I knew she would make a hit," he kept saying, rubbing his hands, as I could remember seeing him when our favorite colt came galloping down the course at Broughton Market half a length a-head of the rest for the town plate. And when the girl returned the second time into the tent, as the applause still continued, he led the horse again towards the curtain for the further recall.

"I am not going in again to-night," she said shortly, jerking the reins out of his hands, and checking the horse. "But mamzelle! Listen."

"I don't care. They may pull the place down before I will go." She gathered up her habit, and withdrew her foot from the stirrup. "Will you help me down?" she asked, putting out her hands.

"No! no! they want you again."

"Let them!" she replied, her dark eyes flashing like jewels as the light caught them. And, without waiting for his reply, she sprang recklessly from the saddle.

Harman muttered something as the girl stood before him, with her face, slightly flushed from the exercise, thrown proudly back; and, shrugging his shoulders, went out into the ring. The applause increased for a minute as he appeared, and then died away. The music struck up again, and the next lot went in, comprising all those who remained in the tent.

Drawing the gauntlet off her hand, the girl stood by the horse, fondling its soft nose, till one of the grooms approached to lead it away. Then, walking slowly, backwards and forwards, over the trodden grass, she waited till the man left the tent; and as soon as he was gone, she came towards me with her gliding step.

"Why did you not go in for your second recall, mademoiselle?" I asked. "No wonder they

"I did not choose to, monsieur," she said, cutting me short; but speaking less imperiously than she had spoken to Harman. The flush had faded from her face, and the defiant look, with which she had looked at him, had died out of her eyes; and, somehow, the girl who sprang off her horse five minutes before seemed changed into a woman. The same number of years. probably, had passed over our heads; but she seemed infinitely older than I from her manner; and she looked older, too, than her age, now that I saw her close, as she took off her tall hat, and pushed back the dark hair from her temples with her ungloved hand. My intended compliment, such as it was, vanished before her quick answer. She came close to me,

so close, that I could have put my hands upon her rounded shoulders, and said in a quiet, earnest voice, strangely different to the way she had spoken before, with a slight foreign accent for the first time becoming noticeable,

"How did you come to know Mr. Harman?"

"He was groom to my father when I was quite a little fellow." "Where?"

"At home. At Waltonhill.” "Your name?"

I could no more help answering her questions than I could help looking into the depths of her great, dark eyes, that held me under their spell.

"George Fordyce."

"George," she repeated, as though she knew I was a Fordyce before I spoke.

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Yes." But the girl hesitated: she did not move away, though she looked no longer up in my face. She was not satisfied her motive, whatever it was, for asking these questions, was not answered. I saw her lips tremble, and the color every now and then flush over her brow. There was something more she wanted to know; but she was at a loss how to ask it. There might be some secret she feared to betray pride, doubt, honor, who could tell what? was struggling in her mind; and she was silent. Rushing impetuously, as it were, to her succor, while I could feel the blood tingling in my ears as she glanced up with timid, wistful eyes, as though she longed to speak and durst not, I blurted out in a thoughtless, eager manner,

"What is it? What do you want to ask about my family? Tell me, and trust me."

I was too candid, too bluff: in a diplomatic sense, I made a great mistake. But I was young, and not accustomed to fencing in my speech; and though I startled her, and trod so roughly upon her half-willing confidence as to scatter it to the winds, she saw that I was sincere; but her timidity vanished as I spoke, and Mademoiselle Dupont was again as a stranger to me.

"I-I want to know nothing about your family. Why should I?" And she laughed a little at my bruskness. "You reminded me of some one I have seen. That's all."

"Of the same name?" I asked quickly, turning the tables unexpectedly upon her, so that the fierce look flashed momentarily into her eyes, till she laughed again.

"Pish! What boy it is!" she said, moving away. Then she turned round, and looked at me again, but there was a sad smile upon her lips. "I was a little curious, that was all. Don't think about it, except to remember that I am grateful to you." And, before could answer, with a slight bow she hurried out of the tent.

Perplexed by the girl's manner, and angry with myself, I loitered about the circus till the people left. Mademoiselle was an enigma: she had evidently seen better days than those spent with Harman's troupe; but who was she? what did she know about my family? I did not tell Harman that she had spoken to me; but I asked him about her, as we stood in the open air, when the performance was over. The circus and tent were behind us, both dark and shut up for the night; but the different vans in front were ablaze with light, all save one, which stood apart from the rest, an ugly, top