very little about the prefix Antonio, common enough in Italy, and which was the Christian name given him by his parents. Of these we can only say, that as might be supposed, they were of a respectable portion of the middle class socially considered and from which have sprung all over the world—with few exceptions—the greatest luminaries of the whole firmament of intellect.

Of his private life during manhood we know very little, of his boyhood nothing. But we may fairly and truly draw our conclusions that as the time arrived when he was supposed fit for training to fight life's battle, he had already exhibited talent indicative of fitness for that artistic branch of industry in which he was hereafter to be the world-wide acknowledged head.

That his special abilities were thoroughly recognised by his parents receives much emphasis from the fact of his being offered to, and received as pupil by, Nicolas Amati, greatest of that great family of stringed instrument makers. Young Antonio was thus placed in the most favourable situation possible for the fructifying and development of his own particular talents. That portion of his life which was spent with the great master of line in violin facture, will, probably, in its details always remain a blank to us: but there is a lightning like flash thrown out by the fact of old Nicolas Amati bequeathing his collection of tools, patterns, etc., to Antonio Stradivari, and, be it noticed, not to his own son, then over thirty years of age. That the future master of his craft had been a steady and beloved pupil of his great teacher, there is no room for doubt; indeed, steadiness, fixity of purpose and honest intention, are manifested in his work during the whole of his career. The earliest of his handiwork has become known to us while he was with Nicolas Amati. In this he exhibits extreme delicacy of handling, and seemingly, in the confidence of his master, certain little modifications in the design of the sound holes were permitted, or perhaps passed as improvements, but there is nothing eccentric or extravagant introduced, a gentle addition, or a trifle less here and there, being the way in which he ever cautiously worked out his idea of improvement, and this latter seems to have been the moving spirit during his whole life.

At no time do we meet with sudden departures, or what are sometimes termed flashes of genius—the onward progress of his style of design and its execution was as unimpassioned as his life was uneventful. When we examine the earliest known work of his hand—it may be observed on some of the late violins of his master—there is plainly perceptible the efforts at excelling where at all possible; and if, as is extremely probable—his master was sometimes desirous that the purfling should be somewhat bolder than was to the taste of his refined pupil, this was inserted with a delicacy and precision beyond what had been before deemed the acme of finish.

His departure from the house of Nicolas Amati had to be taken some day in the ordinary course of events, and he would then act alone in competition among the growing swarms of makers who were now busy as bees in most parts of Italy. The start is generally reckoned to have occurred between the years 1664 and 1666, it may have been in 1665, when he had reached his twenty-first year.

That old Nicolas Amati was right in his estimate that young Antonio Stradivari's natural abilities augured well for his success as a liutaro, was now to be proven. With the best possible recommendation—that of being trained by the most distinguished maker of the city—he carried others no less necessary for the long course of thought and labour that he was about to enter upon. These were, an earnest desire for improvement in all his undertakings, natural, indigenous ability for tasteful design and its mechanical execution and the power of steady concentration of the faculties, backed up withal by a sound, physical constitution in which "nerves of iron" must have been a conspicuous element.

To those who at the time may have been looking forward with some speculation as to what young Stradivari would put forth now that his course was free and untrammelled before him, there was probably some disappointment at finding no signs of striking originality, no spasmodic struggles of genius to assert itself by throwing aside those individualities, general and detailed, which were so well marked in the work of his great teacher, and which as pupil he had been studiously and conscientiously carrying out. On the contrary, his efforts seem to have been rather to draw the mantle thrown by his master closer around him than to dispense with any part of its protective power. Thus we see in his works of this period which have remained to us, very little more than replicas of those of his master in which he for some years perhaps had taken no inconsiderable part. But in doing this, the intention and power of selection guided by sound judgment at once asserted itself. He did not take that pattern known to us moderns by the name of "grand," and which term was in all likelihood quite unthought of by either himself or his master. Who invented it is a question that may be left complacently to the bookworm of the future.

THE HOUSE OF ANTONIO STRADIVARI.

There is really nothing in the so-called "grand" pattern of Nicolas Amati that seems to agree happily with that title, it is, on the other hand, one in which the love of dainty elegance of contour has been allowed almost unrestricted play by its author, and to an extent undreamt of before. He perceived, however, that there was a limit, a step further, and disaster would be certain; Nicolas was sufficiently wide awake not to take it, but left it for his hosts of imitators, many of whom, not gifted with the same perspicuity, "rushed in where angels fear to tread," their just reward being laughter and derision. The attainment of elegance at the expense of strength and stability was not at all in agreement with Stradivari's artistic tastes, and we accordingly have no evidence of his having touched the so-called "Grand Amati;" that which he did take up with was less complex in the subdivision of its curves, and a more simple looking thing altogether. To him it may have seemed to have more of the true characteristic quality always accompanying the grand in art, that of simplicity. It was this pattern, and this only, so far as our information goes—that Stradivari took as the basis on which any future developments should be grounded. He worked upon it for some time seemingly to his own contentment and probably the satisfaction of his patrons, these being sufficiently numerous and influential to enable him ere many years had passed to think of purchasing a house.[A] This he accomplished in the year 1680, when he was thirty-six years of age. Now be it noted Stradivari had been working on the simplest of Amati patterns for fourteen years, and during that time from his steady industry the number of violins, besides other instruments of the family, which left his atelier must have been very large. The similarity in type and regularity of excellence in finished workmanship was almost enough to have impressed the connoisseurs of the day that there was no originality or speculation in the maker, but it was just about this time that the independency of thought began to manifest itself; it was almost as if the acquisition of the freehold property had stimulated the self-reliance which had no doubt always been