One fine afternoon in 1868, I was coming thorough Wardour Street and thought I would call in at George Hart’s for a few strings. On this occasion, there was a handsome, fair-haired, young man, barely twenty-four years of age, rather tall, and of very gentlemanly appearance, walking up and down the room, playing a series of scales and cadenzas on a fine toned violin. It struck me that he was a very good player, and I sat down for some time to listen to him. At last he finished playing and turning to Hart, said:— “Yes, I am quite contented, I have brought a blank cheque with me, and I will fill it up now.” “If you fill up your cheque for three hundred and four pounds, that will be all right,” said Hart. I learnt he was a not a professional violinist, but a young attaché to the Embassy of St. Petersburg, named Warde, and that he was on the point of leaving England for that city. Well, the following year, I purchased a Globe newspaper and came upon a paragraph announcing with great regret the death of the young English attaché. I was much pained in reading this, for I That once recognized the talented violinist I had met accidentally at George Hart’s music shop. One day I called at Hart’s and told him what I had seen, asking him if he knew it. “Oh, yes,” he replied. “It appears that after playing at a musical evening in the house of one of his friends, he was fondling a parrot, which bit him upon the lip. At first nothing was thought of the slight wound; but he afterwards caught cold, and it festered, producing blood-poisoning, to which, unfortunately, he succumbed.”
He went on to explain that after the sad occurrence just referred to, the mother of the young violinist wrote to ask him if he would take back the violin. To which Hart at once replied that he would be happy to do so, charging only a slight commission. But when he opened the box – Oh! What a surprise! – instead of the fine Stradivari instrument, there was “a common fiddle” – it could hardly be called a violin – which was worth, perhaps, about twenty shillings!
It was said to be dated 1709 (but I did not see the label), and to have previously formed part of the Plowden collection. The colour was monotonous, a rather dark brown, and dull; but all along the pur.ing it was inlaid with small triangular ivory plates, or ivory and ebony, alternately black and white, which gave it, of course, a very striking appearance. The tone was brilliant and soft, though not of a peculiarly luscious character.