Some of the fluting and other ornamentation is little short of marvellous in point of design and finish.
To a casual writer like myself the mass of conflicting detail found on examining ancient bows and the records of their use is extremely disconcerting. The practised scientist, however, surveys such things with calmness, for his trained eye immediately selects those details that support the theories he wishes to promulgate, and the rest are quietly consigned to oblivion.
In this way the most charmingly satisfactory results are obtained. Thus Fétis, in his article on Tourte, gives a brief outline of the history of the bow, illustrating the same with what purports to be a "_Display of the successive ameliorations of the bow in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries._" This consists of a series of drawings of bows ranging from Mersenne in 1620 through those used by Kircher, Castrovillari, Bassani, Corelli, Tartini and Cramer to that of Viotti in 1790. Herein is shown how the arched bow gave place to the straight: and this in its turn to that having the inward curve known as the "spring" or _cambre_. The succession is perfect, and it is only the final drawing of the series (the Viotti bow of 1790) that shows this _cambre_.
Now, in the collection of ancient bows kindly lent me by Mr. A. Hill for the purpose of illustrating these pages are several bows of a much earlier date, yet having the _cambre_ most pronounced and, in some examples, extremely elegant.
Not being a scientist, I do not know how to omit these evidences of advance at such an early date from my writings on this subject, although I feel that by not doing so I am rendering this section of the work far from clear.
As a matter of fact clearness in what we can ascertain of the bow's history is a quality conspicuous by its absence; a condition doubtless due to the varying capacities of early bow makers, some of whom may have continued to make antiquated types whilst others of greater talent were anticipating in a measure the results of Tourte's genius and observation. It has been observed in other branches of the world's progress that many have groped in the right direction for a space until there came one Genius who grasped, almost by intuition, the various requirements and produced the perfect work beyond which no man could go.