THE Sordino is a pocket fiddle, the "Pochette" of the French and the "Taschengeige" of the Germans. In form it is derived from the mediÆval rebec which came from the East, and was also known as "gigue." It was distinguished from the viol family by the neck being a prolongation of the body of the instrument, instead of an attachment to it. A diminutive viol, the dancing master's kit, replaced the rebec kit, or sordino, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. A sordino, in the Museum of the Paris Conservatoire, with the date 1717, is believed to be unique as the undoubted work of Stradivarius. Tarisio, a well-known violin collector, brought it from Italy to France, and Louis Clapisson, the violinist, composer, and collector, eventually bought it in 1858, and employed it in his opera of "Les trois Nicolas," writing a gavotte for it. The late M. Chouquet (author of Le MusÉe du Conservatoire National de Musique, Paris, a catalogue raisonnÉ of the musical instruments in that collection) has described, in enthusiastic terms, the effect of this little instrument when a gavotte was played upon it by Croisilles. "It was remembered," he says, "with pleasure by the old subscribers to the Opera Comique"—a remark that would seem to imply that the sordino, or pochette, had adequate power, and a special and agreeable quality of tone. The instrument is provided with four catgut strings, and f holes on either side the bridge. Two Sordini are represented in the three figures of this Plate, the one with a negro's head in two views, the other with a termination in ivory.

These Sordini belong to the Music Class Room, Edinburgh University.

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