of their effect if they were accompanied in an inferior manner, he
expressed the desire that Handel should play the accompaniments. Baron
Kilmanseck carried the request to the king, and supported it strongly.
The result was that peace was made, and an extra pension of two hundred
pounds per annum settled upon Handel. Geminiani, after thirty-five
years spent in England, went to Paris for five years, where he was most
heartily welcomed by the musical world, but returned across the Channel
again to spend his latter years in Dublin. It was here that Matthew
Dubourg, whose book on "The Violin and Violinists" is a perfect
treasure-trove of anecdote, became his pupil.

Another remarkable violinist was an intimate friend of Geminiani, a
name distinguished alike in the annals of chess-playing and music, André
Danican Philidor. This musician was born near Paris in 1726, and was the
grandson of the hautboy-player to the court of Louis XIII. His father
and several of his relations were also eminent players in the royal
orchestras of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Young Philidor was received into
the Chapel Royal at Versailles in 1732, being then six years old, and
when eleven he composed a motette which extorted much admiration. In
the Chapel Royal there were about eighty musicians daily in attendance,
violins, hautboys, violas, double-basses, choristers, etc.; and,
cards not being allowed, they had a long table inlaid with a number of
chess-boards, with which they amused their leisure time. When fourteen
years old Philidor was the best chess-player in the band. Four years
later he played at Paris two games of chess at the same time, without
seeing the boards, and afterward extended this feat to playing five
games simultaneously, which, though far inferior to the wonderful
feats of Morphy, Paulsen, and others in more recent years, very much
astonished his own generation. Philidor was an admirable violinist, and
the composer of numerous operas which delighted the French public for