[1] In the same essay Bentham notices the comparative rarity of
fictions in Scots law. As to fiction in particular, compared with the
work done by it in English law, the use made of it by the Scottish
lawyers is next to nothing. No need have they had of any such clumsy
instrument. They have two others "of their own making, by which
things of the same sort have been done with much less trouble.
_Nobile officium_ gives them the creative power of legislation; this
and the word desuetude together the annihilative." And he notices
aptly enough that, while the English lawyers declared that James II.
had abdicated the throne (which everybody knew to be false), the
Scottish lawyers boldly said he had forfeited it.
FIDDES, RICHARD (1671-1725), English divine and historian, was born at
Hunmanby and educated at Oxford. He took orders, and obtained the living
of Halsham in Holderness in 1696. Owing to ill-health he applied for
leave to reside at Wickham, and in 1712 he removed to London on the plea
of poverty, intending to pursue a literary career. In London he met
Swift, who procured him a chaplaincy at Hull. He also became chaplain to
the earl of Oxford. After losing the Hull chaplaincy through a change of
ministry in 1714, he devoted himself to writing. His best book is a
_Life of Cardinal Wolsey_ (London, 1724), containing documents which are
still valuable for reference; of his other writings the _Prefatory
Epistle containing some remarks to be published on Homer's Iliad_
(London, 1714), was occasioned by Pope's proposed translation of the
_Iliad_, and his _Theologia speculativa_ (London, 1718), earned him the
degree of D.D. at Oxford. In his own day he had a considerable
reputation as an author and man of learning.
FIDDLE (O. Eng. _fithele_, _fidel_, &c., Fr. _viele_, viole, _violon_;
M. H. Ger. _videle_, mod. Ger. _Fiedel_), a popular term for the violin,
derived from the names of certain of its ancestors. The word fiddle
antedates the appearance of the violin by several centuries, and in
England did not always represent an instrument of the same type. The
word has first been traced in 1205 in Layamon's _Brut_ (7002), "of
harpe, of salteriun, of fithele and of coriun." In Chaucer's time the
fiddle was evidently a well-known instrument:
"For him was lever have at his beddes hed
A twenty bokes, clothed in black or red.
Of Aristotle and his Philosophie,
Than robes riche or fidel or sautrie."
(_Prologue_, v. 298.)
The origin of the fiddle is of the greatest interest; it will be found
inseparable from that of the violin both as regards the instruments and
the etymology of the words; the remote common ancestor is the _ketharah_
of the Assyrians, the parent of the Greek cithara. The Romans are
responsible for the word fiddle, having bestowed upon a kind of
cithara--probably then in its first transition--the name of _fidiculae_
(more rarely _fidicula_), a diminutive form of _fides_. In Alain de
Lille's _De planctu naturae_ against the word _lira_ stands as
equivalent _vioel_, with the definition "Lira est quoddam genue citharae
vel fitola alioquin de reot. Hoc instrumentum est multum vulgare." This
is a marginal note in writing of the 13th century.[1]
Some of the transitions from _fidicula_ to fiddle are made evident in
the accompanying table:
Latin fidiculae
Medieval Latin vitula, fitola.
French viele, vielle, viole.
Provencal viula.
Spanish viguela, vihuela, vigolo.
Old High German fidula.
Middle High German videle.
German fiedel, violine.
Italian viola, violino.
Dutch vedel.
Danish fiddel.
Anglo-Saxon fithele.
Old English fithele, fythal, fithel, fythylle, fidel fidylle,
(south) vithele.
For the descent of the guitar-fiddle, the first bowed ancestor of the
violin, through many transitions from the cithara, see CITHARA, GUITAR
and GUITAR-FIDDLE.
In the minnesinger and troubadour fiddles, of which evidences abound
during the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, are to be observed the
structural characteristics of the violin and its ancestors in the course
of evolution. The principal of these are first of all the shallow
sound-chest, composed of belly and back, almost flat, connected by ribs
(also present in the cithara), with incurvations more or less
pronounced, an arched bridge, a finger-board and strings (varying in
number), vibrated by means of a bow. The central rose sound-holes of
stringed instruments whose strings are plucked by fingers, or plectrum
have given place to smaller lateral sound-holes placed on each side of
the strings. It is in Germany,[2] where contemporary drawings of fiddles
of the 13th and 14th centuries furnish an authoritative clue, and in
France, that the development may best be followed. The German
minnesinger fiddle with sloping shoulders was the prototype of the
viols, whereas the guitar-fiddle produced the violin through the
intermediary of the Italian bowed _Lyra_.
[Illustration: From Julius Ruhlmann's _Geschichte der Bogeninstrumente_.