the bravos who were hired to assassinate him; but we are now become so much more musical, that I verily believe I should incur the fate which he avoided, were I even to attempt setting limits to the passion. What a dictionary of quotations should I draw down upon my devoted head! "Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast" and "The man that hath not music in his soul, &c." and a thousand others would be spouted forth against me, while I should in vain contend that I was deprecating the abuse, not the use of an art; that I might love any given pursuit without having a rage for it; and that however partial I may be to sweet voices, or sweet wines, I have no ambition to be sung to death, or smothered in a butt of malmsey. Alas! those who have ears for music have none for reason. After the first bustle of visiting, introductions, singing, playing, and admiration, I naturally concluded that we should subside into a little domestic quiet and self-possession, when I might calmly prosecute my studies, and enjoy my own fireside; but my wife's notions of enjoyment were so far from harmonizing with mine, that I found a da capo had commenced, and I was condemned to run through the same round of melodious misery. Since then, I have been in vain expecting a finale; "the cry is still they come;" fiddlers, singers, masters, and amateurs, besiege my house, and there is no end to my wife's parties, or my remonstrances. I find I have married a musician who perpetually reminds me of Dr. Pangloss's distinction between a concert and a consort, Accustomed to admiration, she cannot live without it, and her home becomes insipid, unless it is crowded with listeners and flatterers, and converted into an arena for display. I have no voice in my own house, because my wife has so much, and every body keeps time in it so rigorously, that I cannot find any for my own occupations. From morning to night I am distracted with harmony -my head seems to be a thoroughfare for crotchets, quavers, and semiquavers a common sewer, into which is disgorged a perpetual stream of noise, under every possible variety which the modulation of air can produce. Even in my sleep I have a constant singing in my head; the nerves of my brain, like an Æolian harp, vibrate of themselves; and if I dream, it is of the jarring, scraping, and tuning, of ten thousand in

struments.

Man has been defined, by physiologists, as a featherless biped, but I have been sometimes struck with the capricious contrast between the human and the winged subject. In peacocks, pheasants, and all the gallinaceous tribe, it is the male who is dressed out in gorgeous colours and fine feathers, while the female is as plain and unadorned as a quakeress. Singing-birds are all small, the blackbird being the largest ; there is no beaked Billington; and it is the gentleman who tunes his pipe while the domestic lady sits brooding over her eggs. Mine broods over nothing but the harpsichord, and my "callow nestlings of domestic bliss" are rondos, sonatas, and canzonettas. How can I expect her to be a good housekeeper, in any sense of the word? That left hand, so conversant in thorough- bass, would you desecrate it with a roll of tradesmen's bills? those dexter fingers, such volant summoners of sound, would you condemn them to a thimble and needle, or require them to handle any keys but those of the instrument? and that voice," warbling immortal verse and Tuscan air," would you have the heart to bid it scold her servants and add up accounts?-None but a Goth or a Vandal would dream of such degradations, and yet I am ashamed to confess how much

of a barbarian I am become. "The piece which your wife is about to play, is extremely difficult," said a friend the other night. "I wish to God it was impossible," was my reply; and shortly after I exclaimed, in the midst of a most complicated fugue-" sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus," to the great scandal of all the bystanders, the casting of angry glances from the performers, the holding up of forefingers, and the general exclamation of "Hush!"-My guests are fonder of music than I am; a great many walk away into another room to play cards or chat during the performance of any favourite piece, but they invariably return when it is finished, to cry "Bravo! charming! beautiful! divine! -Whose composition is that? Do pray oblige us with it once more."

Let none but the rich man aspire to the possession of a musical wife, for he must expect to pay for the luxury in proportion to its annoyance; a computation which renders it extravagant indeed. If ever a Congress of Sovereigns find themselves assembled in my pocket, they are presently dispersed for benefit tickets and subscription concerts. One meeting is no sooner over than another is announced; singers are never out of breath, fiddlers' arms never ache, my wife's tarantula is never cured, her fingers are never out of her harpsichord, and mine never out of my purse. The "No Song no Supper" of former days is now converted into "no Dinner no Song," for my table is beleaguered two or three times a week with a whole irruption of hungry harmonists, who commit grievous havock upon fish, flesh, and poultry, and cultivate the decanter as if they were drinking for a voice. At first I had no conception that a song could ever emerge from such a superincumbent mass of viands, deeming it as improbable an event as that the giants should upheave from beneath Mount Pelion, or that the bottom shelf of a tavern-larder should warble one of Moore's melodies. I found a malicious pleasure in believing, that even the ghost of a voice was laid, when lo! with no other conjuration than a preliminary "Hem," these ventripotent melodists called up from the Red Sea of my port and claret, all their buried swells, shakes, and cadences, as loud, clear, and lively, as ever they existed before dinner!

But the crowning misery, the master mischief of the musico-mania, is the converting my dwelling into an opera-house or common hotel, for the benefit concert of some squalling Italian, when hundreds of utter strangers, upon the strength of their guinea tickets, stare me out of countenance in my own abode, hustling, elbowing, and pinioning me up into a corner where I can see and hear nothing, or compelling me to take my stand half-way down stairs with a cold wind blowing upon my back, and some gaping vulgarian treading upon my toes in front. This I hold to be so degrading, as well as offensive a proceeding, that I should never submit to be a personal witness of the outrage, but for certain considerations which I hardly know how to mention to ears polite." Suffice it to say, that I find it necessary to look, as well as listen upon these occasions, for among my visitants I have had amateurs of other things than music; gentlemen, who have learned the new art of fingering, without the assistance of the chiroplast ; shrewd conveyancers, who can make a transfer from a chimney piece to a pocket in a demi-semiquaver. I accuse nobody-the whole six hundred at my last invasion were, doubtless, "all honourable men," though I had not the honour of knowing them; and the phenomena

I am about to relate, are unquestionably attributable to the music. We know what magical effects it produced among the ancients

Orpheus and old Amphion play'd
Strange tunes to entertain our sires,
Enlivening stocks and stones, 'tis said;

But then we know they had their Lyres.

I firmly believe that the walls of Thebes built themselves to the tune of "The Freemasons' March," and that tigers and kids, lambs and lions, raised themselves upon their hind legs and waltzed lovingly together, when Orpheus sang to Chiron; for I have witnessed enchantments in my own house not a whit less miraculous. A small antique Apollo, that stood upon a bracket in my drawing-room, although he had but one leg, has hopped clean away, probably imagining, from the concord of sweet sounds, that he was regaining his favourite Parnassus. By what arrangement of muscles Mercury could ply the wings attached to his cap, I could never comprehend, but it is obvious that he possesses the power, for a little bronze image of that god has flown away from my chimney-piece. This, however, may be the pious abduction of some one who recognised his appropriate deity, and so bore him off in triumph. A beautiful nymph skipping has jumped from my writing-table, and eloped from the paternal roof. If the gentleman with whom she has taken refuge will return her to her disconsolate owner, he may retain the rope for his own use. Philip the Fifth of Spain fell once into such a fit of low spirits, that for several months he refused to be shaved, until the soothing sweetness of Farinelli's strains induced him to submit his chin to the razor with great cheerfulness and resolution. Well, I had a large medal of this monarch in his bearded state, which must have recognised, in some of my Italian warblers, such approximation to Farinelli's notes, that it has rolled itself away for the purpose, probably, of undergoing another capillary excision. Enquiries have been made at the barbers' and perfumers' shops in the neighbourhood, which, from their number of blocks and heads without brains, ought to know something of musical matters; but I can gain no tidings of the fugitive. An Egyptian Scarabæus in blue onyx, animated by some lively tune, not only crept from under a glass case, but crawled fairly out of my hall door at the last concert. Should any of my musical visitants have been mounted on its back, like Arion on his dolphin, and an accident have occurred from their crossing the street amid the rush of carriages, I sincerely hope the poor beetle has escaped unhurt. That a Parisian shepherdess in bisquit should take French leave of my mantelpiece, is perhaps natural, and may be attributed to love of home rather than of music; nor is it wonderful that a gold box with Thieves vinegar should abscond, for the present possessor establishes his claim to the perfume by keeping its case-but I cannot comprehend how a verd-antique pitcher with one ear, and that one hermetically sealed, should be so fascinated as to run off with one of my melodists, and thus deprive me at once of "my friend and pitcher;" nor why so apparently phlegmatic and discreet an inmate as a silver candlestick, should become a "Fanatico per la Musica," and walk off to encounter more melting strains than those to which it was nightly subjected in the performance of its duty.

My wife remarks with great originality and shrewdness, that things cannot go without hands.-Not even harpsichords, I replied; and yet they are constantly going. However, I am a recognised amateur, and of course bound to like music, whatever effects it produces; though I confess I should be better pleased if every visitant were compelled to give a concert in return, by which arrangement our moveables might justify their name, and after performing the tour of our circle, return to their original quarters. At all events I am an inveterate amateur, and therefore I exclaim con amore, and with infinite bitterness-Hail to that bewitching art, which lightens our bosoms as well as our brackets, eases us of our cares and candlesticks, imperceptibly steals away our vexations and valuables, and clears at the same moment our minds and our mantelpieces! H.

AN INVOCATION.

O THOU undying Spirit of poetry!

Spirit, or nymph, or muse,-laurell'd,-bright-eyed ;-
Haunter of those green regions where of old

Apollo held his court the summer long!
O'by what name holy and chaste, yet warm
As suits my adoration, and not shames
Thy purity, may I invoke thee now?

Now, as I speak unto thee, the bleak winds
Of the fast-dying winter wail around,

And from the inner heaven the clouded moon
Is reappearing for a time distress'd

:

By streaming torrents and the driving hail,

She hid her head eclipsed, sending abroad

A tremulous glance which dyed the vapour's edge
With beauty: but, behold! she comes again,
Unclouded, and serene, and like a queen

Sailing along the skies magnificent.

Great Dian! if on some orb nigh to thee,
Where spirits watch, or languish, or rejoice,
Or some still'd planet which hath earn'd its rest,
(Golden security!) a muse abide,-

Bid her arise and quit her radiant home.
And thou, far-loitering spirit, heed my song,
Whether upon the wind from star to star
Thou ridest triumphing, or art thyself

A sound,—no more; or haplier some fine power
Incorporate with each living element,

And shadow'd out in human shape by man,
Fond of adoring things himself hath made,-
Whate'er thou art, essence or visible form,
I invocate thee, and by every spell
The poet knows, compel thee, if I
To prompt and heighten my great argument.

may,

B. C.

PETER PINDARICS.

The Poet and the Alchymist.

AUTHORS of modern date are wealthy fellows;-
'Tis but to snip his locks they follow
Now the golden-hair'd Apollo.-
Invoking Plutus to puff up the bellows
Of inspiration, they distill"

The rhimes and novels which cajole us,

Not from the Heliconian rill,

But from the waters of Pactolus.

Before this golden age of writers,

A Grub-street Garreteer existed, One of the regular inditers

Of odes and poems to be twisted
Into encomiastic verses,

For patrons who have heavy purses.—
Besides the Bellman's rhymes, he had
Others to let, both gay and sad,

All ticketed from A to Izzard;
And living by his wits, I need not add,
The rogue was lean as any lizard.
Like a ropemaker's were his ways,
For still one line upon another
He spun, and like his hempen brother,
Kept going backwards all his days.
Hard by his attic lived a Chymist,
Or Alchymist, who had a mighty
Faith in the Elixir Vitæ ;

And though unflatter'd by the dimmest
Glimpses of success, kept groping
And grubbing in his dark vocation,
Stupidly hoping,

To find the art of changing metals,
And guineas coin from pans and kettles,
By mystery of transmutation.

Our starving Poet took occasion
To seek this conjuror's abode,
Not with encomiastic ode,

Or laudatory dedication,
But with an offer to impart,

For twenty pounds, the secret art,

Which should procure, without the pain

Of metals, chymistry, and fire,

What he so long had sought in vain,
And gratify his heart's desire.

The money paid, our bard was hurried

To the philosopher's sanctorum,

Who, somewhat sublimized and flurried,
Out of his chemical decorum,

Crow'd, caper'd, giggled, seem'd to spurn his
Crucibles, retort, and furnace,

And cried, as he secured the door,

And carefully put to the shutter, "Now, now, the secret I implore;

For God's sake, speak, discover, utter!"
With grave and solemn look, the poet
Cried-" List-Ob, list! for thus I shew it :-

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