nuisance than a fine player can be; for if music be, as Mr. Charles Lamb happily calls it, "measured malice," malice out of all measure must be admitted to be worse still. Generally speaking, people who dislike the art deserve to be as much bored as they are by the "concord of sweet sounds." There is not an English lady in a thousand who, when asked if she be fond of music, has the courage enough to say, No: she thinks it would be rude to do so; whereas, in my opinion, it is a civil way of getting out of the scrape, since, if the performance be really such as commands admiration, (and the very best music is an enjoyment as exquisite as it is rare,*) the delight evinced comes as a pleasant surprise, or as a graceful compliment; and if (as is by very far most probable) the singing chance to be such as one would rather not hear, why then one has, at least, the very great comfort of not being obliged to simper and profess oneself pleased, but may seem as tired, and look as likely to yawn as one will, without offering any particular affront, or incurring any worse imputation than that of being wholly without taste for music-a natural defect, at which the amateur who has been excruciating one's ears vents his contempt in a shrug of scornful pity, little suspecting how entirely (as is often the case with that amiable passion) the contempt is mutual. Now there are certain cases under which the evil of music is much mitigated: when one is not expected to listen, for instance, as at a large party in London, or, better still, at a great house in the country, where there are three or four rooms open, and one can get completely out of the way, and hear no more of the noise than of a peal of bells in the next parish. Music, under such circumstances, may be endured with becoming philosophy. But the poor Belfordians had no such resource. Their parties were held, at the best, in two small drawing-rooms laid into one by the aid of folding-doors; so that when Mr. King, accompanied by his sister Henrietta, who drummed and strummed upon the piano like a boarding-school Miss, and sung her part in a duet with a voice like a raven, began his eternal vocalization, (for, never tired of hearing himself, he never dreamt of leaving off until his unhappy audience parted for the night,) when once the self-delighted pair began, the deafened whist-table groaned in dismay; lot tery-tickets were at a discount; commerce at a stand-still; Pope Joan died a natural death, and the pool of quadrille came to an untimely end. The reign of the four kings, so long the mild and absolute sovereigns of the Belford parties, might be said to be over, and the good old ladies, long their peaceable and loving subjects, submitted with peevish patience to the yoke of the usurper. They listened and they yawned; joined in their grumbling by the other vocalists of this genteel society, the singing young ladies and manœuvring mammas, who found themselves literally “pushed from their stools," their music-stools, by the Harwood monopoly of the instrument, as well as affronted by the Bantam King's intolerance of all bad singing except his own. How long the usurpation would have lasted, how long the discontent would have been confined to hints and frowns, and whispered mutterings, and very intelligible innuendoes, without breaking into open rebellion,-in other words, how long it would have been before King Harwood was sent to Coventry, there is no telling. He himself put an end to his musical sovereignty, as other ambitious rulers have done before him, by an overweening desire to add to the extent of his dominions. Thus it fell out. One of the associations which did the greatest honour to Belford, was a society of amateur musicians-chiefly tradesmen, imbued with a real love of the art, and a desire to extend and cultivate an amusement which, however one may laugh at the affectation of musical taste, is, when so pursued, of a very elevating and delightful character-who met frequently at each other's houses for the sake of practice, and, encouraged by the leadership of an accomplished violin-player, and the possession of two or three voices of extraordinary brilliancy and power, began about this time to extend their plan, to rehearse two or three times a week at a great room belonging to one of the society, and to give amateur concerts at the Town-hall. Very delightful these concerts were. Every man exerted himself to the utmost, and, accustomed to play the same pieces with the same associates, the performance had much of the unity which makes the charm of family music. They were so unaffected, too, so thoroughly unpretending there was such genuine good taste, so much of the true spirit of enjoy*The circumstances under which music is heard ment, and so little of trickery and display, often communicate to it a charm not its own. A mili- that the audience, who went prepared to be tary band, for instance, in the open air, wind instru-indulgent, were enchanted; the amateur conments upon the water, the magnificent masses of the Romish church, or the organ pealing along the dim aisles of our own venerable cathedrals, will scarcely fail to exercise a strong power over the imagination. There is another association in music, that is perhaps more delightful than all: the young innocent girl who trips about the house, carolling snatches of songs with her round, clear, youthful voice-gay, and happy, and artless as an uncaged bird. certs became the fashion of the day, and all the elegance and beauty of the town and neighbourhood crowded to the Belford Townhall. This was enough for Mr. King HarWood. He had attended once as a hearer, and he instantly determined to be heard. It was pretermitting his dignity, to be sure, and his brother, Earl, would have been dumb for ever before he would have condescended to such an association. But the vanity of our friend the King was of a more popular description. Rather than not get applause, he would have played Punch at Belford fair; acccordingly, he offered himself as a tenor singer to the amateur society, and they, won by his puffs of his musical genius, - which, to say the truth, had about them the prevailing power which always results from the speaker's perfect faith in his own assertions, the self-deluding faith which has never failed to make converts, from Mahomet down to Joanna Southcot, they, won to belief, and civilly unwilling to put his talents to the proof, accepted his services for the next concert. - Luckless King Harwood! He to sing in concerted pieces! Could not he have remembered that unhappy supper of the Catch and Glee Club in Finsbury-square, where, for his sake, "Non Nobis, Domine," was hissed, and Glorious Apollo" well-nigh damned? He to aspire to the dictatorship of country musicians! Had he wholly forgotten that still more unlucky morning, when, aspiring to reform the church music of Dighton, he and the parish clerk and the obedient sexton, began, as announced and pre-arranged, to warble Luther's Hymn; whilst all the rest of the singing gallery, three clarionets, two French horns, the bassoon, and the rustic vocalists struck up the Hundreth Psalm; and the uninstructed charity children, catching the last word as given out by the clerk, completed the triple chain, not of harmony, but of discord, by screaming out at the top of their shrill childish voices the sweet sounds of the Morning Hymn? Was that day forgotten, and that day's mortification?-when my lord, a musical amateur of the first water, whom the innovation was intended to captivate, was fain to stop his cognoscentic ears, whilst Lady Julia held her handkerchief to her fair face to conceal her irrepressible laughter, and the unhappy source of this confusion ran first of all to the Rectory to escape from the tittering remarks of the congregation, and then half-way to London to escape from the solemn rebuke of the Rector? Could that hour be forgotten? I suppose it was. Certain he offered himself and was accepted; and was no sooner installed a member of the Society, than he began his usual course of dictation and finding fault. His first contest was that very fruitful ground of dispute, the concert bill. With the instrumental pieces he did not meddle; but in the vocal parts the Society had wisely confined themselves to English words and English composers, to the great horror of the new primo tenore, who proposed to substitute Spohr and Auber and Rossini, for Purcell and Harrington and Bishop, and to have "no vulgar English name," in the whole bill of fare. 66 To think of the chap!" exclaimed our good friend, Stephen Lane, when Master King proposed a quartet from the "Cenerentola, in lieu of the magnificent music which has well-nigh turned one of the finest tragedies in the world into the very finest opera-(I mean, of course, Matthew Locke's music in Macbeth) "To think of the chap!" exclaimed Stephen, who had sung Hecate with admirable power and beauty for nearly forty years, and whose noble bass voice still retained its unrivalled richness of tone-"To think of his wanting to frisk me into some of his parley-voos stuff, and daring to sneer and snigger not only at old Locke's music!- and I'll thank any of your parley-voos to show me finer, but at Shakspeare himself! I don't know much of poetry, to be sure," said Stephen; "but I know this, that Shakspeare's the poet of old England, and that every Englishman's bound to stand up for him, as he is for his country or his religion; and, dang it, if that chap dares to fleer at him again before my face, I'll knock him down-and so you may tell him, Master Antony," pursued the worthy butcher, somewhat wroth against the leader, whose courtesy had admitted the offending party,— so you may tell him; and I tell you, that if I had not stood up all my life against the system, I'd strike, and leave you to get a bass where you could. I hate such puppies, and so you may tell him!" So saying, Stephen walked away, and the concert bill remained unaltered. 66 If (as is possible) there had been a latent hope that the new member would take offence at his want of influence in the programme of the evening's amusement, and strike" himself, the hope was disappointed. Most punctual in the orchestra was Mr. King Harwood, and most delighted to perceive a crowded and fashionable audience. He placed himself in a conspicuous situation and a most conspicuous attitude, and sat out first an overture of Weber's, then the fine old duet, "Time has not thinned my flowing hair," and then the cause of quarrel, "When shall we three meet again," in which Stephen had insisted on his bearing no part, with scornful sang froid-although the Hecate was so superb, and the whole performance so striking, that, as if to move his spleen, it had been rapturously encored. The next piece was "O Nanny!" harmonized for four voices, in which he was to bear a partand a most conspicuous part he did bear, sure enough! The essence of that sweetest melody, which "custom cannot stale," is, as every one knows, its simplicity; but simplicity made no part of our vocalist's merits! No one that heard him will ever forget the trills, and runs, and shakes, the cadences and flourishes, of that "O Nanny!"-The other three voices (one of which was Stephen's,) stopped in astonishment, and the panting violins "toiled after him in vain." At last, Stephen Lane, somewhat provoked at having been put out of 66 his own straight course by any thing,-for, as he said afterwards, he thought he could have sung "O Nanny," in the midst of an earthquake, and determined to see if he could stop the chap's flourishes,-suddenly snatched the fiddle-stick out of the hands of the wondering leader, and jerked the printed glee out of the white-gloved hands of the singer, as he was holding the leaves with the most delicate affectation sent them sailing and fluttering over the heads of the audience, and then, as the King, nothing daunted, continued his variations on "Thou wert fairest," followed up his blow by a dexterous twitch with the same convenient instrument at the poor beau's caxon, which flew spinning along the ceiling, and alighted at last on one of the ornaments of the centre chandelier, leaving the luckless vocalist with a short crop of reddish hair, slightly bald and somewhat grizzled, a fierce pair of whiskers curled and dyed, and a most chap-fallen countenance, in the midst of the cheers, the bravos, and the encores of the diverted audience, who laughed at the exploit from the same resistless impulse that tempted honest Stephen to the act. "Flesh and blood could not withstand it, man!" exclaimed he, apologetically, holding out his huge red fist, which the crest-fallen beau was far too angry to take; "but I'm quite ready to make the wig good; I'll give you half a dozen, if you like, in return for the fun; and I'd recommend their fitting tighter, for really it's extraordinary what a little bit of a jerk sent that fellow flying up to the ceiling just like a bird. The fiddlestick's none the worse-nor you either, if you could but think so. rode over to Dighton, for two or three days more; after which he returned to Belford, revisited his old haunts and renewed his old ways, strutting and skipping, as usual, the loudest at public meetings the busiest on committees—the most philosophical member of the Philosophical Society, at which, by the way, adventuring with all the boldness of ignorance on certain chemical experiments, he very literally burnt his fingers; and the most horticultural of the horticulturalists, marching about in a blue apron, like a real gardener, flourishing watering-pots, cheapening budding-knives, and boasting of his marvels in grafting and pruning, although the only things resembling trees in his mother's slip of a garden were some smoky China roses that would not blow, and a few blighted currants that refused to ripen. But these were trifles. He attended all the more serious business of the town and country-was a constant man at the vestry, although no householder, and at borough and county meetings, although he had not a foot of land in the world. He attended rail-road meetings, navigation meetings, turnpike meetings, gas-work meetings, paving meetings, Macadamizing meetings, water-work meetings, cottage-allotment meetings, anti-slavetrade meetings, education meetings of every sort, and dissenting meetings of all denominations; never failed the bench; was as punctual at an inquest as the coroner, at the quarter-sessions as the chairman, at the assizes as the judge, and hath been oftener called to order by the court, and turned out of the grand-jury room by the foreman, than any other man in the county. In short, as Stephen Lane, whom he encountered pretty frequently in the course of his perambulations, pithily observed of him, A body was sure to find the chap wherever he had no business." But in the midst of this consolatory and conciliatory harangue, the discomfited hero of the evening disappeared, leaving his "O Nan-" ny!" under the feet of the company, and his periwig perched on the chandelier over their heads. The result of this adventure was, in the first place, a most satisfactory settlement of the question of wig or no wig, which had divided the female world of Belford; and a complete cure of his musical mania on the part of its hero. He never sang a note again, and has even been known to wince at the sound of a barrel-organ; whilst those little vehicles of fairy tunes, French work-boxes and snuff-boxes, were objects of his especial alarm. He always looked as if he expected to hear the sweet air of "O Nanny!" issuing from them. One would have thought that such a calamity would have been something of a lesson. But vanity is a strong-rooted plant that soon sprouts out again, crop it off closely as you may, and the misadventure wrought but little change in his habits. For two or three days, (probably, whilst a new wig was making) he kept his room, sick or sulky; then he Stephen, who, probably, thought he had given him punishment enough, regarded the poor King after the fashion in which his great dog Smoker would look upon a cur whom he had tossed once and disdained to toss againa mixture of toleration and contempt. The utmost to which the good butcher was ever provoked by his adversary's noisiest nonsense or pertest presumption, was a significant nod towards the chandelier from whence the memorable wig had once hung pendent, a true escutcheon of pretence; or, if that memento were not sufficient, the whistling a few bars of "Where thou wert fairest,"-a gentle hint, which seldom failed of its effect in perplexing and dumfounding the orator. They were, however, destined to another encounter; and, as often happens in this world of shifting circumstance, the result of that encounter brought out points of character which entirely changed their feelings and position towards each other. Stephen had been, as I have before said, or meant to say, a mighty cricketer in his time; and, although now many stone too heavy for active participation, continued as firmly attached to the sport, as fond of looking on and promoting that most noble and truly English game, as your old cricketer, when of a hearty and English character, is generally found to be. He patronised and promoted the diversion on all occasions, formed a weekly club at Belford, for the sake of practice, assigned them a commodious meadow for a cricket-ground, trained up sons and grandsons to the exercise, made matches with all the parishes round, and was so sedulous in maintaining the credit of the Belford Eleven, that not a lad came into the place as an apprentice or a journeyman-especially if he happened to belong to a cricketing county-without Stephen's examining into his proficiency in his favourite accomplishment. Towards blacksmiths, who, from the development of muscular power in the arms, are often excellent players, and millers, who are good cricketers, one scarcely knows why-it runs in the trade-his attention was particularly directed, and his researches were at last rewarded by the discovery of a first-rate batsman, at a forge nearly opposite his own residence. Caleb Hyde, the handicraftsman in question, was a spare, sinewy, half-starved looking young man, as ragged as the wildest colt he ever shod: Humphry Clinker was not in a more unclothed condition when he first shocked the eyes of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble; and Stephen seeing that he was a capital ironsmith, and sure to command good wages, began to fear that his evil plight arose, as in nine cases out of ten raggedness does arise, from the gentle seductions of the beer-houses. On inquiry, however, he found that his protegé was as sober as if there was not a beer-house in the world; that he had been reduced to his present unseemly plight by a long fever; and that his only extravagance consisted in his having, ever since he was out of his apprenticeship, supported by the sweat of his brow an aged mother and a sickly sister, for whose maintenance, during his own tedious illness, he had pawned his clothes, rather than allow them to receive relief from the parish. This instance of affectionate independence won our butcher's heart. "That's what I call acting like a man and an Englishman!" exclaimed honest Stephen. "I never had a mother to take care of," continued he, pursuing the same train of thought, -"that is, I never knew her; and an unnatural jade she must have been: but nobody belonging to me should ever have received parish money whilst I had the use of my two hands; and this poor fellow must be seen to!" And as an induction to the more considerable and more permanent benefits which he designed for him, he carried Caleb off to the cricket-ground, where there was a grand rendezvous of all the amateurs of the neighbourhood, beating up for recruits for a great match to come off at Danby-park on the succeeding week. "They give their players a guinea a day,” thought Stephen; "and I'd bet fifty guineas that Sir Thomas takes a fancy to him." Now, the Belford cricket-ground happened to be one of Mr. King Harwood's many lounges. He never, to be sure, condescended to play there; but it was an excellent opportunity to find fault with those that did, to lay down the law on disputed points, to talk familiarly of the great men at Lord's, and to boast how, in one match, on that classic ground, he had got more notches than Mr. Ward, and had caught out Mr. Budd, and bowled out Lord Frederick. Any body, to have heard him, would have thought him, in his single person, able to beat a whole eleven. That marquée, on the Belford cricket-ground, was the place to see King Harwood in his glory. There he was, on the afternoon in question, putting in his word on all occasions; a word of more importance than usual, because Sir Thomas being himself unable to attend, his steward, whom he had sent to select the auxiliaries for the great match, was rather more inclined than his master would have been to listen to his suggestions, (a circumstance which may be easily accounted for by the fact, that the one did know him, and the other did not,) and, therefore, in more danger of being prejudiced by his scornful disdain of poor Caleb, towards whom he had taken a violent aversion, first as a protegé of Mr. Lane, and, secondly, as being very literally an "unwashed artificer;" Stephen having carried him off from the forge without even permitting the indispensable ablutions, or the slight improvement in costume which his scanty wardrobe would have permitted. "He "He would be a disgrace to your eleven, Mr. Miller!" said his Bantamic Majesty to the civil steward; "Sir Thomas would have to clothe him from top to toe. There's the cricketer that I should recommend," added he, pointing to a young linendraper, in nankeen shorts, light shoes, and silk stockings. understands the proper costume, and is, in my mind, a far prettier player. Out!" shouted "the skipping King," as Caleb, running a little too hard, saved himself from being stumped out by throwing himself down at full length, with his arm extended, and the end of his bat full two inches beyond the stride; "Out! fairly out!" "No out!" vociferated the butcher; "it's a thing done every day. He's not out, and you are!" exclaimed the man of the cleaver. But the cry of "out" having once been raised, the other side, especially the scout who had picked up and tossed the ball, and the wicket-keeper who had caught it from the |scout, and the bowler-a dogged surly old player, whom Caleb's batting had teased not a little-joined in the clamour; and forthwith a confusion and a din of tongues, like that of the Tower of Babel, arose amongst cricketers and standers-by; from the midst of which could be heard at intervals," Lord's Ground," "Howard," "Mr. Ward," Mr. Budd," "Lord Frederick,” and “The Marybone Club," in the positive dogmatical dictatorial tones of Mr. King Harwood; and the apparently irrelevant question, "O Nanny, wilt thou gang with me?" sung, in his deep and powerful bary-tone voice, by Stephen Lane. At last, from mere weariness, there was a pause in the uproar; and our honest butcher, wiping his fine broad manly face, exclaimed, half in soliloquy, "To be sure, it's foolish enough to make such a squabbling at a mere practising bout among ourselves; but one can't help being aggravated to hear a chap, who sits there never touching a bat, lay down the law as if he could beat all England; whereas it's my firm opinion that he never played in a match in his life. If he had, he'd want to play now. I defy a man that has been a cricketer not to feel a yearning, like, after the game when it's going on before his eyes; and I would not mind laying a smartish wager that his playing is just as bad as his singing." "I'll play any man for thirty pounds, the best of two innings, at single wicket!" replied King, producing the money. "Done," replied Stephen; "and Caleb, here, shall be your man." "Surely, Mr. Lane," responded the affronted beau, "you can't intend to match me with a dirty ragged fellow like that? Of course I expect something like equality in my opponent — some decent person. No one could expect me to play against a journeyman blacksmith." ،، Why not ? demanded the undaunted radical; "we're all the same flesh and blood, whether clean or dirty-all sprung from Adam. And as to Caleb, poor fellow! who pawned his clothes to keep his old mother and his sick sister, I only wish we were all as good. Howsomever, as that match would be, as you say, rather unequal-for I'll be bound that he'd beat you with his right hand tied behind him, -why, it would not be fair to put him against you. Here's my little grandson Gregory, who wont be ten years old till next Martinmas -he shall play you; or, dang it, man," shouted Stephen, "I'll play you myself! I have not taken a bat in hand these twenty years," continued he, beginning, in spite of the remonstrances of his friends, especially of poor Caleb, to strip off his coat and waistcoat, and prepare for the encounter,-"I have not touched bat or ball for these twenty years, but I'm as sure of beating that chap as if he was a woman. So hold your tongue, Peter Jenkins! be quiet, Caleb! Don't you prate about your grandmother, Gregory; for play I will. And get you ready, Master Harwood, for I mean to bowl you out at the first ball." And Master King did make ready accordingly; tied one handkerchief round his white trousers and another round his waist, lamented the want of his nankeens and his cricketing pumps, poised the bats, found fault with the | ball, and finally placed himself in an attitude at the wicket; and having won the toss, prepared to receive the ball, which Stephen on his part was preparing very deliberately to deliver. Stephen in his time had been an excellent fast bowler; and as that power was not affected by his size, (though probably somewhat impaired by want of practice,) and his confidence in his adversary's bad play was much increased by the manner in which he stood at his wicket, he calculated with the most comfortable certainty on getting him out whenever he liked; and he was right; the unlucky King could neither stop nor strike. He kept no guard over his wicket; and in less than three minutes the stumps rattled without his having once hit the ball. It was now Stephen's turn to go in-the fattest cricketer of a surety that ever wielded bat. He stood up to his wicket like a man, and considering that King's bowling was soon seen to be as bad as his hitting that is to say, as bad as any thing could be-there was every chance of his stopping the ball, and continuing in for three hours; but whether he would get a notch in three days, whether dear Stephen Lane could run, was a problem. It was solved, however, and sooner than might have been expected. He gave a mighty hita hit that sent her spinning into the hedge at the bottom of the ground-a hit, of which any body else would have made three even at single wicket; and, setting out on a leisurely long-trot, contrived to get home, without much inconvenience, just before the panting King arrived at his ground. In his next attempt at running, he was not so fortunate: his antagonist reached the wicket whilst he was still in mid-career, so that his innings was over, and Mr. King Harwood had to go in against one. Alas! he found it one too many! At the very second ball, he made a hit-his first hit and unluckily a hit up, and Stephen caught him out by the mere exertion of lifting his right arm; so that the match was won at a single innings, the account standing thus:King Harwood, first innings...0 Ditto second innings.. 0 Stephen Lane, first innings 1 It would have been difficult to give the scorers on both sides less trouble. Stephen was charmed with his success, laughing like a child for very glee, tossing the ball into the air, and enjoying his triumph |