Part 21 (1/2)
And, while employing this kind of excuse, which will perhaps be received as better than none, in behalf of a fraternity, who, if they _torment_ a little, unquestionably do much more _suffer_, I may as well go on to offer the following such-as-it-is
APOLOGY FOR MATTHEW MARKIT, A ”COMMON FIDDLER.”
Let not wrath against him gather- Call him not a useless bore!
Would you not, this dirty weather, Have _a sc.r.a.per at your door_?
Such is he;-nay, more than that, He's a _Sc.r.a.per, and a-Mat_!
I do remember an itinerant, who used to sing a piece of dismal merriment, with a squeaking violin accompaniment, to the appropriate burden of ”Heigh ho! fiddle de dee!” and a very wry face at each recurrence of this peculiar interjection. He much affected Knightsbridge and Hyde Park Corner, but was likewise visible at other points of the metropolis. His wife, a diminutive body, with a small whine by way of voice, helped to make ”variety of wretchedness” in the exhibition. They looked as if familiar with none but the copper coinage of the realm. Yet they had generally their _coterie_ around them-their ”a.s.sistance admirative.” To be musical, _any how_, pa.s.ses for a talent!
I will not suppose my readers so oblivious of an elderly joke, as not to recognize the face of that which is about to greet them; but, having found a version of it ”turned to numbers,” I present it-a little ”rubbed up” for the occasion-to the indulgent attention of those who have only met with it in prosaic statement:
A blind man, fed by fiddling, Was known through many a street; His ”style,” far short of ”middling,”
With some did pa.s.s for sweet.
He priz'd his fiddle greatly; The _case_ had fainter praise- The _case_ by ”wife” made lately, With half a yard of baize.
One day, when, led by Rover, He had a bridge to pa.s.s, His fiddle tumbled over, Stick, case, and all, alas!
He straight set up a roaring, And added such grimace, That folks around came pouring, And pitied his sad case.
”Sad _case_! Psha! twiddle diddle!”
Cried he, with scornful face; ”Could I but get my _fiddle_ D'ye think I'd mind _the case_?”
Having thus made ourselves familiar with the street fiddler, and thereby, as it were, ”sounded the very base-string of humility,” may we not be fairly supposed to have reached the _f.a.g-end_ of our subject?
Whilst on this lower level, however-or, in what may be termed the Vale of Cacophony-I cannot conclude, without offering to the patience of my kind readers two more sc.r.a.ps of verse, wherein I have sought to exhibit a pair of specimens that belong, equally with the poor street fiddler, to the cla.s.s of-those that _might_ be dispensed with:
EPIGRAM
ON AN UNFORTUNATE MAN, AND BAD FIDDLER.
Though DIBBLE is feeble in all that he's _at_, Few fools ever _fondled a failure_ before, so.
In love, as in music, he stands for a _flat_- (For his f.a.n.n.y is false, and his fiddle is _more_ so), While _he_ still ignoreth-what none can dispute- That his suit's out of tune, and his tune doesn't suit!
ANOTHER, ON ANOTHER BAD FIDDLER.
When SCREECHLEY on that _noise-box_ harshly grates, What, what's the supposition that must follow?
_This_-that by some odd s.h.i.+fting of the Fates, 'Tis _Marsyas_' turn to flay alive _Apollo_!
[Ill.u.s.tration: FINIS]
ADDENDUM.
FEMALE VIOLINISTS.
”Place aux dames!”
[This section of the Work, which should have formed Chapter VIII, having been accidentally omitted in the printing, there remained no other course than, either to insert it here (as is actually done), or, by a dismissal utterly at variance with the laws of gallantry and of justice, to exclude it altogether, and so to debar the fairer portion of the community from all partic.i.p.ation in the honours connected with the ”King of Instruments”-an idea not to be for a moment entertained. If, in this volume, as in a campaigning army, the ladies find themselves placed altogether in _the rear_-let them attribute the position, in _this_ case as in _that_, to anything but disrespect.]