ON BORES. 435 



In like manner, it is said that the soothing melody of his nurse's 

 " Hushaby, Baby," had the effect of keeping little Apollo in a state of 

 waking watchfulness, instead of lulling him iato " tired nature's sweet 

 restorer, balmy sleep ;" and it is stated, on authority which we should 

 be sorry to doubt, that, on Mrs. Skeggins the elder, his grandmother, 

 presenting him with a silver-gilt coral, he absolutely inverted the order 

 of nature ; for he could not be made to comprehend the " Dulce et Utile" 

 of the mineral ; but applied himself, with a perseverance worthy of a 

 better cause, to the whistle which enriched its opposite end, whose pierc- 

 ing sounds seemed to lap his senses in Elysium. In the second 

 stage of childhood, his love of sweet sounds appeared to gather a fresh 

 vigour ; it literally grew with his growth, and strengthened with 

 his strength : the gentle admonitions of his mother, and the " whips and 

 scourges" of his father, were alike ineffectual in curbing his darling 

 propensity. He would, " many a time and oft," leave his lesson or yet 

 more strange, his dinner to follow the vilest sounds that ever were, by 

 the utmost stretch of courtesy, denominated music. The newsman's 

 horn was to him " more musical than is Apollo's lute ;" and he was 

 quite intoxicated with the liquid strains of "Drops of Brandy," with 

 which the guard of the Regulator was wont to " salute the opening 

 morn," at the town in which Skeggins resided. He cared no more for 

 Punch than a member of the Temperance Society ; but he would cry 

 " Ha, ha!" at the trumpet which heralded his approach. And he has 

 been observed to take a very deep and lively interest in the dispute as to 

 whether the instrument which Punch is rather imperiously ordered to 

 take away, is an '* organ" or a " nasty bell." It is certain, that the 

 celebrated fireman's dog was not a more constant attendant at a fire, 

 than was Apollo, who would run hot-footed for miles to have the felicity 

 of performing a concerto on the metallic tube of those mortal engines. 

 " Tops" delighted him not, nor pop-guns either; but give him a drum 

 or a penny trumpet, and he was yours for ever. We have never been 

 able to gather any anecdotes of his school days, except that he once got 

 well whipped because he chose to write " Dulce est Mori," instead of the 

 well-known line, "Dulce est pro patria Mori :" the former he asserted 

 was the more correct, and insisted that it referred to the well-known 

 violinist and present leader of the Opera. The death of his father, before 

 he (Viotti) had quite reached man or rather boy-hood to use his own 

 words, "made him quite comfortable ;" and coming, as he did, into the 

 possession of a handsome fortune, he resolved to devote himself, body 

 and soul, to the cultivation of the favourite passion of his soul. He shut 

 himself up for six months with a professor of the French horn, to the 

 acquisition of which instrument he did seriously incline ; and though he 

 talked about their living in great harmony, it is certain that thev soon 

 came to blows. However, be that as it may, at the expiration of that 

 period he had mastered God save the King, with Variations, which 

 rendered it a matter of some difficulty for its oldest acquaintance to 

 recognise it (which, as he said, was as certain an indication of fine 

 playing as obscurity of style is of fine writing) ; and one night he roused 

 all his neighbours from their downy beds, by his masterly performance of 

 " We're a' Noddin'," and " When Harmony wakens." The scene, by the 

 bye, is immortalized by Buss, who by some lucky accident happened to be 



