436 



ON BORK:*. 



among the spectators. Of every pursuit, save his favourite science, he 

 is profoundly ignorant. 'History is to him nothing but an old music- 

 book Talk to him about^eform, and he answers about Rossini ; politics 

 give place to Pasta ; and although he cannot give you the title of any 

 one act passed during the late session of Parliament, his memory bears 

 a faithful record of every piece performed at the last Birmingham Musical 

 Festival. We have said that he is profoundly ignorant take this by 

 way of illustration : happening to cast his eye on a bookseller's catalogue, 

 stitched into the Harmonicon, and seeing a work called VIRGILII OPERI, 

 he immediately gave orders for it, because, as he said, he had never 

 heard of its performance in England, and had no doubt it would make 

 a capital hit. He once looked into the Bible, and made a grand dis- 

 covery : the psaltery, sackbut, and dulcimer, he could not understand 

 but he found the antiquity of the serpent, which, as he said, was bass, 

 and very deep, from nearly the beginning of the world. It may perhaps 

 be imagined, from what has been said, that at least Apollo possessed a 

 fine taste for music. If we have conveyed such an impression, it is 

 erroneous, and we beg to contradict it. In fact, his taste was quite 

 Catholic, and he would even feed on garbage: the "sweetness long 

 drawn out" of the bagpipe, whose playing " I' th' nose" we have it on 

 Shakspeare's authority makes some persons behave rather indelicately 

 would " take his reason prisoner;" and " All round my Hat," was an 

 equally enchanting melody with, " Al Idea quel Metallo." 



In our endeavour to convey some general notion of this Musical Bore, 

 we have refrained from more than alluding to what we have suffered in 

 his acquaintance ; there is a species of humiliation in speaking of our 

 own affliction, which to a proud mind is even less endurable than the 

 affliction itself: like the Spartan youth, we may feel it devouring our 

 very vitals, but we may not bear to enlarge upon our shame. We need 

 only say, that we have known Apollo Skeggins even from his boyish 

 years that he has, from circumstances unnecessary to relate, had ever 

 a constant access to us. Having said thus much, the world may form 

 some trifling notion of the extent of our sufferings. He one night took 

 his seat next us at the Opera, and fearful lest we should think he was a 

 stranger to the beauties of " La Gazza Ladra," he has favoured us with 

 a regular humming accompaniment to the music, which at " Di Piacer" 

 was decidedly getting into a whistle, till recalled to a sense of decorum 

 by a general hush and call for " silence." Then he was continually 

 getting into quarrels with gentlemen who had not adopted the precaution 

 of taking off their shoes in entering the sacred precincts of Fops' Alley ; 

 and was with difficulty persuaded from sending a cartel, " breathing hot 

 defiance," to Count D'Orsay, because he chose to speak in something 

 above a whisper to the Countess Blessington. He one night sat next 

 us at the theatre ; the play was " Hamlet ;" the performance he bore 

 with most exemplary patience but word he spoke not, till Hamlet says 

 that ' ' Murder, though it hath no tongue, will speak with most miraculous 

 organ /' on which Viotti whispered us, that he " should greatly like to 

 hear it ; he had heard the organ at Haarlem, which he thought the finest 

 in the world, but he had no doubt that this one was a finer." He like- 

 wise pricked up his ears at the request of Hamlet to Guilderstein, to 

 " play upon this pipe," and could not conceal his vast indignation at his 



