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CONFESSIONS OF A MUSIC-HATER. 



" Music has charms," &c. 



CONGREVE ! you live. Music had no charms for some of the greatest 

 men that ever lived ; for instance Burke, Fox, Windham, Swift, Johnson ; 

 and what is more, Mr. Congreve, it has none for me. To be plain with 

 you, I hate it more than Hotspur hated poetry ; and am of opinion that 

 Collin's " heavenly maid v was no very distant relative of the three Furies. 

 No music for me but that of the spheres, which has one pleasing 

 peculiarity I never yet met with in any of the melodies of earth it is 

 imperceptible to the sense of hearing. 



Now, dear Mr. Editor ! do not give yourself the trouble : I know 

 what you are about to say 



The man that has not music in his soul, 

 And is not moved by concord of sweet sounds, &c. 



Why, there is not a boarding-school miss of all my acquaintance that 

 has not dinned that luckless quotation into my ear at least one hundred 

 times; and it happens to be remarkably ill- chosen, for in the first place 

 I have no objection to any gentleman or lady having as much music in 

 their souls as they like, provided they keep it there, and do not try to 

 force it into mine ; and, secondly, I can solemnly assure you, there is. 

 not in the world a person who has been more moved by the " concord 

 of sweet sounds," as you call it, than I myself, for pianos, barrel-organs, 

 and ballad-singers have not only moved my choler, but compelled me to 

 move my residence oftener than I could tell you in a long winter's night. 

 The best and greatest king that England ever had was decidedly 

 Edward I. He did exactly as I should do, had I the crown on my head, 

 and the sword of justice in my hand, for one month : he made a general 

 persecution and havoc of all the bards and minstrels, in other words, of 

 all the musicians vocal and instrumental in his dominions. He did 

 well; and I honour him 'with all my heart and soul. Heavens! how I 

 should rejoice to see the return of those clays. Then should I be revenged 

 on the Barnetts, and the Bishops, and the Brahams, and the Paganiriis, and 

 the Pastas. What a glorious sight it would be to see a regiment of heavy 

 dragoons amongst the Russian horn band, hewing and cutting the mis- 

 creants down in every direction ; or to see a battalion of the Guards with 

 fixed bayonets charge the orchestra of the King's Theatre, and in the 

 middle of one of their infernal overtures, put them to indiscriminate 

 slaughter, from the first violin down to the last bagpipe ! Companies of 

 light horse might be employed to massacre all stragglers and street-per- 

 formers, while the police might break into the boarding schools and 

 academies, strangle all the young ladies they find at the harp or piano- 

 forte, and take the masters and professors alive to be put to death at 

 leisure by the slowest and most ingenious tortures. Were I a monarch 

 I would order all this and more ; so utterly do I loathe and abhor the 

 whole singing, scraping, blowing, thumping fraternity. I would inspire 

 another Gray with another 



" Ruin seize thee, ruthless king I 1 ' 

 and delight in imagining some future Scott, whining over a solitary 



