CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA. 12/ 



when our singing-master flourished), down to the 

 itinerant professor of Tinkum, the professor of the 

 science of psalmody has ever been the butt of ridi- 

 cule. Burbidge, the Pineville professor, was no ex- 

 ception, but owing to the habitual gravity of his 

 scholars he experienced less, perhaps, than most 

 others have done elsewhere. Who he was, or 

 whence he came, we could never learn. Regu- 

 larly, on every alternate Saturday, he was at his 

 post in the church, instructed his class, and after 

 partaking of the hospitality of a friendly bachelor, 

 who most irreverently made game of him, he ap- 

 peared at church next day and comforted the heart 

 of the good rector by discharging, ex cathedra, the 

 office of chorister. This done, he disappeared, and 

 no more was heard of him for a fortniorht. He was 

 a brownish man, about the middle size, with jet 

 black, curly, or ratherish kinky hair, very knock- 

 k7ieed, and his skin-tight nankeen trousers scarcely 

 reaching below the calf, displayed this perfection of 

 his figure to the greatest advantage. At that time 

 psalmody was always taught by means of what was 

 called solmization, or a systematic arrangement of 

 the syllables, sol^ la, mi, fa, by which a tune was 

 sung in all of its parts without any reference to the 

 words ; and the great point for the learner to ascer- 

 tain, in order to accomplish this, was to determine 

 the place of mi. Now we have no doubt all this 

 was no more intelligible to Burbidge than it is to 



