NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 171 



Callander's lot been differently cast, she might have ranked high 

 among-st professional singers, as strength and sweetness are combined in 

 her song', and, when in its plaintive strain, I really cannot name her equal. 

 Now having said this, how can I bring myself to relate the following 

 fact, or, in other words, to expose the weakness of my nature ? I was 

 asked to sing, I said I could not sing. But I was told I could sing— in 

 fact I was at last told that I must sing. 



Now what says Mr. Congreve in his Mourning Bride ? 



'* Music has charms to soothe the savage breast ; 

 To soften rocks and bend the knotted oak ;" 



And had the poet added, ** to make a man make a fool of himself," the 

 highly- wrought picture would have been complete, *' Then," said I, *' I 

 will sing," and, perhaps emboldened by the best part of a bottle of La 

 fittBy murdered the beautiful air of 



" Majestic rose the god of day 

 In yon bright burnish'd sky," 



in very great style. But what can resist the solicitations of the ladies ? 

 Neither the wisdom of Solomon, nor the piety of David, were proof 

 against it, and how could Nimrod's philosophy be expected to be so ? 



But human folly and human presumption seldom pass scot-free — never, 

 1 believe, by those who have themselves been guilty of them ; and I 

 shall not soon forget my next morning's recollection of having so pre- 

 sumptuously presented myself after a well-graced actor. It flitted across 

 my mind as my eyes opened, and a dose of Dover powders would have 

 been powerless in producing the sudorific effect that it almost instanta- 

 neously occasioned. 1 consoled myself, however, with the reflection 



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