PONDEROUS ERUDITION. 



187 



be satisfied of it, to give them some 

 subject myself, as much out of the 

 way as I could think of. As he 

 insisted upon my doing so, I offered 

 a subject which must be new to 

 them, and on which they could not 

 well be prepared. It was but a 

 day or two before that a band of 

 musicians and actoi-s set out from 

 Florence, to introduce operas for 

 the first time in the Empress of 

 Russia's court. This advance of 

 music, and that sort of dramatic 

 poetry which the Italians at pre- 

 sent look upon as the most capital 

 parts of what they call virtu, so 

 much farther north than ever they 

 had been under the auspices of the 

 then great duke, was the subject 

 I offered for them. They shook 

 their heads a little, and said it was 

 a very difficult one. However, in 

 two or three minutes' time, one of 

 them began with his octave upon 

 it ; another answered him im- 

 mediately, and they went on for 

 five or six stanzas, alternately, 

 without any pause, except that 



very short one which is allowed 

 them by the giving off of the tune 

 on the guitar, at the end of each 

 stanza. They always improvise to 

 music at least all that I ever 

 heard and the tune is somewhat 

 slow ; but when they are thoroughly 

 warmed, they will sometimes call 

 out for quicker time. If two of 

 these guitar-players meet in the 

 summer nights in the very streets 

 of Florence, they will challenge one 

 another, and improvise sometimes 

 as rapidly as those in set compa- 

 nies. Their most common subject 

 is the commendation of their seve- 

 ral mistresses, or two shepherds 

 contending for the same, or a de- 

 bate which is the best poet. They 

 often put one in mind of Virgil's 

 third, fifth, and seventh eclogues, 

 or what he calls the contention of 

 his shepherds, in alternate verse; 

 and, by the way, Virgil's shepherds 

 seem sometimes to be tied down 

 by the thought in the preceding 

 stanza, as these extempore poets 

 are by the preceding rhyme." 



PONDEROUS ERUDITION, 



Dr. "Walter Anderson, who was 

 afflicted with an incurable cacoethes 

 scribendi, was for half a century 

 minister of Chirnside. Complain- 

 ing to David Hume that the suc- 

 cessful authors had pre-occupied all 

 the popular subjects, the historian 

 jocularly suggested the Life of Croe- 

 sus, king of Lydia,as a suitable sub- 

 ject for a book. Anderson seized 

 the idea, and wrote the life, contain- 

 ing also " Observations on the an- 

 cient notion of Destiny, or Dreams, 

 on the origin and credit of the 

 Oracles," &c. Tho work received a 



serio-burlesque notice in the second 

 number of the first Edinburgh Re- 

 view, conducted by Hume, Smith, 

 Carlyle, and others. Undeterred 

 by the failure of his first attempt, 

 he produced in succession five quarto 

 volumes of history, which nobody 

 read or bought. As he published 

 at his own risk, it is related that 

 the cost of print and paper was de- 

 frayed by the sale, one by one, as 

 each successive ponderous 4to ap- 

 peared, of some houses which he pos- 

 sessed in the town of Duuso, till all 

 had become the property of another. 



