2 J^ifi-i Genius, and Personal Habits of Bewick, 



breakfast the conversation was hurried and hearty. As my 

 friend, the banker, could remain but one day, he left me be- 

 hind, where I fondly lingered till 18th of August, 



" Another day, another day. 

 And yet another pass'd away." 



When the tide and effusion of heart at meeting had some- 

 what subsided, we settled down into calmer delight. They 

 showed me almost exhaustless drawers of blocks he had cut for 

 his past and his future writings ; and as he sat at work, I en- 

 joyed his more deliberate and sound conversation, accompanied 

 by strains of his most extraordinary powers of whistling. His 

 ear (as a musical feeling is called) was so delicately acute, and 

 his inflexorial powers so nice and rapid, that he could run, in 

 any direction or modulation, the diatonic or chromatic scale, 

 and even split the quarter notes of the enharmonic ; neither of 

 which, however, did he understand scientifically, though sa 

 consummately elegant his execution : and his musical memory 

 was so tenacious^ that he could whistle through the melodies 

 of whole overtures ; and these, he said, he could obtain having 

 once heard from the orchestra of a playhouse, or a holiday 

 band, in both of which he took extreme delight. In proof of 

 this I tried him to some extent, by flinging on his piano-forte 

 several wild airs I had taken down from pipers in the Hebrides 

 and Highlands, of difficult and intricate evolution, which he 

 completely repeated the first time. Lest he might have heard 

 these before, I farther sprinkled at him (without information 

 of their originality), several private imitations, I had myself 

 composed, of various national melodies, which he not only 

 instantly and spiritedly whistled, but remembered long after ; 

 as I found when sauntering with him amid the mountains of 

 Derbyshire. I have always thought music one of the greatest 

 and surest tests of talent ; and this, with numberless instances, 

 corroborates my confirmation. I, moreover, confidently be- 

 lieve, that the universally quoted and remarkably bold passage 

 of that wholly delicious scene in The MetxJiant of Venice, has 

 intensely much more illustration of moral and physical truth, 

 than millions are capable of imagining, or willing to admit. 

 The aroma of music has nothing to do with the ear ; it exists 

 in every atom of the nervous temperament, connected inti- 

 mately with exquisitely fine understanding : all can hear it, 

 though having no more music in themselves than has a post, 

 most likely nothing near so much, though all vow they love it 

 prodigiously. But I am not scribbling a tractate on music : 

 indulge me, gentle reader; I know thou wilt, if musical : if 



