ses that distract him.

----------An universal hubbub wild,
Of stunning sounds, and voices all confus'd,
Assails his ears with loudest vehemence.

Confounded with the din, and enraged by the interruption, our modern
Terpander starts from his seat, and opens the window. This operates as
air to a kindling fire; and such a combination of noises burst upon the
auricular nerve, that he is compelled to stop his ears,--but to stop the
torrent is impossible!

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain,
Break his bands of thought asunder!
And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder;
At the horrible sound
He has rais'd up his head,
As awak'd from the dead,
And amazed he stares all around.

In this situation he is delineated; and those who for a moment
contemplate the figures before him, cannot wonder at his rage.

A crew of hell-hounds never ceasing bark,
With wide Cerberean mouth, full loud, and ring
A hideous peal.

Of the _dramatis personae_ who perform the vocal parts, the first is a
fellow, in a tone that would rend hell's concave, bawling, "Dust, ho!
dust, ho! dust!" Next to him, an amphibious animal, who nightly pillows
his head on the sedgy bosom of old Thames, in a voice that emulates the
rush of many waters, or the roaring of a cataract, is bellowing
"Flounda,a,a,ars!" A daughter of May-day, who dispenses what in London
is called milk, and is consequently a milk-maid, in a note pitched at
the very top of her voice, is crying, "Be-louw!" While a ballad-singer
dolefully drawls out The Ladie's Fall, an infant in her arms joins its
treble pipe in chorus with the screaming parrot, which is on a lamp-iron
over her head. On the roof of an opposite house are two cats, performing
what an amateur of music might perhaps call a bravura duet; near them
appears

A sweep, shrill twittering on the chimney-top.

A little French drummer, singing to his rub-a-dub, and the agreeable
yell of a dog, complete the vocal performers.

Of the instrumental, a fellow blowing a horn, with a violence that would
have almost shaken down the walls of Jericho, claims the first notice;
next to him, the dustman rattles his bell with ceaseless clangour, until
the air reverberates the sound.

The intervals are filled up by a paviour, who, to every stroke of his
rammer, adds a loud, distinct, and echoing, Haugh! The pedestrian cutler
is grinding a butcher's cleaver with such ear