With listless and
unwilling ears I listened to her and Mrs. Mountain, that second best of
English singers throughout "Fair Aurora." Gradually, however, and
involuntarily, I became pleased, interested, delighted; and when the
encored "Soldier tired" was ended, had I but possessed so much Italian,
"Sono anch'io Cantatore" would have burst from my lips with as much fervour
and devotedness of resolution as the "Sono anch'io Pittore" of the artist.
From this moment never had I three shillings and sixpence in my pocket, and
either Billington's or Braham's name in the bills of the night, that I was
not to be seen planted in the front row of the pit, looking over the
leader's book, and taking the only lessons I ever received in music. The
opera over, no farce, however laughable, not even the "Turnpike Gate" with
Joe Munden's _Crack_, had the power to detain me in the house.--My time of
_imitation_ was arrived, and I sallied forth to alarm watchmen with the
last division of the "Soldier tired," affront my friends by saluting them
with "Adieu thou dreary pile," or annoy my father with shouting "The
Austrian trumpet's loud alarms" at a moment when, with all the fervour of
true John Bull anti-gallicanism, he was lamenting over Ulm and Austerlitz;
execrating Mack, pitying Francis and Alexander, and cursing the victorious
Napoleon by all his gods.--_Harmonicon_, No. 41.

* * * * *

SUFFICING REASONS FOR SHAKING.

At a charity concert, given some time since in the sister island, one of
the reverend directors, or stewards, was shocked at a long shake made by a
juvenile chorister in the passage "and they were sore afraid" in the
_Messiah_, and remonstrated with the boy's instructor on the impropriety of
such an ornament to such words.

"And is it in regard to the shake you'd be spaking, sir?" replied the
master. "Sure and if ye were sore afraid yourself, would not ye be shaking?
Ay, I'll be your bail that you would, and shaking in your shoes too! Plase
to leave me and my pupil alone: many a one will be coming to-morrow twenty
and thirty miles, every inch of it, to hear Master ---- sing, that would
not step out twenty yards to hear you prache."--_Ibid._

* * * * *

CALCULATING NOTES.--PAGANINI.

Stephen Storace had a remarkably good head for figures. When a boy, his
passion for calculation was beyond all belief. Michael Kelly says, he has
been known to multiply