ld music," the aspiring
psalmody of a country church singing-pew.

Oh, to see the row of performers, the consequential choir, transcending
in importance (in their own eyes) the clerk, the curate, the rector, and
even the squire from the great hall, majestic and stern though he be,
with his awful wig and gold-headed cane! There are the fubsy
boys--copied apparently from cherubim--who, with glowing, distended
cheeks, are simpering on the ceiling, _doing_ the tenor, with wide open
mouths that would shame e'er a barn-door in the village; their red,
stumpy fingers sprawling over the music which they are (not) reading.
The pale, lantern-jawed youths, in yellow waistcoats and tall
shirt-collars, who look as if they were about to whistle a match, are
holloing out what is professionally, and in this instance with most
distressing truth, termed counter. "Counter" it is with a vengeance; and
not only so, but it is a neck-and-neck race between them and the urchins
aforesaid, which shall have done first. The shock-headed man, with chin
dropped into his neckerchief, and mouth twisted into every
_un_imaginable contortion, as though grinning through a horse-collar,
has the bass confided to his faithful keeping; and emits a variety of
growls and groans truly appalling, though evidently to his own great
comfort and satisfaction. The bassoon, the clarinet, the flute--but
how shall we describe them! Suffice it to say, that they appeared
to be suffering inexpressible torments at the hands of their
apoplectic-looking performers; who were all at the last gasp, and all
determined to die bravely at their posts. And then the entranced
audience, with half-shut eyes and quivering palms! Oh, it was too much;
we lost our character typo irretrievably that day; half suppressed
titters from the squire's pew were not to be borne. In that unhappy
moment we sinned away some quarter of a century's unrivalled reputation
for good manners and musical taste. Old Fiddlestrings never forgave us,
never did he vouchsafe us another anthem, spite of our entreaties and
protestations, and the thousand and one apologies for our ill-timed
merriment, which our fruitful brain invented on the spot. To his dying
day he preserved the utmost contempt for our judgment, not only in this
department of the fine arts, but also on every other subject. Not to
admire his music, was condemnation in every thing--an unpardonable
offence. We, who had been his great friend, patron, (or ra