The father of this celebrated composer, and the still more celebrated
Mrs. Cibber, was an upholder and undertaker in King Street, Covent
Garden, with whom the doctor, when a young man, resided.
At this time, there was a gentleman, of much celebrity in the musical
world, employed at Drury Lane Theatre.—Many may still remember Mr.
John Hebden, who, for almost half a century, stood in a corner of the
orchestra, and performed on the bassoon and the bass viol, on which two
instruments he was unrivalled. He was also of the band of his late, and
a few years of his present, Majesty.
One Sunday morning he called upon Tom Arne, to whom he occasionally
gave lessons. He found him in the undertaker’s shop, practising upon
the violin, his music desk and book placed upon a coffin.
Hebden, shocked at this want of sensibility in his pupil, observed,
that it was impossible for him to practise in such a situation, as,
from the solemn thoughts which the coffin naturally excited, he should
be impressed with the idea that it contained a corpse.
“So it does!” cried Arne: and shoving back the lid, discovered that
this was a fact.
Hebden, disgusted at the sight of a dead body so improperly introduced,
and, perhaps, equally shocked at the insensibility of his pupil, left
the shop with great precipitation, and never could be prevailed on to
renew his visits to him, while he remained in that situation.