"_Le Luthier de Crémone_," observed EUGENIUS, "is a pathetic story."
"Indeed, EUGENIUS," replied YORICK, "it is extremely touching. I
protest I never read, or hear it, without emotion."
"The violin," pursued EUGENIUS, "most sensitive, and, as it were,
soulful of human instruments, lends itself, with particular aptness,
to the purposes of literary pathos."
"Dear Sensibility!" said I, "source inexhausted of all that is
precious in our (poetical) joys, or costly in our (dramatic) sorrows!"
"It were well," continued YORICK, drily, "if it were also the source
inexhausted of more that is quick in our sympathy, and practical in
our beneficence. It is scarcely in the columns of the daily news-sheet
that Sensibility usually seeks its much-sought stimulus. And yet but
lately, in the corner of my paper, I encountered a piteous story that
'dear Sensibility' (had it been more romantically environed) might
deliciously have luxuriated in. I protest 'twas as pathetic as
those of MARIA LE FEVRE, or LA FLEUR. It was headed, "Sad Death of a
Well-known Violinist."
"Prithee, dear YORICK, let me hear it," cried EUGENIUS.
"'Twas but the prosaic report of a Coroner's Inquest," pursued YORICK.
"Sensibility would probably have 'skipped' the sordid circumstance.
'FREDERICK MARTIN, aged seventy-two, a well-known Violinist, and
Professor of Music, formerly a member of the orchestra of the Italian
Opera at Her Majesty's and Covent Garden Theatres,' found life too
hard for him. That is all. 'The deceased, a bachelor.'--Heaven help
him!--'had of late been afflicted with deafness, which hindered his
pursuit of his profession, and' (the witness an old friend feared)
'he was recently in straitened circumstances, but he was too proud and
independent to ask or accept assistance.' The old friend, Mr. LEWIS
CHAPUY, Comedian, had 'frequently offered him hospitalities, which
he never accepted.' Offered him hospitalities! Worthy comedian! In
faith, EUGENIUS, 'tis delicately worded. True 'Sensibility' here,
supplemented by practical sympathy. Both, alas! unavailing. Somewhat
of the doggedly independent spirit of the boot-rejecting Dr. JOHNSON
in this poor deaf violinist apparently. Verily, EUGENIUS, the story
requires but the 'decorative art' of the literary sentimentalist
to make it moving, even to the modish. The ingeniously emotional
historian of LA FLEUR would have made much of it."
"My gentle heart already bleeds with it," said I. "But the upshot,
YORICK; the sequel, my friend?"
"'Tis short and simple," responded YORICK. "'The afflicted Violinist'
occupied a room at 34, Compton Street, Brunswick Square, in which he
lived alone. He suffered from lumbago, as well as from a proud spirit
and a broken heart. He had a dread of 'coming to the Workhouse.'
Spectral fear which haunts ever the sensitive and poverty-stricken!
Unreasonable? Perhaps. But not the less agonising. What comfort may
Political Economy and an admirable Poor Law yield to proud-spirited
victims of poverty?"
"But surely," said I, "the compassion of the stranger would gladly
have poured oil and wine into the wounds of his spirit--or into poor
afflicted MARIA's--had he only known."
"Doubtless," said YORICK. "But 'the great Sensorium of the World,'
as--in 'mere pomp of words'--thou dost designate 'Dear Sensibility,'
did _not_ 'vibrate' to the case of this 'well-known Violinist'--until
'twas too late to vibrate to any useful purpose. He was 'found lying
dead in his bed, fully dressed, with the exception of his hat and
boots,' mute as the untouched strings of his own violin. 'He had died
suddenly from syncope, or heart-failure.' Heart-failure, EUGENIUS.
Doth not thy gentle heart fail at the thought? 'Dr. COLLEY found the
body in an advanced stage of decomposition, and life had probably been
extinct since the preceding Thursday night.' Prithee, Sir, is 'MARIA,
sitting pensive under her poplar, more pathetic than this poor broken
musician, dying alone, in his poverty and pride?"
"Indeed, no!" I responded, musingly.
"Those," continued YORICK, "who go, like the 'Knight of the Rueful
Countenance,' in quest of melancholy adventures, need not to make
deliberately 'Sentimental Journeys' through France, or Italy, or
by forest or mountain, picturesque hamlet, or romantic stream. The
purlieus of great cities amongst the poverty-stricken members of
what it is usual to call the 'lower middle-classes,' will furnish
multitudinous subjects for pensive thought, and--what were a whole
world better--for practical benevolence. 'Tis too late, alas! to do
aught for this dead Violinist, but were eyes and pen more sedulously
and sympathetically employed about real, if sordid-seeming, in place
of imaginary, if picturesque, woes, why verily, EUGENIUS, something
more, perchance, might be done in such pitiful cases as that I
have described to thee in non-journalistic language, than what was
formally done by the Coroner's Jury, who--as they were bound to
do, indeed--'_returned a verdict in accordance with the medical
testimony_.'"
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[Illustration: PUNCH'S PIC-NIC. THE PARLIAMENTARY MIRAGE.]
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