To MR. JIGGINS'S, where my Wife and I were invited to Tea and a little
Musique, but we had much Musique and little Tea, though the Musique was
like the Tea in Quality, and I do prefer a stronger Kind of Musique as
well as Liquor. Yet it was pleasing enough to the Ear to hear the
fashionable Ballads, and the Airs from all the New Italian Operas sung
by the young Ladies; which, though they expressed Nothing but
common-place Love and Sentiment, yet were a pretty Sing-Song. But to see
the young Fellows whilst a Beauty was singing crowd round her, and bend
over her Shoulders, and almost scramble to turn over the Leaves of her
Musique Book! Besides the Singing, there was Playing of the Piano Forte,
with the Accompaniment of a Fiddle and Bass Violl, the Piano being
played by a stout fat Lady with a Dumpling Face; but for all her being
so fat it did amaze me to see how nimbly she did fillip the Keys. They
did call this Piece a Concerto, and I was told it was mighty brilliant;
but when I asked what Fancy, Passion, or Description there was in it, no
one could tell; and I verily thought the Brilliancy like that of a Paste
Buckle. It had not even an Air to carry away and whistle, and would have
pleased me just as well if I had stopped my Ears, for I could discern
Nothing in it but Musical Sleight of Hand. But good Lack! to think how,
in these Days, Execution is Everything in Musique, and Composition
little or Nothing: for almost no Account is made of the Master, and a
preposterous Value put upon the Player, or artiste, as the Frenchified
Phrase now is! After the Concerto, some Polkas and Waltzes, which did
better please me; for they were a lively Jingle certainly, and not quite
unmeaning. Strange, to find how rare a Thing good Musique is in Company;
and by good Musique I mean such as do stir up the Soul, like the Flowers
and Sunshine in Spring, or Storms and Tempests, or ghostly Imaginations,
or the thought of great Deeds, or tender or terrible Passages in Poetry.
My Wife do play some brave Pieces in this Kind, by MYNHEER VAN
BEETHOVEN, and I would rather hear her perform one of them, than all I
did hear to-Night put together; and so I did tell her when we got Home,
which did content her well. But every one to his Taste; and they who
delight in the trivial Style of Musique to theirs, as I to mine, not
doubting that the English, that have but just begun to be sensible to
Musique at all, will be awake to the nobler Sort of it by-and-by. And,
at any Rate, an Evening of insipid Musique and weak Tea is better than
sitting toping and guzzling after Dinner.
[Illustration: _YE NATIONAL SPORTE!!! OF STEEPLE CHASYNGE._