what constituted the first part of the fiddle's utterings in the hands of Phoebus. A short pause succeeded, during which a sneeze from Father Thames (who appeared to be labouring under a recently caught cold) lowered in a slight degree the tone of my emotions, but did not abate the intensity of my purpose to drink in at the ear all that might follow from the same superlative source. Echo in the mean while had made various signs of delight. Through some preternatural extension of the optic powers, I found myself capable of discerning the whole play of her features, though the width of the river divided us. She now advanced more closely to the verge of the opposite bank, and stood collected, as if prepared to do something in her vocation. She seemed evidently on the watch to be a repeater. Apollo, now less abstracted, gave her, for the first time, a nod of gracious recognition, and directed also a smile towards Father Thames, who was at the moment shaking his head and eels in another sneeze, but appeared, in spite of his inconvenience, to be much interested in what was going forward. Again the radiant Phoebus raised his bow. Awhile he coquetted with the favoured fiddle right gracefully, and then, planting it on his chest, he soliloquized aloud upon it in the peculiar manner about to be related-the nymph Echo occasionally superadding her voice to that of the violin, and for the most part calling names, in the most extraordinary way, yet with an appropriateness that could not be too much admired. The strain now discoursed was less of the passionate order than what had preceded, but more coherent. It was a mixture of the sentimental and the familiar (including a dash of the didactic), in a kind of declamation upon the merits and glories of the "leading instrument ;" and I was fortunately enabled to catch its terms distinctly, such as I am somehow to pen them down at the bidding of a full-charged memory. Thus, then, spoke Apollo, through the means and expressive agency of the violin, which, with all the charms of tone pertaining to its own class, was somehow combining, in mystic union, those which are diffused from the most delicious human voice :

Deeply as I've loved the lyre,
Now its tones my senses tire,
And, to banish olden tedium,
I have found another medium.
Oh! 'tis not the light guitar,
But a thing more potent far.
'Tis not the Arcadian lute;
No-nor yet the German flute;

Nor the tones of clangorous trumpet,

Which not soothe the ear, but thump it.

Press'd by hand, caress'd by chin,

'Tis a thing all ears to win;
'Tis what Music's choicest kin,
Greatest players, vie all in!

Of the world, from ends to middle,
"Tis the glory, jest, and riddle!

Though it changes to the real
All that was but beau-ideal-

July.-VOL. L. NO. CXCIX.

(ECHO) Violin !

(ECHO) Fiddle!

(ECHO) Bow ideal!
2 E

* Arcangelo-angel of the bow-the name belonging, most characteristically, to Corelli.

Here the theme assumed a measure somewhat more stately and serene, and thus proceeded ere it relapsed into the familiar

Honour to him who in that city wide

Through which thou, Thames, dost roll thy changeful tide,

And in that temple there to me upraised,

Erst waked the strain, while Wonder mutely gazed!

Sweet were the tones that trembled from his bow,
And sweet the sympathies they taught to flow:
Lovers, not yours emotions half so pretty,
When with embracing arm you span your Letty!

(ECHO) Spagnoletti!

The succeeding notes, less "audible and full of vent," melted away in gradual indistinctness, and the singular effusion ceased; while Echo, as if overcome by her exertions, fainted away, yet with a smile lingering about her pallid lips, and was caught in the arms of a small dingylooking sprite, "got up" in bluish-grey mixture, whom I surmised to be Distance, and who proceeded to the vanishing point with her immediately. Thames opened his capacious mouth into a grin, ducked his head with reverential awkwardness towards Apollo, and then soused, eels over heels, into the water, on the way to his bed. Glorious Apollo, in an attitude of easy grace, and holding in extension the instrument which had been the eloquent minister to his thoughts, was received again into the cloud, which gradually receded from my view.

Just at that seasonable instant, the rattle of a large cinder, which fell within the fender, brought me back with opened eyes to the narrow scene of my own private apartment, and terminated a dream as circumstantial, I will venture to affirm, as the experience of any living slumberer can furnish.

"Well, Mr. Amateur, it was but a dream!"

Yes! my too literal friend and reader-but is there nothing to be gained of real purpose from a dream? Is it all visionary that comes to us through a vision? I would suggest the contrary. If to consider as

a compliment to England the language and the locale through which this my dream presented itself, were to consider too curiously, at least there is one general hint of good honest value to be derived from it; I mean as regards the great importance of expression, the highest of all musical attributes. Let my worthy countrymen look to it. Postponing lesser things to greater-holding "execution" in strict subservience to meaning-let them ever study, in their cultivation of that subtle and marvellous exponent of mind and fancy, the violin, to do that which is at once most difficult and most delightful—to “make it speak!”

G. D.

MR. CABOOZE AND JAMES BEVAN.

་་

"A leetle ANECDOTE OF TWO ENGLISHMEN IN NASSAU.

A MORE terrible drinker than Mr. Cabooze

Ne'er walk'd out at elbows, nor died in his shoes,

He began in a morning, at half after ten,

To ring for his big drop of brandy, and then

To gasp at a small cup of coffee at most,
And coquette with the ghost

Of a thin piece of toast,

And top that with brandy-a strong paulo-post!
Rather faint at eleven,

He rang for James Bevan,

(For he kept a man-servant, and none of the dames,)
And he said to him very despondingly,-" James !
Whip an egg up-in sherry,

For I'm very low-very!

My eyes see all objects in specks, James, and curves,
And the devil is playing a fugue on my nerves."

Now James, who seem'd suffering his master's complaint,
For his eyelids were red and his figure was faint,—
Bow'd,-and then in a saunter

Search'd out the decanter,

And down in a very dim room-nothing loath,

Though with something of nausea, and something of sloth-
Whipp'd two eggs in two sherries, and comforted both.
At two a slight luncheon

And a pull from the puncheon

Of antique Jamaica (to refuse which a sin is)

Just to keep down the cream-be-crown'd goblet of Guinness.
At half after four,

Or a pinch of time more,

By way of refresher, stomachic, or so,
Cold soda, sublimed by the indolent flow
Of the sweet-bitter, glutinous, rich Curaçoa.

And later, he'd take,

Just for mere drinkee-sake,

And this couldn't hurt, it was something so thin,
A tumbler of table made bumptious by gin!
Then dinner-quite slight,
Happy light appetite!

Barsac (some Champagne), very curious Moselle,
Rudisheisnur, Johannisberge-cold as a well!
A smart touch of these -

And one port with one cheese,—

And claret as radiant, and long as you please!

*

*

*

*

At night, lunch the second,
A reason is reckon'd

*

For brandy (just haunted by water) in heaps,
Till the deluge subdues the Cabooze till he sleeps
As still as a mouse and as sound as a Turk,
Quite fitted next day for the same sort of work!
You'd say all this drinking could never go on-
Could never be borne

From evening till morn,

From the morn to the noon-
From noon, I believe,

To what's call'd "dewy eve:"

You'd say this in England could ne'er be the tune;
Well, it was not in England-at Schwalbach 'twas done;
Langen Schwalbach, whose rills

Bathe the fair Taunus hills

That place where (see Head) the hot springs, like pea-soup,
Receive sallow souls in a carroty group;

Where the German in silence the nastiness swills,
And the pigs go in parties to dine on the hills ;
Where a tin crooked horn

Is blown every morn,

And the cows all troop forth to the Schwalbach wood
To enjoy much air and a libel on food!

That place where the victims of vapours and gout
Are bathing eternally inside and out.

One sad severe day,

Nearly cold as our May,

After soaking, and soaking, and soaking the clay,
With a friend at a hof,

Up the street, not far off,

Poor Mr. Cabooze-quite be-bottled, bamboozled,
Teetotaciously turn'd out, entirely cafoozled;
And his crony, James Bevan,

Who fetched him at seven,

And was waiting at table from then till eleven,
Sat, respectfully drunk,

On an old German trunk,
Advising his master, through hiccups, to fly
(i. e. Stagger) from brandy and water, to try
The effect of a bed

come!"

On a fat, foggy head;
And he beckon'd, and ask'd him intensely to "
And, in Schlangenead fashion, to serpent it home!
Now no one could say that Cabooze was the man
To gorge good advice, or to shrink from his can;