“With thundering noise the azure vault they tear,

And rend, with savage roar, the echoing air:

The sounds terrific he with horror hears;

His fiddle throws aside — and stops his ears.”

We have seen displayed the distress of a poet; in this the artist has exhibited the rage of a musician. Our poor bard bore his misfortunes with patience, and, rich in his Muse, did not much repine at his poverty. Not so this master of harmony, of heavenly harmony! To the evils of poverty he is now a stranger; his adagios and cantabiles have procured him the protection of nobles; and, contrary to the poor shirtless mendicant of the Muses that we left in a garret, he is arrayed in a coat decorated with frogs, a bag-wig, solitaire, and ruffled shirt. Waiting in the chamber of a man of fashion, whom he instructs in the divine science of music, having first tuned his instrument, he opens his crotchet-book, shoulders his violin, flourishes his fiddle-stick, and,

Softly sweet, in Lydian measure,

Soon he soothes his soul to pleasure.

Rapt in Elysium at the divine symphony, he is awakened from his beatific vision, by noises that distract him.

————— An universal hubbub wild,

Of stunning sounds, and voices all confus’d,

Assails his ears with loudest vehemence.

Confounded with the din, and enraged by the interruption, our modern Terpander starts from his seat, and opens the window. This operates as air to a kindling fire; and such a combination of noises burst upon the auricular nerve, that he is compelled to stop his ears — but to stop the torrent is impossible!

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain,

Break his bands of thought asunder!

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder;

    At the horrible sound
He has rais’d up his head,
As awak’d from the dead,
And amazed he stares all around.

In this situation he is delineated; and those who for a moment contemplate the figures before him, cannot wonder at his rage.

A crew of hell-hounds never ceasing bark,

With wide Cerberean mouth, full loud, and ring

A hideous peal.

Of the dramatis person? who perform the vocal parts, the first is a fellow, in a tone that would rend hell’s concave, bawling, “Dust, ho! dust, ho! dust!” Next to him, an amphibious animal, who nightly pillows his head on the sedgy bosom of old Thames, in a voice that emulates the rush of many waters, or the roaring of a cataract, is bellowing “............