STARTLING DISCOVERY ON THE YORKSHIRE COAST.
Young Tripper (on his first visit to the Sea, becoming suddenly conscious of the ebbing Tide). "HI! BILL! JACK! T'WATTER BE A RUNNIN' OFF! BY GUM, LADS, BUT AI BET SHE'S BRUSSEN SOMEWHERES!"
THE POOR VIOLINIST.—An Episode, in the Style of Sterne.
"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.'"
