I was greatly flattered by these encomiums, but begged he would forbear and suffer me to retire to my chamber, for the sake of necessary refreshment and rest. He immediately complied, and sent up to me Signor Sougelder, an eminent surgeon in the neighbourhood, and an agreeable performer on the English horn; who having applied an excellent dressing to my wound left me to sleep, and “thus ended this busy and important day, in which so much was said, and done; that it seemed to contain the events of a much longer period; and I could hardly persuade myself, upon recollecting the several incidents, that they had all happened in about the space of twelve hours.” By the kind and skilful offices of Signor Sougelder, I was soon restored to my health and spirits; and my adorable Signora Gluckinelli in a few days paid me a visit of congratulation, which she repeated every day during my recovery. It was in some of these delightful interviews I discovered how deep a theorist she was, and how learned in the science of sound. Among other discoveries and observations which she communicated to me, and which I treasure up, and mean to preserve for the benefit of future ages, she assured me that it was “practicable with time and patience to give a shake where nature has denied it; that she thought, the shake ruined ninety-nine times out of a hundred by too much impatience and precipitation, both in the master and scholar, and that many who can execute passages which require the same motion of the larynx as the shake, have notwithstanding never acquired one”—“There is no accounting for this,” added that illustrious young lady, with a sigh, “but from the neglect of the master to study nature, and avail himself of these passages, which by continuity would become real shakes.”
During my confinement to my chamber, I have had leisure to extract the foregoing observations, anecdotes, and adventures from my journal, and which I present to the world as the first hints of my undertaking. If they tend in any shape to promote the study and practice of music in this country, and by that means lessen our national reproach of being The Savages of Europe, immersed in politics, philosophy, metaphysics, mathematics, and other sour and abstruse speculations, I shall have gained my end, and shall congratulate myself on having in some humble degree assisted the generous efforts of the great musical Doctor, and the governors of the Foundling Hospital, to polish and Italianize the genius, taste, and manners of the English nation.
I shall trespass on the reader’s patience but one moment longer, to inform him that as soon as I had perfectly recovered my health, Signor Manselli instituted a grand Fête Cbampêtre to celebrate what he was pleased to call my victory over the flesh and the devil; and to crown the whole, the idol of my soul, the fair Gluckinella, was that day pleased to condescend publicly to avow her platonic harmonic passion for me; and to promise me in the most endearing manner, that if ever she entered into the holy slate of matrimony, I should be her Cecisbeo.
THE END.
Speedily will be published,
An Enquiry into the Present State
OF THE
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES.
To which will be prefixed,
The Overture to the last Eclipse of the Moon;