‘Vera good soaper, sir; vera good soaper!’
‘But tell us the verse you made about one of these parties.’
Stabilini, twitching up his shirt-collar, a common trick of his, would say:
‘A piece ov toarkey for a hungree bellee
Is moatch supeerior to Corelli!’
The accent, the manner, the look with which this was delivered, is said to have been beyond expression rich.
It is quite remarkable, when we consider the high character of the popular melodies, how late and slow has been the introduction of a taste for the higher class of musical compositions into Scotland. The Earl of Kelly, a man of yesterday, was the first Scotsman who ever composed music for an orchestra.[216] This fact seems sufficient. It is to be feared that the beauty of the melodies is itself partly to be blamed for the indifference to higher music. There is too great a disposition to rest with the distinction thus conferred upon the nation; too many are content to go no further for the enjoyments which music has to give. It would be well if, while not forgetting those beautiful simple airs, we were more generally to open our minds to the still richer charms of the German and the Italian muses.