When first to Music's study you would come, In, and like charity, begin at home: For links of harmony you weave in vain, Whene'er you outrage ears you should enchain. Some have I known, with their vile sharps and flats, Whose fatal cat-gut wrought the death of cats; Yea, a swift doom the very strings provide, Their disembowell'd feline sires supplied!
Fencing's a noble exercise; but thence Flow dangers, may be told without offence. Still scrutinize, at your gymnastic toil, The button of your adversary's foil, Lest you strike off, at active carte and tierce, That useful stay to tools which else will pierce; And all too late you feel, consign'd to Styx, Your life not worth the button you unfix.
Swift let me call you to the sylvan grove, Where nightingales and blackbirds sing of love. Should love assail you, as it will, no doubt, Nor rudely fan the flame, nor blow it out: Sometimes, when smother'd, it the stronger grows; And sometimes, when you stir it, out it goes. Close in your breast a heart for beauty keep, Yet ne'er imagine beauty but skin-deep: Beauty is oft—a fact we must deplore— As deep as Garrick, and a great deal more.
Let not your choice too short or tall appear, No hole her mouth, or slit from ear to ear; And, though 'tis well in daily life to greet The man who struggles to make both ends meet, Yet sure the task can no great triumph win, Accomplish'd by a lady's nose and chin. Yet I, perchance, my pen and paper waste; These the exactions of an erring taste.
But let your wife be modest, and yet free; Coy, but not bashful; active as the bee; And yet unlike that bee of busy wing, That "proffers honey, and yet bears a sting;" Not sad, but thoughtful; pensive, but not glum; Grave without gloom; and silent, but not dumb; Merry when mirth's in season, and yet sad When nought akin to pleasure's to be had. In all that you possess still let her share, Yet wear no vestments you yourself should wear.
And for yourself,—since now must I conclude,— Be courteous, yet close; and plain, not rude; Open, but strict; and though reserv'd, yet frank; Treat all alike, yet pay respect to rank; Be dubious, e'en when reason would entice, And ne'er take unsolicited advice. So may my precepts sink into thy mind, And make the wisdom which thou canst not find; Until at length, so vast thy mental height, The world, beholding thee, shall take a sight; And men, in want of words to set thee higher, Shall with one voice cry "Walker!" and retire.
A VISIT TO THE MADRIGAL SOCIETY.
Everybody has heard of madrigals, and almost everybody has heard of the Madrigal Society; but everybody does not know what madrigals are, and almost everybody has not dined with the Madrigal Society. Not that that ancient and respectable body is an exclusive one,—keeping its good dinners for its own private eating, and its good music for its own private hearing: its freemasonry is extemporaneous, and a visitor is as welcome to the whole fraternity as to the individual who may introduce him.
The Madrigal Society is the very Royal Exchange of musical enthusiasm and good-fellowship, and certainly bears the palm away from its "fratelli rivali." Its component parts are better amalgamated, and the individuals composing them, appear to derive more thorough enjoyment from their attendance, than in any other unions we have seen of the same genus.