The Feast of St Cecilia was celebrated in Edinburgh with a concert of vocal and instrumental music, shewing a more advanced state of the art than might have been expected.[165] The scheme of the performances exhibits a series of pieces by Italian masters, as [Sidenote: 1695.] Corelli and Bassani, to be executed by first and second violins, flutes and hautbois, and basses; the opening piece giving seven first violins, five second violins, six flutes and two hautbois. There were thirty performers in all, nineteen of them gentlemen-amateurs, and eleven teachers of music. Among the former were Lord Colville, Sir John Pringle, Mr Seton of Pitmedden, Mr Falconer of Phesdo, Mr John (afterwards General) Middleton, Lord Elcho, and Mr John Corse, keeper of the Low Parliament House Records. Some of these gentlemen are described as having been skilled in music, and good players on the violin, harpsichord, flute, and hautbois. Among the professional men were Henry Crumbden, a German, ‘long the Orpheus in the music-school of Edinburgh;’ Matthew M‘Gibbon, father of William M‘Gibbon, noted for his sets of Scots airs with variations and basses; Adam Craig, a good orchestra-player on the violin; Daniel Thomson, one of the king’s trumpets; and William Thomson, a boy, son of the above, afterwards editor of a well-known collection (being the first) of Scots songs, with the music.[166] See under 1718 for further notices of the rise and progress of music in Scotland. [Sidenote: NOV.] In this age, every person of any note who died became the subject of a metrical elegy, which was printed on a broadside, and cried through the streets. Allan Ramsay, a few years later, makes satiric allusion to the practice: None of all the rhyming herd Are more encouraged and revered, By heavy souls to theirs allied, Than such who tell who lately died. No sooner is the spirit flown From its clay cage to lands unknown, Than some rash hackney gets his name, And through the town laments the same. An honest burgess cannot die, But they must weep in elegy: Even when the virtuous soul is soaring Through middle air, he hears it roaring.[167] The poetry of these mortuary verses is usually as bad as the typography, and that is saying a great deal; yet now and then [Sidenote: 1695.] one falls in with a quaint couplet or two—as, for example, in the piece: ON THE MUCH TO BE LAMENTED DEATH OF WORTHY UMPHREY MILNE, WATCHMAKER, BURGESS OF THE METROPOLITAN CITY OF SCOTLAND, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE, NOVEMBER THE 18TH, 1695.