History of the Royal Sappers and Miners, Volume 2 (of 2): From the Formation of the Corps in March 1712 to the date when its designation was changed to that of Royal EngineersConnolly, T. W. J. (Thomas William John)
History
History of the Royal Sappers and Miners, Volume 2 (of 2): From the Formation of the Corps in March 1712 to the date when its designation was changed to that of Royal Engineers
Connolly, T. W. J. (Thomas William John)
Great Britain. Army. Royal Sappers and Miners
Of the connection of the sappers with a service so interesting, the
following anecdote is an illustration. A “foreigner of distinction”
paid a visit to the Palais de l’Industrie. With Captain Fowke he
rambled over the courts, and while the Captain was explaining to him,
among other matters, his experiments on the strength of woods, they
reached the spot where corporal Mack, in the Captain’s temporary
absence, was carrying them on with all the intelligence of a
scientific man. A little further on was another sapper. This was
sergeant Jenkins, who, for the visitor’s information, cleverly
expatiated on some philosophical apparatus in his charge. A red-coat
in the building was an object of decided attraction, and the foreigner
looked with no little satisfaction at corporal Clabby, who was then
making a minute and accurate survey of the position of the cases and
objects in the Exhibition. He had scarcely withdrawn his attention
from the draughtsman, when a fourth sapper in the person of corporal
Key, the indefatigable overseer, came in for a share of the
foreigner’s approbation, and he expressed to Captain Fowke his
amazement that so many difficult and important duties could, with such
efficient results, be intrusted to them. But the measure of his
astonishment was not yet full. There was a magnificent organ, built by
Bevington and Son, of Greek-street, Soho, in the Palais, which had
gained the first-class prize, on which, while the distinguished
foreigner was taking his tour, an amateur with a small body and a
young and pleasing countenance was performing. Drawn by the power and
grandeur of its tones, the Captain and his friend repaired to the
compartment where it had a locâle, but on turning the corner, instead
of finding, as was expected, a “Maestro,” or “un professeur anglais,”
seated before the instrument disporting himself with the hauteur of a
musical genius, the foreigner was struck by seeing another sapper,
complacently playing with the proficiency and grace of a modest
professional. “Mon Dieu!” he cried, as if the varied employments of
the British sappers were too exuberant to merit a less startling
exclamation, “Encore un sapeur du genie!” And the foreigner went away
with a most excited opinion of the talents and attainments of the
corps, of which the men above named were the creditable
representatives. The military Mozart on this occasion, who strangely
enough was named after that “divine composer,” was Ludovico Amedius
Woolfgang Hart!—a name due less to his English than his German
extraction. As young Hart had opportunity, he applied himself to the
great organ with its three rows of keys, pedals, and accessory
movements, containing also eighteen hundred and eleven pipes and
forty-two stops. His performances comprised selections from Handel’s
Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, and other oratorios. Once when Her Majesty
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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