I did not hesitate a moment to comply with the customary _etiquette_, but stripping myself to the shirt, I crept into the room with the same awful silence with which the antient priests approached the Tripod of their God. Having posted myself behind a large screen, I beheld the Signor extended on his belly, while two young and beautiful ladies were gently stroaking his back with the palms of their hands. He lay for some minutes pensive and silent, as if waiting for the inspirations of the divinity. At length, on a sudden, “his eyes were fixt, his underlip fell, and drops of effervescence distilled from his whole countenance.” Immediately explosions of the most musical intonation I had ever heard, issued from behind, and enraptured the whole company. After this, he successively coughed, sneezed, hiccuped, eructated, squeaked and whistled in the most harmonious manner that can be conceived. “Thank heaven,” cried the Signor, “my powers of harmony are yet undiminished: I shall still live to bless the world, and polish this brutal nation.” Saying this, he took up his fiddle, and played a most divine solo. I heard him for some time in silent ecstacy, ’till at length incapable of suppressing my emotions any longer, I precipitated myself into his arms, crying or rather blubbering out in imitation of the great _Cassarelli_, _Bravo! bravissimo! Manselli, è Collioni che ti lo dice_. The Signor seemed somewhat surprized at my abrupt introduction, but at length, recollecting himself, he received me with ineffable politeness. The ladies at my appearance, had shrieked, and left the room, which in the first hurry of our embraces we had not perceived. But presently the Signor, glancing his eye downwards, recollected himself, and said with some warmth and emphasis, “O, fye, Signor _Collioni_, I took it for granted you were one of US.” I blushed at the imputation, and said, “I hoped this defect would not lessen me in his esteem, as my country was not yet sufficiently civilized to have adopted the custom; and though some of our prime nobility had the spirit and taste to lead the way, yet in the gross conceptions of the _English_, there was a certain degree of ridicule annexed to it, which deterred several men otherwise of the most exquisite politeness from submitting to it.” The Signor was kind enough to admit my excuses, but lamented this as the greatest obstacle to the national advancement in the science of music. However, he averred that several _English_ young noblemen of fortune had to his knowledge undergone the operation in _Italy_, “and though,” added he, “an ordinary proficient may be exempted from the practice, yet it is indispensibly necessary for one who would fathom all the mysteries of the art, and emulate the illustrious names of _Senesino_, _Farinelli_, _Tenducci_, &c.” I confess I was much staggered at what he said, more especially as I began to entertain some doubts myself whether the characters of a man and a musician were at all compatible.