often did I sing the _sweet passion of Love_ without once thinking of my dear _Gluckinella_; how often did she encore my _O how pleasing ’tis to please_, without the slightest recollection of her absent barber! Madly determined to pursue the fatal experiment, and observe the full effects of my art; I next sung “_Haste, let us rove, to the Island of Love”_, at which Mrs. _Sharpset_ was greatly agitated and danced about the room. Then I played a rapturous voluntary “produced in the happy moments of effervescence when my reason was less powerful than my feeling;” and at length I proceeded to such excess of temerity, as to tune up _Geho Dobbin_, _Murdoch O’Blaney_, and several other inflammatory compositions; and finding my mistress “attentive, and in a disposition to be pleased, I became animated to that true pitch of enthusiasm, which from the ardor of the fire within, is communicated to others and sets all around in a blaze, so that the contention between the performer and the hearer was only who should please or who should applaud the most, till at length, not contented with shewing her approbation by coughing, hemming, and blowing the nose” she “expressed rapture in a manner peculiar to herself, and seemed to agonize with pleasure too great for the aching sense!” for at length, overpowered by my quirking and quavering, and transported beyond all the bounds of prudence, Mrs. _Sharpset_ on a sudden leaped into my arms, hung round my neck, and devoured me with eager kisses, such as I never tasted before or since. What man, what unemasculated god could have withstood such potent snares? Ah! my serene _Gluckinella_ had’st thou been there, these tumults had all subsided, the devil had not got intire possession of my mind, voice and instrument, nor had I needed the painful operation of the barber’s avenging steel to bring my wandering spirits back to reason:—for soon, and in the midst of our illicit joys, the door of the chamber was forced open, and in rushed Mr. _Sharpset_.—Discordant oaths and curses, and the look and voice of a Fury making an incantation to awake the dead, bespoke the injured husband, and scared us from the bed. He retired a moment to fetch the instrument of his revenge. Mrs. _Sharpset_ escaped, but in an instant I saw him return whetting his keenest razor; and concluding, that he meant to cut my throat upon the spot, I fell down at his feet and in an agony of fear and penitence, roared out such a MISERERE, as was never heard at the Pope’s chapel in _Passion-week_. Alas! how did I wish for the genius of a _Gluck_, “to paint _my_ difficult situation occasioned by complicated misery, and the tempestuous fury of unbridled passions!” But _Allegri_ himself, had he chanted his own MISERERE, could not have moved the shaver’s unrelenting soul, or soothed his injured honour up in arms, and demanding its victim! I tried a softer strain, and sang in melting mood, “_Let not rage thy Bosom firing, pity’s softer claim remove_,” &c.