In addition to these shining qualities, she was a musical amateur of the first note. She could make the jacks of her harpsichord dance so fast that no understanding ear could keep pace with them: and her master, Signor Gridarini, affirmed every time he came to give her a lesson, that, among all the dilettanti in Europe, there was not so great a singer as herself. The most famous of the public performers scarcely could equal her. In the bravura she astonished! in the cantabile she charmed; her maestoso was inimitable! and her adagios! Oh! they were ravishing! killing. She indeed openly accused him of flattering her; but Signor Gridarini appealed both to his honour and his friends; the best judges in Europe, who as she well knew all said the same. Of personal beauty she herself was satisfied that the Gods had kindly granted her a full share. 'Tis true, her stature was dwarfish: but then, she had so genteel an air! Her staymaker was one of the ablest in town. Her complexion could not but be to her mind, for it was of her own making. The only thing that she could not correct to her perfect satisfaction was a something of a cast with her eyes; which especially when she imitated Enoch in making herself agreeable, was very like squinting. Not but that the thought squinting itself a pleasing kind of blemish. Nay there were instances in which she scarcely knew if it could be called a blemish. By these two ladies I was received with no little distinction. The mother recollected the earl and the bishop; the daughter surveyed my person, with which she was almost as well satisfied as with her own. I heard her tell her female acquaintance, during the evening, that she thought me _immense_ well bred; and that in her opinion I was _prodigious_ handsome; and, when they smiled, she added that she spoke with perfect _song fro_, and merely as a person of some critical taste. I could indeed have corrected her English grammar, and her French pronunciation; but I was not at this time so fastidious; as to accuse her of any mistake in judgment, in the opinion she gave of me. My musical talents gained me additional favour. Miss Eliza was quite in raptures to hear that I could accompany her in a concerto; or take a part in an Italian duet. She vowed and protested again, to her friends, that I was a most accomplished, charming man! She spoke aside, but I was rather remarkably quick of hearing that evening. She proposed a lesson of Kozeluch's immediately. I should play the violin accompaniment, and her papa _as it was very easy_ would take the bass. All voices, for there was _a prodigious large party_ by this time, were loud in their assent. Every body was sure, before any body heard, it would be _monstrous fine_; so there was no refusing. The fiddles were tuned, the books were placed, the candles were snuffed, the chord was struck, and off we went, _Allegro con strepito!_