King James I., upon what beneficial principle it is now difficult to discover, by letters-patent incorporated the musicians of the city of London into a company, and they still continue to enjoy privileges in consequence of their constituting a fraternity and corporation; bearing arms azure, a swan, argent, within a tressure counter-flure, or: in a chief, gules, a rose between two lions, or: and for their crest the celestial sign Lyra, called by astronomers the Orphean Lyre. Unluckily for the _bon-vivans_ of this tuneful tribe, they have no hall in the city for festive delights! However, on days of greatest _gourmandise_, the members of this body are generally too busily employed in exhilarating others, comfortably to enjoy the fruits of good living themselves. And here historical integrity obliges me to say, that this company has ever been held in derision by real professors, who have regarded it as an institution as foreign to the cultivation and prosperity of good music, as the train-bands to the art of war. Indeed, the only uses that have hitherto been made of this charter seem the affording to aliens an easy and cheap expedient of acquiring the freedom of the city, and enabling them to pursue some more profitable and respectable trade than that of fiddling; as well as empowering the company to keep out of processions, and city-feasts, every street and country-dance player, of superior abilities to those who have the honour of being styled the “_Waits of the corporation_.”[60] * * * * * EFFECTS OF MUSIC. Sultan Amurath, that cruel prince, having laid siege to Bagdad, and taken it, gave orders for putting thirty thousand Persians to death, notwithstanding they had submitted, and laid down their arms. Among the number of these unfortunate victims was a musician. He besought the officer, who had the command to see the sultan’s orders executed, to spare him but for a moment, while he might be permitted to speak to the emperor. The officer indulged him with his entreaty; and, being brought before the emperor, he was permitted to exhibit a specimen of his art. Like the musician in Homer, he took up a kind of psaltry, resembling a lyre, with six strings on each side, and accompanied it with his voice. He sung the taking of Bagdad, and the triumph of Amurath. The pathetic tones and exulting sounds which he drew from the instrument, joined to the alternate plaintiveness and boldness of his strains, rendered the prince unable to restrain the softer emotions of his soul. He even suffered him to proceed until, overpowered with harmony, he melted into tears of pity, and relented of his cruel intention. He spared the prisoners who yet remained alive, and gave them instant liberty. [57] Dictionary of Musicians. Hawkins. [58] Wood’s Fasti, anno 1586. [59] Hawkins. [60] Burney. * * * * * ~Topography.~ THE YORKSHIRE GIPSY.[61] _For the Table Book._