under notice, prevailed to such an extent as even to form one of his eccentricities. So far, indeed, from being of an illiberal spirit, he was a considerable loser by the too ready advance of money to the necessitous. Hackwood lived till 1821, and was for some years _father_ (as the term goes) of the Royal Society of Musicians. It may be incidentally mentioned that a great benefit to our English performers on bow-stirred instruments in general, was produced by ABEL’S residence here for about a quarter of a century. That fine musician and performer, the pupil and friend of Sebastian Bach, though he handled an instrument (the _viol-da-gamba_) of a species which was not in common use, and was even about to be completely laid aside, became nevertheless the model, in adagio-playing, of all our young professors on bowed instruments, who, taught by his discretion, taste, and pathetic manner of _expressing a few notes_, became more sparing of notes in a _cantabile_, and less inclined to attempt such flourishes as have no higher purpose than to display mechanical readiness. The wonders achieved by Abel in the extraction of tone from an instrument which, albeit possessed of some sweetness, was radically so crude and nasal, as the viol-da-gamba (that remnant of the old “chest of viols”), are something truly memorable among the triumphs of art. The Robert Lindley of our own day and country, transcendant in the quality of tone which he could elicit, stands a minor marvel, as compared in this sense with Abel,—_his_ instrument being one that is naturally so much more grateful and practicable.