“The men from the clearing, who understood the river, took our horses, and rode up to the sulky, and, after some difficulty, succeeded in bringing the traveller safe to shore, when we recognised the worthy _parson_ who had fiddled for us at the puppet-show at Little Rock. They told him that he had had a narrow escape; and he replied, that he had found that out an hour ago! He said he had been fiddling to the fishes for a full hour, and had exhausted all the tunes that he could play without notes. We then asked him what could have induced him to think of fiddling at a time of such peril; and he replied, that he had remarked, in his progress through life, that there was nothing in universal natur so well calculated to draw people together, as the sound of a fiddle; and he knew that he might bawl until he was hoarse for assistance, and no one would stir a peg; but they would no sooner hear the scraping of his catgut, than they would quit all other business, and come to the spot in flocks.” _A prejudice overcome._—Another story of a clergyman fond of fiddling—in this instance, a Scotchman—is to be found in _Tait’s Magazine_.—“A number of his parishioners considered it as quite derogatory to his calling, that he should play upon the fiddle; so a deputation of them waited upon him, and remonstrated against this _crying_ enormity. He said—“Gentlemen, did you ever see my fiddle, or hear me play?”—“No!”—“You shall do both,” said he; and immediately brought a violoncello, on which he struck up a Psalm tone, asking if they had any objection to join him with their voices. They complied; and, when all was over, they expressed themselves perfectly satisfied of his orthodoxy. “A muckle, respectable, _releegious_-sounding fiddle like _that_, there was nae harm in. Na, na! it was nane o’ yer scandalous penny-weddin’ fiddles that they had heard o’!” It will not have been forgotten, by some of my readers, that the musical propensities of the Rev. Charles Wesley were made a subject of stringent comment by the poet Cowper, who pointed his remarks by the line— “With wire and catgut he concludes the day.” It is recorded, however (if I rightly remember), that the candid and kind-hearted Cowper saw reason, afterwards, to alter his impressions on that head, and to regret that he had reflected, with such freedom of pen, on the harmless recreations of the earnestly pious minister. ——From the foregoing incidental references to men of the sacred calling, we pass, by no violent transition, into the church-yard. On a stone, in the porch at the southern entrance of the collegiate church, Wolverhampton, is the following singular epitaph. “Near this place lies Claudius Phillips, whose _absolute contempt of riches_, and _inimitable performance upon the violin_, made him the admiration of all that knew him. He was born in Wales, made the tour of Europe, and, after the experience of _both_ kinds of fortune, died in 1733.”