See, how sobered is his style of execution—how passive his action! The fire of enthusiasm is not for _him_: he can but shew the plodding of a quiet spirit. He holdeth his bow, not as your topping players do, but with a third part of its length below his hand. He finds this plan the easiest, because it is his wont to work more from the _shoulder_ than the _wrist_! Think no scorn of him, ye great artists—ye _triumphant_ euphonists! He is self-taught,—or, which is the same thing, hath learned of his father, who was _alter ipse_, and who himself got his knowledge “in the family.” Yet, though his bow-arm hath none of the sweep that belongs to science, behold how he puts mettle into the heels of infancy, and even peradventure brings a wriggle into the sides of old age: such power is there in the notes of a fiddle, even in the hands of decrepitude itself! The nursery-maids, who cannot condescend to _talk_ with a street-fiddler, as they would with a young policeman, accord a smile, nevertheless, to some of his “passages,” and a halfpenny to his pauperism. Musician as he is, or would be _called_ (for poverty has its pride), do not test him with terms, or ask him the meaning of a “common chord:” he will think you design to insult his misery with a dependent allusion! Him _harmony_ concerneth not, nor counterpoint either;—he is a simple _melodist_, and, to him, a few old tunes are the entire world of music. After all, too, the finest melody in _his_ ear, is the sound of human sympathy; and the best of music is the rattle of frequent halfpence in his hat—a hat by night, a money-box by day! His daily gains, what are they? A sorry pittance, truly; yet the poor old fellow, albeit no classic, manages to live on the Horatian plan, “contentus parvo,” and is very far from being the most thankless of mortals, although “For all his _shifts_, he cannot shift _his clothes_.” It is not always people of the finest ear, who are the most intolerant of ambulating fiddlers. There are some _dull_ persons who have little other notion of music in _any_ shape, than as so much _noise_. The complaint of these against the poor starveling here described, is that he makes so _loud_ a noise. Let us only (with sly allusion to the early name for the barbarous instrument) ask them one question—although even a bad joke may be quite thrown away upon the dull: Say, wherefore should it _not_ be loud, The noise proceeding from a _crowd_? And, while employing this kind of excuse, which will perhaps be received as better than none, in behalf of a fraternity, who, if they _torment_ a little, unquestionably do much more _suffer_, I may as well go on to offer the following such-as-it-is APOLOGY FOR MATTHEW MARKIT, A “COMMON FIDDLER.” Let not wrath against him gather— Call him not a useless bore! Would you not, this dirty weather, Have _a scraper at your door_? Such is he;—nay, more than that, He’s a _Scraper, and a—Mat_!