Grim-visag’d Satan on the Artist’s bed Sat—and a cloud of sounds mirific spread! Wild flow’d those notes, as from enchantment’s range, “Wild, sweet, but incommunicably strange!” Soft Luna, curious, as her sex beseems, Shot through the casement her enquiring beams, Which, entering, paler grew, yet half illum’d The shade so deep that round the Arch-One gloomed: And listening Night her pinions furled—for lo! The Devil’s Soul, O![27] breathed beneath that bow! Tranquil as death Tartini’s form reclin’d, And sealing sleep was strong his eyes to bind; But the wild music of the nether spheres Was in a key that did unlock his ears. Squat, like a toad or tailor, sat the Fiend, And forward, to his task, his body leaned. His griffin fingers, with their horny ends, Hammer the stops; the bow submissive bends: His lengthy chin, descending, forms a vice With his sharp collar-bone, contrariwise, To grasp the conscious instrument, held on With ’scapeless gripe;—and, ever and anon, As flows the strain, now quaint, and now sublime, He marks, with beatings of his tail, the time! Snakes gird his head; but, in that music’s bliss, Enchanted, lose the discord of their hiss, And twine in chords harmonic, though all mute, As if they owned the sway of Orpheus’ lute. Satan hath joy—for round his lips awhile Creeps a sharp-set, sulphuric-acid smile; And, at the mystic notes, successive sped, Pleas’d, winketh he those eyes of flickering red, And shakes the grizzly horrors of that head! List! what a change! Soft wailings fill the air: Plaintive and touching grows the demon-play’r. Doth Satan mourn, with meltings all too late, The sin and sorrow of his own sad state? * * * * * Night flies—the dream is past—and, pale and wan, Starts from his spell-freed couch the anxious man. Is it a marvel greater than his might, Those winged sounds to summon back from flight? To clutch them _whole_, in vain fond Hope inclin’d, For Memory, overburthen’d, lagged behind, Partly the strain fell ’neath Oblivion’s pall, But it had partly “an _un_-dying fall;” And, in that state defective, to the light Brought forth—it lives—a relic of that night! The next name for notice, in connexion with the Italian School of the instrument, is that of FRANCESCO MARIA VERACINI (the younger), a great, but somewhat eccentric performer, who was born at Florence, at the close of the 17th century. Unlike his contemporary, Tartini, whose sensitive and modest disposition led him to court obscurity, Veracini was vain, ostentatious, and haughty. Various stories have been current in Italy about his arrogance and fantastic tricks, which obtained for him the designation of _Capo pazzo_. The following anecdote is sufficiently characteristic of him.