Miss Strummel issues an invite, For music, and turn-out to-night In honour of Cecilia’s session; But ere you go, one moment stop, And with all kindness let me drop A hint to you, and your profession: Imprimis then: Pray keep within The bounds to which your skill was born, Let the one-handed let alone Trombone, Don’t--rheumatiz! seize the violin, Or Ashmy snatch the horn! Don’t ever to such rows give birth, As if you had no end on earth, Except to “wake the lyre;” Don’t “strike the harp,” pray never do, Till others long to strike it too; Perpetual harping’s apt to tire; Oh I have heard such flat-and-sharpers, I’ve blest the head Of good King Ned, For scragging all those old Welsh Harpers! Pray, never, ere each tuneful doing, Take a prodigious deal of wooing; And then sit down to thrum the strain, As if you’d never rise again-- The least Cecilia-like of things: Remember that the saint has wings. I’ve known Miss Strummel pause an hour, Ere she could “Pluck the Fairest Flower,” Yet without hesitation, she Plunged next into the “Deep Deep Sea,” And when on the keys she _does_ begin, Such awful torments soon you share, She really seems like Milton’s “Sin,” Holding the keys of--you know where! Never tweak people’s ears so toughly, That urchin-like they can’t help saying-- “O dear! O dear--you call this playing, But oh, it’s playing very roughly!” Oft, in the ecstasy of pain, I’ve cursed all instrumental workmen, Wish’d Broadwood Thurtell’d in a lane, And Kirke White’s fate to every Kirkman-- [Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT:--KIRKE WHITE.] I really once delighted spied “Clementi Collard” in Cheapside. Another word,--don’t be surprised, Revered and ragged street Musicians, You have been only half-baptised, And each name proper, or improper, Is not the value of a copper, Till it has had the due additions, Husky, Rusky, Ninny, Tinny, Hummel, Bummel, Bowski, Wowski, All these are very good selectables; But none of your plain pudding-and-tames-- Folks that are called the hardest names Are music’s most respectables. Ev’ry woman, ev’ry man, Look as foreign as you can, Don’t cut your hair, or wash your skin, Make ugly faces and begin.