But he possessed other accomplishments beside those of the polemic. He was not, it is true, overloaded with the learning of "the schools"--was, in fact, quite ignorant of some of the branches of knowledge which he imparted to his pupils: yet this was never allowed to become apparent, for as we have intimated, he would frequently himself acquire, at night, the lessons which he was to teach on the morrow. But time was seldom wasted among the people from whom he sprang, and this want of preparation denoted that his leisure hours had been occupied in possessing himself of other acquirements. Among these, the most elegant, if not the most useful, was music, and his favorite instrument was the flute. In "David Copperfield," Dickens describes a certain flute-playing tutor, by the name of Mell, concerning whom, and the rest of mankind, he expresses the rash opinion, "after many years of reflection," that "nobody ever could have played worse." But Dickens never saw Strongfaith Lippincott, the schoolmaster, nor heard his lugubrious flute, and he therefore knows nothing of the superlative degree of detestable playing. There _are_ instruments upon which even an unskilful performer may make tolerable music, but the flute is not one of them--the man who murders _that_, is a malefactor entitled to no "benefit of clergy:" and our schoolmaster _did_ murder it in the most inhuman manner! But, let it be said in mitigation of his offence, he had never received the benefit of any scientific teaching--he had not been "under the tuition of the celebrated Signor Wheeziana," nor had he profited by "the invaluable instructions of the unrivalled Bellowsblauer"--and it is very doubtful whether he would have gained much advantage from them, had he met the opportunity. He knew that, in order to make a noise on the flute, or, indeed, anywhere else, it was necessary to _blow_, and blow he did, like Boreas! He always carried the instrument in his pocket, and on being asked to play--a piece of politeness for which he always looked--he drew it out with the solemnity of visage with which a tender-hearted sheriff produces a death-warrant, and while he screwed the joints together, sighed blasts like a furnace. He usually deposited himself upon the door-sill--a favorite seat for him--and collecting the younger members of the family about him, thence poured forth his strains of concentrated mournfulness. He invariably selected the most melancholy tunes, playing, with a more profound solemnity, the gloomiest psalms and lamentations. When he ventured upon secular music, he never performed anything more lively than "The Mistletoe Bough," or "Barbara Allen," and into each he threw a spirit so much more dismal than the original, as almost to induce his hearers to imitate the example of the disconsolate "Barbara," and "turn their faces to the wall" in despair of being ever again able to muster a smile!