close the eyes to all the touching evidences of pre-arrangement, of skill and care, which the ravaged nest discloses-oh! it is shameful-disgraceful to humanity. Have the Society for the Protection of Animals no sympathy for the sufferings of birds? STREET MUSIC. THERE are misfortunes of locality in London, which thousands of its inhabitants know not-enviable beings whom business obliges to dwell in the broad thoroughfares and public streets-or fortunate ones, whose round of existence is confined to the squares or elevated to terraces. These extremes of public and private life, like all extremes, meet in the mutual blessing of freedom from the bore alluded to. It is the miserable mediocrity of small streets (falsely called private, but open to all sorts of noisy nuisances), that lets you literally in over head and ears to the full conception of its horrors. It is nonsense, madam, because halfa-dozen organ-boys in the course of the day lift their great black or brown eyes to your window, and by means of the pathos in them, and the supplicating action of the sun-burnt hand, carried humbly, not servilely, to the old brown conical hat, persuade you out of an alms, and into supporting a very monstrous trade in beggary-it is nonsense in you, I say, madam, to imagine you know any thing of the matter. As well might you 'suppose that the clarionet of that particular member of the "Biffen" tribe, whom you may sometimes perceive in stepping from your carriage to the kerb-stone in Regent-street, was the worst you had to learn in the varieties of street music. In the second-rate, or as they are sometimes felicitously called, "hum-drum" situations referred to, the paucity of passengers on the pavement, and the comparative absence of vehicles, renders them particularly adapted for all the purposes of ambulatory vocal or instrumental extortionists; and as a consequence, from "dewy morn to balmy eve," an uninterrupted current of sing-song and instrumentation goes on in them. Nebuchadnezzar's morning concert, at the inauguration of his golden calf, offered no such diversified programme as the rehearsal of a day's entertainment in such places. You get up on a summer's morning, and throw your window wide open, that the scent of the heliotrope, and the musk and mignonette in the balcony beneath may come in. Poor substitute as it is for the missing flower-garden of one's early home, there is a sense wafted in by their breath of the earth's bloom and beauty-of sunshine and freshness. You almost hear the bombus of the bee in the clustering honeysuckle and fruit-like blossoms of the burlegima, or see the butterflies in amorous pursuit chase each other through the open casement; and the cup of imagination thus filled, as with soothing syrup, leaves us in the very vein to love our neighbour as ourself-that rosy-fingered little Phyllis especially, whose heliotropes have helped us to such sweet reminiscences. Well, at this moment, and while the early postman is doing his spiriting, any thing but gently, at the different door-knockers, the carnival of beggary begins, and discord, in the divided shape of a man, his wife, and three small children, is heard approaching from the top of the street. Down goes the window, and away flies the "dream of home" in its place, all the disagrémens of a London bed-room are about you-close air, hard water, and towels tainted with smoke. Meanwhile, no closing of window-sashes can shut out the dolorous, snuffling, timeless, tuneless vocalisation of the quintet party beneath, who, compressing their family history into the limits of Haynes Bailey's song-proclaim in the most disunited and inharmonious manner what appearances rather lugubriously indicate that they have "lived and loved together." Sentiment in shirt-sleeves-a paper-cap and snowwhite apron, though seconded by a partner as airily apparelled, and a triad of sleek-headed children in spotless pinafores, does, I confess, harden my heart effectively. I see nothing in the well-polished shoes and strapped-down trousers of the man-in the black petticoat and fresh-washed apron of the woman-in his coatless condition, and her bare shoulders, but the mummery of mendicity-idleness masking itself in the pretence of poverty; and by this magpie arrangement of colours, and an appearance of ultra cleanliness in the few garments they display, appealing but too effectively to the commiseration of a class, often themselves exposed to suffer the hard teaching of necessity, but who with the charity that thinketh no ill, regard this exposition of cleanliness at the expense of upper clothing with pitying admiration, and shower from attic and area a fair average of halfpence to the well-brushed and well-washed impostors. Scarcely have they passed, when amidst the hurly-burly of street cries, never louder than about breakfast-time, and the incessant tinkling of French pianos-(they count for nothing-who thinks of listening to them?) scarcely, as I said, have they, "the poor distressed family" passed, when a new batch, three real or affected Bartimeuses, each hugging a great droning bass-viol, march along the pavement in procession. Who would raise a doubt of their "heavy eyes and light purses ?" Their wary steps and worn-out garments are surely genuine-but for pity's sake give an oblation quickly to rid us of their dismal performance. You may hear the boom, boom, boom of their sonorous instruments long after they have left the street, and the little yellow-faced man, with his small voice, his melancholy one song, and his veteran guitar, who has followed close upon their heels, and proceeds at once to take up a position in the centre of the throughfare, is absolutely delightful by comparison. Every one must have seen this sexagenarian-this streetsinger of I know not how many years' standing. I can remember him ten years, and how long before he might have been a familiar object to the dwellers in these haunts of wandering minstrels, singing over and over the one sad air, striking a few chords on the guitar, and at its close dropping his head upon the pandean-pipes, to be found somewhere in the neighbourhood of his shirt-frill, and sending forth a very shrill, and withal, highly-ornamented symphony-he only can tell. It has been at long intervals that I have heard him, and so have witnessed the gradual going out of a clear and somewhat cultivated voice, and the sympathetic wearing away of the tones and condition of the guitar. I rather think the thread-bare, half-military blue-frock that hangs so loosely upon the poor man now, the same that characterised him in those, I fear, better days, when voice and instrument were by two lustres nearer to their prime. Ere he has got half way through the street, a band of young Germans, in green coats and peaked caps, circle themselves at one end of it, and forthwith a burst of rich harmony that raises every window, and sets every heart-if there be music in it-beating with delight, extinguishes the tre- · mulous tones and feeble accompaniment of the poor Italian. His trinal performance ends-the pandean pipes are thrust deeper into his bosom-the guitar is hidden somewhere within the folds of the old blue frock-he seems willing to put his pretensions even out of his own sight, and walks spiritlessly away, his hopes not worth a halfpenny in any direction this flood of melody may chance to take. Yes, rude and uncultivated as are the ears of the million-where Mr. Hullah and cheap music have not penetrated-they can yet distinguish sounds, and the enthusiasm I have seen exhibited by immense crowds drawn together by the admirable playing of this itinerant brass band, might prove an incentive to the efforts of local musicians, who make at present not only night, but day hideous, in the vicinities where they abound. Notes from the Zauberflöte seem to hang about the street five minutes after the German wanderers have left it, and are then perchance rudely dispersed by the barbarous sounds of that most horrible of all instruments, a Calabrian bag-pipe-the inflated skin looking like some halfdecayed animal, and the pipes hanging about like its lax limbs. I know not which of the two, the operator on the instrument, or the miserable creature who shuffles round and round, to its strange dissonance, appears the most melancholic. The rude garb of the latter his clumsy shoes of untanned leather-the striped woollen cap hanging down his back, and moving in unison with his monotonous gyrations, are so many incentives to the mirth of a ring of little children who encircle them, and who presently range themselves around the dancer, and moving from impulse to the singular sounds, afford a touching contrast, by their natural and graceful movements, to the forced and awkward passes of the miserable boy, writhing his form about for his daily bread. After them it is an absolute relief to recognise the low voice and unvaried thrumming of the Oriental, who, in turban, loose calico trousers, and pink-striped vest, has lately strengthened the corps of street musicians, and goes softly along, keeping time to his Hindoo ditty, by tapping delicately with the tips of his small fingers upon a little Indian drum, not larger than a water-melon, and which, to an English eye, looks very like a miniature butter-firkin, highly polished, and covered at both ends with parchment. The Hindoo has passed, and a harp, a hautboy, and cornet-à-piston, replenish in succession the stream of sound, which, in our street, like nature everywhere, would seem to abhor a vacuum. I have been sitting for the last half-hour, with my hands over my ears, in the hope that a Highland piper in full fig, at the other end of it, would blow himself out; but just as I fancied I might withdraw them, off went the wheezing instrument again; and the sounds in a farm-yard, when pigs are being ringed, lose by comparison. I remember on one of the occasions when the Ojibiway Indians exhibited at Lord's Cricket Ground, during the stamping, howling, and beat ing of a native drum which accompanied what was called their war dance, hearing a nursery-maid exclaim to her mistress, "Lor, ma'am, what spiteful music!" and the force of the phrase has only now become apparent to me. The rasping, screeching, and skirling of the Highlander has filled the street for the last five-and-thirty minutes. He has contorted its tones into a Strathspey, and is footing away to his own music with as lively a fury as a dancing dervish. Alas! the wire that pulls the human puppet to such strenuous exertions is poverty. All that action, with half-a-dozen airs, has been for a halfpenny, and up to number five he has not got it. And now as evening steals on, other minstrels will follow in the wake of the Highlander, who, in all the glory of philibeg and tartans, plumed bonnet, and gay streamers waving from his pipes, has boldly dashed into the adjacent square, and will continue till far into the night these ceaseless vocal or instrumental alternations. Hark! already an orchestra, with its hundred sounds, giving forth great gusts of harmony, not at all to be despised by the listeners, who have never heard the magnificent overture of "Guillaume Tell," now bursting close upon us, and anon "in notes by distance made more sweet," dying afar off, and then again thundering round the circle of the Opera-house, till the senses almost ache with a too intense sensation of excitement and delight. It is to be encouraged on a still night, and when not too near. I welcome the glimmering of its two small lamps at the corner of the street, and look up stray pence for its modest remuneration. Even a good organ is pleasant-an organ that has only lately made its debût-the strength and sharpness of its tones, mellowed by a few days hard practice, and not yet initiated into any of those ballad-singing turns which street-organs as well as human ones appear to take in them; but the hackneyed, every-day instrument, with its repetition of old tunes, its fragmentary overtures and fag-ends of opera airs, I utterly abhor. I had once occasion to visit one of the dark and horrid courts that nestle so closely to the great squares of the metropolis, and in the early dusk of an autumn evening I and my companion set forth for it. As we approached the court, we heard an Italian boy grinding the everlasting polka, and the tripping of little feet to the measure, and in its narrow passage appeared half-a-dozen boys and girls moving in perfect time, but with uncouth steps, to the organ notes; while their merry laughter seemed to render the poor performer as delighted as themselves. You saw his large eyes shining lustrously, and his white teeth glittering whenever the change of his position brought his dark face within the focus of the gas-light above the court-way. If the instrument had been a hurdy-gurdy, one would henceforth have tolerated it-so much poetry had the pure kindness of the lad invested it with. From that period, despite its vexations, I am disposed to be more tolerant to the bore of street music. FAMINE'S BURNT-OFFERING. BY CYRUS REDDING, ESQ. THE streamlet by the cottage wall The ravage wrought by human woes- Peer through to the passer by. Strange how such relics can mingled be In one common wreck of mortality- The poor souls, perhaps, were burn'd while sleeping, They were not in sleep-oh, no! Famine and fever laid them low, Famine had left them-gaunt and grim They had no more to batten him. Bright as the snake's that in darkness lies, As the lank hound when the hunters pause, Till Fever came and bade him repair One and one on the ground. With limb of the atomy, strength of the air, One and one had watch'd over their dead The young died first; the spirit fled, The survivors drew them side by side, Two generations, race and name, Had there gone out like a perish'd flame! While on every face lay a ghastly laugh,* Should never its destiny be again! The living found the dead, Contagion's poison had curdled the air, 66 A singular fact often seen in those who die of hunger caused by muscular contraction. The above incident in Ireland must be in every recollection. |