Punch, Or The London Charivari | Page 8

BET SHE'S BRUSSEN
SOMEWHERES!"]
* * * * *
THE POOR VIOLINIST.--AN EPISODE, IN THE STYLE OF
STERNE.
"_Le Luthier de Crémone_," observed EUGENIUS, "is a pathetic
story."
"Indeed, EUGENIUS," replied YORICK, "it is extremely touching. I
protest I never read, or hear it, without emotion."
"The violin," pursued EUGENIUS, "most sensitive, and, as it were,
soulful of human instruments, lends itself, with particular aptness, to
the purposes of literary pathos."

"Dear Sensibility!" said I, "source inexhausted of all that is precious in
our (poetical) joys, or costly in our (dramatic) sorrows!"
"It were well," continued YORICK, drily, "if it were also the source
inexhausted of more that is quick in our sympathy, and practical in our
beneficence. It is scarcely in the columns of the daily news-sheet that
Sensibility usually seeks its much-sought stimulus. And yet but lately,
in the corner of my paper, I encountered a piteous story that 'dear
Sensibility' (had it been more romantically environed) might
deliciously have luxuriated in. I protest 'twas as pathetic as those of
MARIA LE FEVRE, or LA FLEUR. It was headed, "Sad Death of a
Well-known Violinist."
"Prithee, dear YORICK, let me hear it," cried EUGENIUS.
"'Twas but the prosaic report of a Coroner's Inquest," pursued YORICK.
"Sensibility would probably have 'skipped' the sordid circumstance.
'FREDERICK MARTIN, aged seventy-two, a well-known Violinist,
and Professor of Music, formerly a member of the orchestra of the
Italian Opera at Her Majesty's and Covent Garden Theatres,' found life
too hard for him. That is all. 'The deceased, a bachelor.'--Heaven help
him!--'had of late been afflicted with deafness, which hindered his
pursuit of his profession, and' (the witness an old friend feared) 'he was
recently in straitened circumstances, but he was too proud and
independent to ask or accept assistance.' The old friend, Mr. LEWIS
CHAPUY, Comedian, had 'frequently offered him hospitalities, which
he never accepted.' Offered him hospitalities! Worthy comedian! In
faith, EUGENIUS, 'tis delicately worded. True 'Sensibility' here,
supplemented by practical sympathy. Both, alas! unavailing. Somewhat
of the doggedly independent spirit of the boot-rejecting Dr. JOHNSON
in this poor deaf violinist apparently. Verily, EUGENIUS, the story
requires but the 'decorative art' of the literary sentimentalist to make it
moving, even to the modish. The ingeniously emotional historian of LA
FLEUR would have made much of it."
"My gentle heart already bleeds with it," said I. "But the upshot,
YORICK; the sequel, my friend?"

"'Tis short and simple," responded YORICK. "'The afflicted Violinist'
occupied a room at 34, Compton Street, Brunswick Square, in which he
lived alone. He suffered from lumbago, as well as from a proud spirit
and a broken heart. He had a dread of 'coming to the Workhouse.'
Spectral fear which haunts ever the sensitive and poverty-stricken!
Unreasonable? Perhaps. But not the less agonising. What comfort may
Political Economy and an admirable Poor Law yield to proud-spirited
victims of poverty?"
"But surely," said I, "the compassion of the stranger would gladly have
poured oil and wine into the wounds of his spirit--or into poor afflicted
MARIA's--had he only known."
"Doubtless," said YORICK. "But 'the great Sensorium of the World,'
as--in 'mere pomp of words'--thou dost designate 'Dear Sensibility,' did
not 'vibrate' to the case of this 'well-known Violinist'--until 'twas too
late to vibrate to any useful purpose. He was 'found lying dead in his
bed, fully dressed, with the exception of his hat and boots,' mute as the
untouched strings of his own violin. 'He had died suddenly from
syncope, or heart-failure.' Heart-failure, EUGENIUS. Doth not thy
gentle heart fail at the thought? 'Dr. COLLEY found the body in an
advanced stage of decomposition, and life had probably been extinct
since the preceding Thursday night.' Prithee, Sir, is 'MARIA, sitting
pensive under her poplar, more pathetic than this poor broken musician,
dying alone, in his poverty and pride?"
"Indeed, no!" I responded, musingly.
"Those," continued YORICK, "who go, like the 'Knight of the Rueful
Countenance,' in quest of melancholy adventures, need not to make
deliberately 'Sentimental Journeys' through France, or Italy, or by forest
or mountain, picturesque hamlet, or romantic stream. The purlieus of
great cities amongst the poverty-stricken members of what it is usual to
call the 'lower middle-classes,' will furnish multitudinous subjects for
pensive thought, and--what were a whole world better--for practical
benevolence. 'Tis too late, alas! to do aught for this dead Violinist, but
were eyes and pen more sedulously and sympathetically employed
about real, if sordid-seeming, in place of imaginary, if picturesque,

woes, why verily, EUGENIUS, something more, perchance, might be
done in such pitiful cases as that I have described to thee in
non-journalistic language, than what was formally done by the
Coroner's Jury, who--as they were bound to do, indeed--'returned a
verdict in accordance with the medical testimony.'"
* * * * *
[Illustration: PUNCH'S PIC-NIC. THE