图书图片
PDF
ePub
[graphic][subsumed][ocr errors][ocr errors][subsumed][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors]
[graphic]

BURTON'S

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE,

AND

AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW.

OCTOBER, 1839.

MISTER RICHARD DOD DICOM BE,

A SKETCH,

BY WILLIAM 1. BURTON,

Illustrating a Mezzotint Engraving on Steel, by Sartain, after a Celebrated Picture by Buss, of

THE MUSICAL BORE.

MISTER RICHARD DODDICOMBE is a portly gentleman of some fifty years experience amongst the flats and sharps of this chromatic world. He is a bachelor, "free from all incumbrances, and possessed of a genteel independency," as the old gentlemen say when they advertise for wives. A phrenologist might express surprise at the extraordinary development of the organs of time and tune, in the bumpital region of Mr. Doddicombe's caput, were he unacquainted with the gentleman's devotion to the musical science-but the slightest intimacy would convince the scullogist that the organs in question ought to form the chiefest portion of Mr. D.'s cranium-positive mountains amongst the ant hills thrown up by the other propensities affecting his brain pan-to be in corresponding value to the super-eminent affection displayed in his love towards "a concord of sweet sounds."

When Richard" was a little chubby boy," he one day strolled far from his father's residence, earled by sounds emanating from a cracked clarinet played upon by a broken-winded Scotchman, who was blind of one eye, and remarkably well dimpled with varioloid. The grunts of this Caledonian's bagpipe found a ready vibration in the chords of Dickey's heart-strings; he felt the influence of music on his soul, and determined to devote his future life to the study of the gentle science. Returning home, he stole a sixpence from his father's till, and bought the best imitation of the blind man's clarinet procurable in the neighborhood—a long wooden whistle, with four holes-on which he perseveringly practised till something like the ghost of a tune rewarded his laborious exertions. In the very outset of his musical career, he drove a maiden aunt from the home of his ancestors by the vile squeakings that he daily made; she took offence at his mother's encouragement of her child's display, and dying shortly afterwards, left her fortune to a toad-eating nephew-a maker of ladies' shoes. This affair proved but "a prologue to a most dreadful tragedy to come."

Years rolled on; Dickey obtained a flute, and puffed the beauties of Yankee Doodle and Robin Adair, and perpetrated other easy lessons in two sharps without making more than a dozen flat mis

VOL. V-NO. IV.

takes. When he entered his teens, he obtained a violin, and scraped an acquaintance with a band of juvenile fiddlers, who harmoniously passed their evenings in discordant squcakings, and killed time pleasantly, although they did not know how to beat it.

[ocr errors]

Dickey Doddicombe soon longed for stronger food; "rubbing the hair of the horse against the bowels of the cat" was too quiet an exercise for the musical fury raging in his breast. The performances of a canal boatman, who blowed Southern breezes" and "Loud roared the dreadful thunder" on an old revolutionary trumpet, determined Dickey to go his death on brazen tubes, and a small curly instrument was obtained from a charcoal man, who gladly received a hoin of liquor in exchange. Dickey soon drove his parents to the verge of madness by the violence of his tootletooing; arguments were used in vain; in spite of the excess of his angry mother's tattle, the headstrong boy continued to tootle. Old Doddicombe was a quiet man, and his nervous system fell before the daily blowing-up of his wife and the constant blowing-out of his son. He took to liquor;

he was in a measure compelled to go to the tavern for a little peace, because he was not allowed a bar's rest at home. His trade fell off, and this circumstance broke the old gentleman's heart; so, when his business went to the devil, he died directly-for he was a plain unsophisticated tradesman, wishing only to follow his business, without any flourish of trumpets.

Dickey followed his father's body to the grave with an aching heart, for he knew his deficiency, and lamented, as he walked in the funereal throng, that he was unable to play the Dead March in Saul upon the horn, as a fitting tribute to the melancholy occasion.

The musical mania raged with additional violence in Dickey's bosom as he became intimate with the science, and was able to relieve the monotony of his solitary solos by bearing a part in the musical meetings of his neighbors. His education had been sadly neglected for the attainment of this one great end. What was Greek in comparison to the gamut? syntax to a sinfonia ? philosophy to a fugue movement? Seneca's wisdom to a sonata's workings? or the history of Rome to the execution of a rondo? Nothing. The seven notes were his seven sciences of heavenly constructionthe diatonic scale formed his Jacob's ladder for heavenly visitation-and the stave was a five-barred gate that locked Elysium; flats, sharps, and naturals, were his every-day acquaintances, and he slurred them over, or held on to them, according to their respective value in the scale of his enjoy

ment.

Mrs. Doddicombe had a desire to be called grandma; she suggested to Dickey that the name of Doddicombe ought to be perpetuated, and hinted at the propriety of wedlock. He confessed that he had no objection to a matrimonial duett, and the anxious parent undertook to select his partner.— Dickey was invited to a musical soirée at the house of Miss Diana Dulcet, who was barely twentyfive years of age, with a handsome fortune in her own right. But Dickey affronted her at their first meeting; the young lady was proud of her performance on the piano-forte, and loved to show off her skill in the presence of her friends. Dickey wished to exhibit his musical knowledge also, and, annoyed at the lady's perseverance, rudely told her that she had better leave off, for she was only exposing her ignorance-taking his horn from his pocket, he blew a blast so long and loud and dread, that the ladies ran shrieking from the room. Dickey only ceased from his solo at the pressing importunity of the footman, who gave him his hat and pointed to the door.

Dickey went in for fortissimo passages; as the Hoosier said on a similar occasion, " he guessed he war'nt up to their figger in the skientifics, but he'd swaller his shadder if he couldn't beat 'em on the loud." As Dickey progressed in his music, the trumpet and the bugle became favorite instruments; and a rattle on the double drum gave a relish to the day's amusement. Then, like Eve, he was seduced by a serpent, and growled most horrible music on the bassoon in perfect ecstacy. His mother "never could abide" the serpent; its Freischutzian tones were unearthly in the old lady's ears, and seemed to fret her bowels into fiddle strings, and positively turn her inside out, as the old lady declared just before her death, which occurrence was doubtless hastened by the violence of her snakephobia.

If my readers have ever seen Signor de Big-knees, or Big nose, I forget which is the proper pronunciation of his name, in the character of a director of an orchestra, dressed in a long morning gown, with a cap on his head, made of music paper, with the air of “ All round my hat" written on it, he can form some idea of the musical fervor which affected my poor friend Doddicombe, as he turned the gentle summer of his life, and fell into its autumn path. He quarrelled with his best friend because he pleasantly denominated a valve trumpet a sort of a young trombone. He fought a duel with a parson, for defending the use of consecutive sevenths. He was taken to jail for jumping from the boxes of a theatre into the orchestra, and assaulting a drummer who was marring the effect of an overture by his injudicious thumpings. In his serenades, he was peculiarly unfortunate; once, he was taken up by the watchman for refusing to account for the possession of a huge bass viol, which he was hauling to the place of his devoirs. Another time, on a summer's midnight, he placed himself under the window of an old German, who, unable to sleep from the visitation of countless hosts of midnight vermin, had risen from his bed to indulge in vengeful slaughter. At that moment, Dickey tuned his bassoon, and growled forth "Still so gently o'er me stealing;" the German thought the appositeness of the tune a premeditated insult; the window was quietly opened, and a

« 上一页继续 »