The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-18 00:00:00

THE BLIND FIDDLER

The itinerant musician may be considered as the le-
gitimate successor of the old Scottish minstrel of tuneful
memory, who perambulated the country to the infinite
delight of the people. Although the fiddler of the later
days was more accustomed to frequent the houses of the
farmers and the peasantry than the lordly halls where
the harps of his ancestors were strung, it was more in
consequence of the progress of modern customs, which
had begun among the hiher masses of society, than
from any falling away in the profession. On the contrary
the blind fiddler was a person in considerable note in the
circle which he periodically visited. So regularly were
those visits paid that the rural population could calculate
the precise time of his coming, and prepare for the same.
If those visits were in winter the blind fiddler was al-
ways =tare of a warm nook at the fire-side, as well as a
numerous and liberal auditory—if in summer, the village
green was soon enlivened with busy feet by the notes of
the Orpheus ; while, between the dances, his budget of
jokes and wonders, the fruits of his wide wanderings and
the varied society in which he mingled, was opened to
the delight and astonishment of gaping rustics. If he
held them not, like the ancient mariner, with his glitter-
ing eye, he did so with his eloquent tongue. Nature,
who, when she deprives an individual of the use of one
faculty, generally makes up fel. the loss by giving addi-
tionel force to another, made this worthy a walking
newspaper—a periodical of mirth, news, and music.
Every house and family, for miles round, was as familiar
to him as the tunes he played, and hence the aptitude
of the well-known saying, applied to one well versed in
local ebrobolegy, that he must have led a blind fiddler.
Unenviable, indeed, must have been the post of leader,
subjected to the never ceasing volubility of one who
lived both in noise and by it, and with no opportunity
of retaliation but what the trick of a false jump might

afford.
The blinl fiddler was the spirit cf all merry meetings
and penny we:ldings througiiout the country. At all
such festisals you were as sure to find him seated on a
barrel-end as you are to find the Martello Tower in the
Frith. With what swiftness his fiddle bow was plied—a
very spirit was in his elbuw and fingers—he seemed to
play agaiust time; a perfect sand-bacr,, too, was this
old worthy, p,tions which were sufficient to make a
stronger man stagger were drops in a bucket to him; the
tankard came as readily to his lips between the dances
es the rosin to his bow, and, in both cases, it improved
the tone. We have scarcely a solitary specimen left of
the original blind fiddler. Only one we yet hold delight-
ful intercourse with, and he i..eems to be, like 6 " bru-
therless hermit, the last of his race." That rare gift of
live end tune for which he was distinguished is worn

out, and, although the ancient power of music sunrAiices
makes his lip quiver with emotion, when, with a plaintive
grace, he plays " Auld Robin Gray," yet, not unfre-
quently, he will mix up the cadeticvs of " Satan among
the Tailors" with a favourite quadrille. Polkas and
Mazurkas are wholly unknown to him, and he would
scorn the idea of prostituting his fiddle to the work of
playing an overture or a modern gallopade,—that fiddle
which has given itfe to " bab at the bowster," may
never thrill forth the compositions of a Julien. The
fiddlers now-a-days, are no more like those of old than
an egg is like an oyster. They want the peculiar twist
of the mouth, the merry bob of the he,d, and stamp of
the foot. No grease brightens their p,,cket lids, no snuff
bearims their visages, they are odiously clean—de-
generate sons of mighty Orpheus!—From " Old Scottish
Characters" in the Leith Herald.

Rossna.—The account of the gran mae.tro'g present
doings are so contradictory as to deprive each other of all
credit. According to some, the visit of the delegates from
the Paris Italian Opera has re7ived his all but extinguished
musical ardour, and having lung been without a piano, he
goes every morning to a fiend's house, and thumps his
instrument for several hoars a day, composing a naw and
splendid work for the Parisians. Others say that a new
opera will be all a humbug, a piece of patchwork made up
of pieces from the Donna del Lago, and some of his
forgotten operas, with nothing new but the title
and the libretto, which is to be manufactured after the music
has been put together. We are, moreover, told that arrange-
ments have been made for producing this new work (what-
ever it may be) at her Majesty's Theatre next season. We
must wait pa; iently till time snail solve this great mystery.
The Milan Gazette says that a new chorus has been com-
posed by Rossini, and sung with enthu iasin at Bologna, in
colebratian of the political arnne.ty g anted by the new
Pope; but another journal (the Pirata) asserts that this was
merely a chorus from one of his old operas, to which he put
new words. . . .

111;W SIGN OF DEATIL—The following. important
discovery is calculated to be of great service in cases of suspected
death. The communication was lately made to the Royal Academy
of Sciences, Paris, by 31.111pault, who, in directing the attention of
members to the discovery, observed, that it consisted in perfect
flaccidity of the iris when the globe of the eye is compressed in two
opposite directions. If the individual he living, the pupil retains its
circular form, notwithstanding the compression ; if dead, the aper-
ture becomes irregular, and the circular fotin is lost.