The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-19 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
fanners 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 hither misses 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 sure 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 note.> of
the Orpheus ; while, between the dances, his budget of
jokes and wonders, the fruits of his wide wanderings and
the varied society iu 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 for the loss by giving addi-
tional 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 chronology, 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 blind fiddler was the spirit of all merry meetings
and penny weddings throughout the country. At all
such festivals you were as sure to fitld him seated on a
barrel-end as you aro to find the Martello Tower in the
Frith. With what swiftness his fiddle bow was plied—a
very spirit was in his elbow and fingers—he seemed to
play against time; a perfect sand-hag, 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
as 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 seems to be, like a " bro-
therless hermit, the last of his race." That rare gift of
time and tune for which he was distinguished is worn
out, and, although the ancient power of music sometimes
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 cadences 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 life to " bab at the bowster," may
never thrill forth the compoitions 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 herd, and stamp of
the foot. No grease brightens their pocket lids, no snuff
begrims their visages, they are odiously clean—de-
generate sons of mighty Orpheus!—From " Old Scottish
Characters" in the Leith Herald.