Excerpt from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 8: October-March, 1820-1

W - dsw - th, to shew, I suppose, that he could play if he chose, struck a bar or two in such grand Miltonic style, as immediately silenced the laughers.

Order, however, was not long kept, for little M - re's jokes were not to be suppressed, even during Mr S - th-y's grand Maestoso flourish on the trumpet. The trumpet was an old one, havmg been used ever since Queen Elizabeth's time in the coro nation of our sovereigns; and, from an unfortunate bruise or two, had be gun, as Mr M - re observed, to sound a little flat. Perhaps even Mr S - th - y's powers had not quite done justice to it; for, though a promising musician, he had taken up this in strument rather late in life; nor had his former practice been such as to af ford him much facility in the attain ment of execution upon it. This, at least, was little M - re's account, re peated, with divers significant shrugs and half nods, to a listening circle. He concluded by saying, he would have advised the L te to have kept to that ancient scripture instrument, the sackbut. Mr S - th - y however con cluded, in the midst of great plaudits, and after he had finished, the amuse ment ran still higher. What could equal my astonishment, when I be held Mr Cwle - dge, after an eloquent disquisition on the powers of this novel, but admirable and simple in strument, sit down to play a Phan tasia, with a skewer upon a gridiron, which he called the dulcimer of nature. Who would have dreamed of producing music from such a thing? Yet C - le - dge did so. The applause was immense - L - d B - n clapped immoderately and even Mr J - ff - y, who was in the front of the gallery, loudly called, encore, in his odd tone, between jest and earnest. But this extraordinary exhibition was not the only display of Mr C - lo-dge's singular genius. He favoured us with a specimen of his manner of playing the Eolian harp, which he did by breathing into it. Nay, for the gra tification of the company, he thus played himself to sleep, and produced a most capital bass accompaniment by snoring. When he awaked, which he did in about ten minutes, he pro ceeded to maintain that a hair and was one of the finest instru ments that human wit ever invented.

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