concerts and balls in a "rendezvous of the diseased," where "ministers of state, judges, generals, bishops, projectors, philosophers, wits, poets, players, fiddlers, and buffoons" met and trifled, amid "dressing, and fiddling, and dancing, and gadding, and courting, and plotting." But so it was; and never were men and pursuits so unlike brought face to face, or placed side by side in the business of life.
When "the music and entertainments of Bath were over for the season," and "when not a soul was seen in the place but a few broken-winded parsons, waddling like so many crows along the North Parade, great overgrown dignitaries and rectors, with rubicund noses and gouty ankles, or broad bloated faces, dragging along great swag bellies, the emblems of sloth and indigestion," this pleasant-faced director of concerts and oratorios, this man of smiling look and noble bearing, wearied out with the music of the season, sought rest and refreshment in a constant and devoted study of the higher music of the heavens. He had none to help him but a younger sister, who was unwillingly dragged from the concert-room and the theatre to less congenial pursuits, and for some time a younger brother, who was believed to play the violon-cello divinely, and who certainly could apply himself with credit to mechanical pursuits. With untiring energy he worked out this ancient music of the spheres, till the world was astonished at his success, learning confessed her debts to his genius, and a new era dawned in the history of science. He sprang into fame almost at one bound, passed from theatre and music-room to the Hall of the Royal Society, and was saluted by organs of public opinion as an "extraordinary man."
