with music when we have been supplied with
the instrument itself. Thus, a plank of polka
costs about four shillings; consequently,
the overture to Semiramide or to La Gazza
Ladra would cost very much more; but the
grand overture would be just as easy for the
grinder to play as the simple polka. There
have not been many of these instruments
brought to England; but one of them has
gratified many thousand hearers. It has
plenty of "power;" a pianoforte player can
not increase his fingers and thumbs beyond
the recognised number of ten; but this
mechanism could play many more than ten
notes at a time, and so far beats Thalberg
or Moscheles.

We must observe, also, that it is not merely
the pianoforte which is thus treated. The
apparatus itself is called the Antiphonel, or at
least one variety of it, so designated, is
capable of being attached to organs, and thus
become available for sacred music. And we
must not forget that the mechanism may
be so attached that, by a slight adjustment,
it can be freed altogether from the
pianoforte strings, and allow the instrument to be
played by means of finger-keys in the
ordinary way. The mechanism is sold alone;
it is sold with the pianoforte which is to be
played only by its means; it is sold with a
pianoforte which has the double or alternative
action; it is sold, in the antiphonel form, for
attachment to organs; and lastly, the music
boards alone are sold at nine shillings a
yard.

When, therefore, the next compiler of a
table of weights and measures sets about his
labours, let him remember that among the
commodities which are sold by the barrel or
by the yard, he must include music.

GRIPER GREG.

A CAPRICCIO.

GRIPER GREG, of the village of Willoughby Waterless,
A miserly hunks who was sonless and daughterless,
Nieceless and nephewless, why did he haste to lay
Gold in queer corners, for strangers to waste away?

Were there no claimants upon his cold charity:
Poor fellow-creatures, heart-void of hilarity;
        Fatherless, motherless,
        Sisterless, brotherless,
        Husbandless, wifeless,
        Forkless and knifeless,
Dinnerless, supperless wretches, to pray or beg—
None in his neighbourhood, loudly to say to Greg:
"Stone-hearted miser, behold you, we perish;
Give us some victual our faint frames to cherish?"

Yes, there were orphans, Tom, Jack, Dick, and Ned,
Lean, tiny creatures, ill-clothed and worse fed;
Widows there were, Dinah, Ruth, Prue, and Kate,
Bearers alike of the hard blows of Fate;
Old pauper Will, too, who hirpled on crutches,
With mouth pulled aside by neuralgical clutches,
And limbs drawn awry by rheumatical twitches,
Bewrapped in old blankets, without coat or breeches—
No sister, no daughter, no wife, to take care of him—
The very dogs barked "Bow-wow! Beggar! beware
       of himI"

And many more hunger-bit, tatter-clad sorrowers,
Fain would have been relieved beggars or borrowers
At Griper Greg's door, where they often cried woefully,
But Greg—he grinned fiercely, and frowned on them
        foefully!

        One day, the snow fell thick and fast
            One drear mid-winter's day;
        And Greg was out upon the waste
            That round his cottage lay.

        No sight was there, except the snow,
            Upon the wild wide moor;
        And in Greg's heart began to grow
        Stern, deadly, self-accusings how
            He 'd used the houseless poor.

        "If I die here," Greg wildly cried,
            "My soul is ever lost!
        Had I my gold here by my side,
            It would not pay the cost
        To ransom it from endless pain!
        Oh! could I reach my home again,
        I'd give to every suffering fellow
        Creature enough to make him mellow."

"They are good words yev said, dear!" cried
      beggarman Pat,
Who wandered, all weathers, without coat or hat,
Upon the wide waste, and now chanced to be near
Enough to the miser his heart-grief to hear:
"They are good words yev said; and no better by
        preacher,
Were ever delivered about the dear creature:
Make me mellow with him, and no ill shall betide ye,
For to Willoughby Waterless safely I'll guide ye!"

"Oh, joy!" shouted Greg, "guide me home from the waste,
And the sweetest of mutton this night ye shall taste!"
"Bad luck to your mutton! be't sweeter than candy,
'Tis wormwood compared with strong whiskey or
      brandy!"
"Then I'll fill ye with brandy," swore Greg in grim
       fear
That if he refused he would perish, left here.
So home sped the miser by beggar Pat guided,
And home safely reached—but, there, ill Greg betided.

Griper Greg, all a-cold, shared the brandy with
       Pat,
Till discretion, with fuddling, he wholly forgat,
And joked of his gold huddled up in sly corners,
To hide it from burglars by night, and day
       sorners.
Sleep seized him so heavily he stopped in his
       story,
And Pat, wide awake then, was, sure, in his
       glory,
And rummaged the corners, and bore off the
       plunder.

Greg woke the next day, with sore head-ache and
       wonder
To find the noon passed while he had been sleeping;
Then looked for his gold, and forthwith fell to
       weeping,