Who is this, that comes riding — not on a
whirlwind like Mr. Addison's angel (in a
Ramilies wig) to direct the storm, but on a
peacefully ambling bay pony ? It is the well-
known amateur and ami des artistes, Sir
Peddler Fugue. See; he has just stopped
his little nag, and bends over the saddle to
talk to Trump, the composer. Sir Peddler
Fugue is one of a class not peculiar to the
musical world, but common to all the artistic
professions. There is your fine-art amateur,
who pokes about studios, and advises you to
kill that light, and scumble that
background, and glaze down that little finger;
who has just come from seeing Turpey's
grand figure-piece for next year's Exhibition;
who knows why the hanging committee treated
Maul so scurvily, and how much Palletnife
is to have for his commission from Slubber,
the great Manchester cotton-spinner; and when
Chizzle the sculptor will come back from
Rome. There is your dramatic amateur, who
has the entrée to all the green-rooms; who
took Madame Spinosetti to Nice; paid for
little Katty Tentoes's choregraphic education
at the Conservatoire; lent Grogram his Justice
Woodcock wig; lost a few hundreds in the
Capsicum Street Theatre (under Pepper's
management); wrote a very bad farce that
was once played somewhere on a benefit
night; and behaved like a father to Miss
Haresfoot. There is your literary amateur,
who was so good as to read over the proofs
of Professor de Roots's bulky work upon the
Integral Calculus (a service handsomely
acknowledged by De Roots in his preface);
who found the money for the Comic Economist,
a humorous illustrated publication, with
contributions by the first authors and artists
of the day, which had an average circulation
of twelve weekly, and lived five weeks; who
edited the letters and remains of Twopenny
the poet (poor fellow! few remains had he to
leave save tavern scores, pawnbrokers'
duplicates, and unpaid washing bills); and who
is a member of the Goosequill Club, held at
the Homer's Head, Grub Street. There is
your musical amateur, the gentleman who
ogles Euterpe through his eyeglass; goes to
all the concerts; hangs about all the music
warehouses; and is the general friend, socius,
and adviser of the artists. They are worthy
fellows, mostly, these art amateurs, having
little in common with the big-wigged patrons
of old, who were wont to be addressed somewhat
in this poetic strain:

    Still shall my Muse the noble Mugmore sing,
    Friend of the arts and couns'llor of his king,

—and who paid for servile praise with a purse
full of gold pieces, just as a provision merchant
would buy a tub of far wholesomer Dorset
butter. They do not resemble the ridiculous
dilettanti and cognoscenti of the last century,
who meddled with artists' private affairs, and
wrote them patronising letters of advice, and
suggested an alteration in a stanza, which
spoilt it, and finally left their protégés to
starve. Thank Heaven, art wants no such
patrons now! The ami des artistes of whom
Sir Peddler Fugue is a type, likes and
frequents artistic society for its own sake.

Sir Peddler Fugue, Bart., is very long and
lean; and, but for the excellent condition and
grooming of his horse, and that he himself is
dressed as a quiet English gentleman, instead
of a suit of rusty armour, he would bear no
inconsiderable resemblance to that deathless
knight of La Mancha who had a rueful
countenance. If, again, it be Quixotic to be good,
and brave, and generous, yet withal a little
eccentric, somewhat pedantic, and occasionally
(when his exquisite taste and finished
appreciation of art get the better of him) a
bit of a bore, Sir Peddler Fugue is decidedly
of the same mental mould as Cervantes' hero.
Sir Peddler has a white moustache, grizzled
hair, a chin tuft, and wears such spotless
buckskin gloves, such lustrous boots, and has
so noble and erect a carriage, that he has
several times been mistaken, both at home
and abroad, for the sovereign of a German
principality. He is a bachelor, and lives in
chambers in the Albany, where his sitting-
room is hung round with M. Baugniet's
lithographs of celebrated musicians, and, I verily
believe, with a specimen of every musical
instrument, ancient and modern, under the sun:
from David's harp to Mr. Distin's sax-horns:
from the lyre that Bruce brought from
Abyssinia, to Straduarius's fiddles and Case's
concertinas. The baronet plays a little on
most of these instruments; but he chiefly
affects a brown old violoncello, with which, in
the stillness of the night season, he holds
grim and mysterious conferences: the instrument
grumbling and groaning then, sotto
voce, as if it were the repository of secrets
which none might hear but he. Far in
the recesses, moreover, of a gloomy street
in the undiscovered countries lying between
Baker Street and the Edgeware Road, there
is a long, low, green-papered room, not unlike
the inside of a fiddle-case. Thither, twice a
week, during certain appointed months in
the year, Sir Peddler Fugue repairs, preceded
by his man-servant, carrying the brown old
violoncello. There, he meets a few other
amateurs and professionals, reverent men
with bald heads and spectacles: Viscount
Cattegat (who elevated Miss Bowyer the
soprano, to the peerage, like a nobleman as
he was); Francis Tuberose, M.P. (ætat. 80),
who plays prettily on the viola; Sir Thomas
Keys, that time-honoured music-master, who
taught music to the princesses, and was
knighted by the revered George the Third
himself; and little old Doctor Sharp (Mus.
Doc. Oxon), who wears black smalls and
gaiters, bless his heart, and composed a
cantata for the Jubilee, goodness knows how
many years ago. When these rare old boys
meet, the wax candles are lighted, pinches
from golden snuff-boxes are exchanged,