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The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803-1842) (about)
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Cite: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2193521
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' To hats been spoken at the opening of the Opera
< ? house, Sydney, August, 1829.
No. Ill, ii, «? S'death I'll print it.
». And shame the fools, your interest, Sir, with Lintot."
Popb.
address or john bull, junior, «. i am a
tinker to my trade." Ladies and Gentlemen,
Music is a much admired art. It derives its hame from the muses, somewhat questionable cha- racters in antiquity. It has been much improved since the days of the Patriarchs, who, before the time of Tubal-Cain (which is the same as Vulcan), ex- tracted harmony from horns, bones, and wooden pins. Nature gives us the clements of music, for
the " human voice divine" by its intonations is j extremely pleasing in tenor and treble ; and when j a man snores you know, be snores in bass, which let me tell you is, at times, a very comfortable thing. « The little birds that skim the air, and pretty Polly, Polly, cry," (with great pathos J have received natural pipes from their Creator, and every morning
and evening lift up their pretty little innocent throats, '
end carol in strains never to be despised. It is a j pleasure to listen to them. I cry shame to the man ¡ .who can clap up a warbler such as this in a cage, ' and' deprive him of liberty, sweet liberty, thrice ¡ happy and ingenuous goddess. I would (ravel fifty 1 miles on foot to kiss the hand of that man who j
Would smite to the earth the tyrannical wretih who makes tbe cage, and he who make« use of it. And
yet, alas ! you «ee, gentlemen,1that bird's cage« ara , Bot more fashionable than cages ot another descrip-
tion for meo. It is very true, gentlemen in do r«d I
not loVe IM< Thty ««tes« At A« & patroquet, per- haps a cockatoo, jpçrkaps a jackdaw, perhaps nn unrlean bh-fl. * They snay suppose I pluck my own feathers for my goose «juill. Thoy will find, how-
ever, I, am the eaglet I will pounce,"«-pounco,-r , pounce,'ob kit hands^till their coats uro in tatters, and their plumes ara dragged, to dust. - '' ?
' Music, gentlemen! is gMwrally believed to have I been the invention oftmu. I am of quilo n different opinion. It is true you have some great musicians,
in ancient times you have your Orphous, with his |
fiddle, who vent to Erebus on the thankless errand of bringing back bis wife, in placo of advertising her in the journals of the day; you havo your Orion, who piped on a Dolphin's back, which'leads
rae tothink ho must hav« hunted with tho hounds of Nimrod ; wnd you have your Appollo, who tbumm'cd the guitar, in peace and-war, to Tnake or mar tho stubborn fates. But this is not proof that music was invented by man. ' I take my stand on this ground. Music is musle til the1 world ovor. That is a proposition the Gazette itself cannot'."deny. Again^ the man who invented it is not named in his- tory. That's enough for me. ' My point is irrcsista ble. «I'll üght about it,goddess aud aboutit, till every reasoning man begin to doubt it," Still the question remains what wera the first objects of in- strumental' music. Most men declare that theso were straws, reeds, and pipes, I am of quito a dif- ferent opinion. The inferior animals have supplied roan, with all tha first subjects of manual, digital, pedal, and ventro-blast music. v
.First, you know tha .simplest instrument is the rriarrow bone and cleaver. This is tho badge of n very honorable profession, '. the butchers,'" just as the« death's head" is the coat of arras, of the phy.
sicians, and the Bible and Crown the bango of Church , and Stato. 'Now'when I say it is tho badge of butchera,--not bungling legal butchers, but tender- hearted, merciful, fat faced butchers, who supply us with our daily beef. Music from this source is som«' what gratifying to a polished car. Perhaps it v. as in anticipation of the Opera in this place, that brother Jonathan,'some" time ago, Bent us a large
investment of shin bones. He cheated the soup- j kettles of the slaves of tbe Isle of France, to supply
us with marrow bones, we' ourselves furnishing the j cleavers.' He knew his market, and ho went homo, I singing on His way as he went, the "national air of j " yaqkee doodle." I have a specimen of the' iden- tical shine quite at hand. "It was a 'glorioussubject formo. It furnished a leader for months, and even still I never can want subject for one if I only think
of Jonathan's bones. - ' I
The next animal substance that gave occasion to '
a musical instrument, was the'horn of the ox, ram, or goat; this furnishes us with all wind instruments, from the whistle to the bassoon, and whether tha sound imitates "? gun, drum* truhipet, blunderbuss, or thunder;" this too must, have gi;en tho idea of the pipes of an organ, not the official organ ; no, no, I may touch upon lura by: nnd bye ; but 1 mean plain substantial organs, with or without trumpet stops, invented1 by St. Cecilia, and such as they have j in that place on the hill, the "via Sacra," where tho
.pew was, the ghost of the defunct pew, you under rne, I need not he more explicit.
| Next we'have tha smaller bones of animals, which
wera 'converted in fifes, clarionets, and hautboys. I tye have horses hair for the bow, and intestines
for the strings, and sinews for the bass of the violin and violincello ; and the idea of the drum (witness the kettle' drum) took its rise from beating on tho , sounding skull of a fallen enemy. I suppose, in our
day, it would bo difficult to get a sound head to stand music, for so sar as I can judge, modern skulls seem to he cracked in many placen, and altogether unsound; I think seriously,-tew of the skulls of our | little great men would ring halt' so well as a broken
pitcher. < Gentlemen, if it were not libellous, I-could refer you to many heads of this description; in par- ticular, one for each day in the week, sitting in a certain box, in a certain court, on a certain cause, . and passing a certain judgment against a certain
harmless individual, who, in his own opinion, and of those who think as he does, ought certainly to hava been treated in ajinore gentlemanlike manner. Cob \. bet's gridiron should hava been in requisition on
that day.
I Such ia the origin of music ; I consider it a happy > thing for the Colony-this poor, unhappy, forlorn, 1 benighted country, that the opera has started up
amongst us, to cheer our drooping spirits. Do not ' take X. Y, Z. and llubi tor your guido. Do not
let Rus in Uti* bamboozle you with buttocks and . tobacco. Do nutlet A Igt non and Adelpho»,und all p ? tkcJettcrs of the alphabet^ transmogrify your seven
: senses about Juries and-Law; depend upon it this
country is now a Cyclops! the «? lumen*" is now _ >- " adempluTH?' tbi single ey« is no where risible but * j on the forehead, not tha braveo forehead, of one of
' the Journals of the day. The Press, the Palladium 'of security is nearly destroyed, and we are taxed, ' and taxed, end are told to be patient, begone ; pa i tiente is the virtue of an ass. Oar'cattle ure dying,'
' our grass is burnt up, our tobacco is turning to snuff
as it stands, our cauliflowers are converted to kail, I our beef to bannocks, as Byron says, our winds aro
heated currents, our skies are brass, our earth is iron ; who is^in fault for all this ? -Who is the cause, tho prime cause? The Rulers, the Kulers (shouts, L and hear, hear) j Oh Gentlemen, I weep for the land,
, 1 mourn for the cattle, J-sigh for the crops, i groan r for the Rulers, even 'to grunting in rmy spirit ; I am
thunderstruck at the merchants, t am horrified at tha tradesman; what, .£103,040 of income it) uno , 'year t 'we have weathered roany a storm, wc cannot
weather this. Sixteen years-have I promulgated my doctrines ; sixteen years bave you turned a deaf car to my ules, ya men of billa and lagoons, of swamps p and creeks, of wattle scrubs,1 and tea tree brushes,
do listen to my valedictory address, do not permit toe to* be the only humming bird in the land [ohouls].
Exit after a candle-snuffer, who has purloined the shin bon», the speaker «ailing ont, " scourge the rogue, he baa stolen my shin bone, the glorious bone, (be inestimable document."