Salmagundi; or, The whim-whams and opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, esq. [pseud.] and others. By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving. Printed from the original ed., with a preface and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck.

40 SALMAGUNDI.
of a Choctaw, to contemplate the countenance of one of these
unhappy victims of a fiddle-stick without feeling a sentiment of
compassion. His whole visage is distorted; he rolls up his eyes,
as M'Sycophant says, " like a duck in thunder," and the music
seems to operate upon him like a fit of the colic; his very
bowels seem to sympathize at every twang of the catgut, as if
he heard at that moment the wailings of the helpless animal
that had been sacrificed to harmony. Nor does the hero of the
orchestra seem less affected; as soon as the signal is given, he
seizes his fiddle-stick, makes a most horrible grimace, scowls
fiercely upon his music-book, as though he would grin every
crotchet and quaver out of countenance. I have sometimes
particularly noticed a hungry-looking Gaul, who torments a huge
bass viol, and who is doubtless the original of the famous " Rawhead-and-bloody-bones," so potent in frightening naughty children.
The person who played the French horn was very excellent in
his way, but'Sbidlikens could not relish his performance, having
some time since heard a gentleman amateur in Gotham play a
solo on his proboscis, in a style infinitely superior. Snout, the
bellows-mender, never turned his wind instrument more musically; nor did the celebrated " knight of the burning lamp,"
ever yield more exquisite entertainment with his nose; this gentleman had latterly ceased to exhibit this prodigious accomplishment, having, it was whispered, hired out his snout to a
ferryman, who had lost his conchshell;-the consequence was
that he did not show his nose in company so frequently as
before.