"
To music he was more sympathetic, but even here his sympathies had their
limitations. Music in the minor key made him melancholy, and had to be
discontinued when he was in residence at St. Paul's;[162] and this was not
his only musical prejudice.--
"Nothing can be more disgusting than an oratorio. How absurd to see
five hundred people fiddling like madmen about the Israelites in the
Red Sea!"
"Yesterday I heard Rubini and Grisi, Lablache and Tamburini. The
opera, by Bellini, _I Puritani_, was dreadfully tiresome, and
unintelligible in its plan. I hope it is the last opera I shall ever
go to."
"_Semiramis_ would be to me pure misery. I love music very little. I
hate acting. I have the worst opinion of Semiramis herself, and the
whole thing seems to me so childish and so foolish that I cannot abide
it. Moreover, it would be rather out of etiquette for a Canon of St.
Paul's to go to the opera; and, where etiquette prevents me from doing
things disagreeable to myself, I am a perfect martinet."
After a Musical Festival at York he writes to Lady
Holland:--
"I did not go once. Music for such a length of time (unless under
sentence of a jury) I will not submit to. What pleasure is there in
pleasure, if quantity is not attended to, as well as quality? I know
nothing more agreeable than a dinner at Holland House; but it must not
begin at ten in the morning, and last till six.
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