Moore for his songs, Bishop would write, compose, and sing his own
operas, and all our vocalists enter, like Dryden's king and two
fiddlers, _solus_!

Could we but once become a musical people, we should no longer marvel at
the effect of music in ancient times; for who knows but that if an
Englishman were to play like Orpheus, the River Thames might cease to
flow; the disposal of Mr. Cross's menagerie be no longer a question,
since the animals might be allowed to ramble about the Strand; and
Snowdon or Cader Idris journey to the King's Theatre to listen to his
inspirations.

It is, however, impossible to calculate the benefits which this
acquisition of musical skill might prove to the English people. What
bloodshed and tribulation it would prevent. Weare, or Maria Marten, like
Stradella, might have disarmed their assassins; the Insolvent Act would
be obsolete, and duns defeated; since hundreds of improvident wights,
like Palma, might, by their strains, soften the hearts of their
creditors, and draw tears from sheriff's officers. Chancery-lane would
be depopulated, and Cursitor-street be left to the fowls of the air;
locks would fall 50 per cent, and Mr. Bramah might betake himself to Van
Dieman's Land. What a pleasant thing would a public dinner be; for,
instead of a gentleman in a dress coat singing as from the orchestra of
an oratorio, he would throw a more impassioned energy into his own
compositions than he could possibly impart to those of another, and
proportionally enhance the delight of his company. All the mechanism of
professional singing would then give way to "the feast of reason and the
flow of soul."

We know not how to have done with these pleasures of "linked