"Doubtless," said YORICK. "But 'the great Sensorium of the World,'
as--in 'mere pomp of words'--thou dost designate 'Dear Sensibility,'
did _not_ 'vibrate' to the case of this 'well-known Violinist'--until
'twas too late to vibrate to any useful purpose. He was 'found lying
dead in his bed, fully dressed, with the exception of his hat and
boots,' mute as the untouched strings of his own violin. 'He had died
suddenly from syncope, or heart-failure.' Heart-failure, EUGENIUS.
Doth not thy gentle heart fail at the thought? 'Dr. COLLEY found the
body in an advanced stage of decomposition, and life had probably been
extinct since the preceding Thursday night.' Prithee, Sir, is 'MARIA,
sitting pensive under her poplar, more pathetic than this poor broken
musician, dying alone, in his poverty and pride?"

"Indeed, no!" I responded, musingly.

"Those," continued YORICK, "who go, like the 'Knight of the Rueful
Countenance,' in quest of melancholy adventures, need not to make
deliberately 'Sentimental Journeys' through France, or Italy, or
by forest or mountain, picturesque hamlet, or romantic stream. The
purlieus of great cities amongst the poverty-stricken members of
what it is usual to call the 'lower middle-classes,' will furnish
multitudinous subjects for pensive thought, and--what were a whole
world better--for practical benevolence. 'Tis too late, alas! to do
aught for this dead Violinist, but were eyes and pen more sedulously
and sympathetically employed about real, if sordid-seeming, in place
of imaginary, if picturesque, woes, why verily, EUGENIUS, something
more, perchance, might be done in such pitiful cases as that I
have described to thee in non-journalistic language, than what was
formally done by the Coroner's Jury, who--as they were bound to