3-034-851 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Going to the Dance, drawn by F. Barnard, 1871. '...musicians tramping through the snow on their road to the hall of social gaiety. There go the harmonious bandsmen - the harp, the clarionet, the flute, the horns, the violoncello, and the fiddles - on their toilsome march to the place appointed. Their breath will be scant, their fingers benumbed, they will need cordial refreshment, a good warm fire, a good hot meat supper, a good hot glass of grog, before they can sound a note. It is not to be doubted that all these good things will be ready for the chilled and fatigued wayfaring minstrels when they arrive. Their bodies in every limb shall feel a glow of returning vigour, which shall pass from the tips of their fingers to the sonorous vibration of the tuneful strings, or blow its mighty inspiration from the expanded lungs through artificial throats of brass, and over the quivering tongue of the hautboy or clarionet. "See the players well bestowed," is an injunction to be minded in this case surely as much as in that of Hamlet's company of strolling actors'. From the Christmas supplement to "Illustrated London News", 1871.