A
musician of his standing is accustomed to receive thirty and forty
dollars from great people for so beautiful and honorable a song."
This was somewhat startling. I began to reflect upon the price of a box
at Her Majesty's Theatre in London; but there I was not the hero of the
opera. This minstrel combined the whole affair in a most simple manner.
He was Verdi, Costa, and orchestra all in one. He was a thorough
Macaulay as historian, therefore I had to pay the composer as well as
the fiddler. I compromised the matter, and gave him a few dollars, as I
understood that he was Mek Nimmur's private minstrel; but I never parted
with my dear Maria Theresa (* The Austrian dollar, that is the only
large current coin in that country.) with so much regret as upon that
occasion, and I begged him not to incommode himself by paying us another
visit, or, should he be obliged to do so, I trusted he would not think
it necessary to bring his violin.
The minstrel retired in the same order that he had arrived, and I
watched his retreating figure with unpleasant reflections, that were
suggested by doubts as to whether I had paid him too little or too much.
Taher Noor thought that he was underpaid; my own opinion was that I had
brought a curse upon myself equal to a succession of London
organ-grinders, as I fully expected that other minstrels, upon hearing
of the Austrian dollars, would pay us a visit and sing of my great
deeds.
