the staples, the bellows, the cog-wheels, are
packed together very snugly, each doing its
own work at the proper time without
interfering with its neighbours.

At our elbow, at this present moment, is
an olive-coloured acquaintance, with a hat of
indescribable colour and impossible shape; he
comes at a particular hour, on a particular
day of every week, and plays the same tunes
in the same order; he alternates from the
Hundredth Psalm to Gettin' up Stairs; and
then goes to one of Balfe's Ballads, followed
by a Waltz of König's, the Marseillaise
Hymn, a Polka, and so back to the Hundredth
Psalm. We know another organ, in which
the Swiss Boy plays at bo-peep with the
Lass o' Gowrie, and a number of other
companions. In all such cases we shall see the
grinding organist, at the termination of each
tune, busy himself with a little bit of
mechanism at the side or end of the instrument;
he is touching a stud or lever, which brings
about a slight movement of the barrel, shifting
it to such a distance that a different set of pins
and staples may act upon the pipes.

Make room here for a cavalcade! Onward
comes a little horse; behind the horse is a
little carriage; upon the carriage is a big
organ; and in immediate command over these
are three Italians. The horse stops; a man
mounts upon a stage, and turns a winch, not
much smaller than that of a mangle; and
there comes forth a volume of sound that can
be heard half-a-mile off. Another man holds
out a little saucer for a little money; and
the third man looks about with his hands in
his pockets. How they all live—the three
men and the horse—out of the pence which
they pick up, is a perfect marvel. The
instrument has been brought from Pavia or
Milan or Mantua, and has cost fully a hundred
guineas. It is quite orchestral in its effects,
imitating with tolerable success the tones of
many musical instruments. The truth is,
these are pipes of many different shapes,
analogous to the various stops of a church
organ: each shape (independent of size)
giving the tones peculiar to some particular
instrument. The barrel arrangements, for
bringing into action so many pipes, are very
intricate, and require careful workmanship to
guard against frequent mishaps. These are
the instruments which an honourable member
of a certain august body has visited with
crushing severity. Yet we cannot conceal a
kindness for them. We have pleasant
reminiscenses of Nume Benefico, La Mia Delizia,
the last movement in the Overture to William
(we beg pardon—Guglielmo) Tell, and the
March in Le Prophète—as played in some of
these ponderous organs. The harmonies are
bold and rich; although in mere mechanical
music there is, of course, no scope for feeling
or passion.

If ever music by the barrel were really
graced, it was in the days when the
Apollonicon rolled forth its vast body of sound.
This enormous instrument employed Messrs.
Flight and Robson five years in its
construction; and cost ten thousand pounds. It
was an organ with a whole orchestra in its
inside; played either by keys or by a revolving
barrel. But there was provision for a grander
display than this; there were five distinct
keyboards, at which five performers could be
seated, each having command over certain
particular stops or powers in the instrument.
It is, however, on the ground of its automatic
or self-acting power, that the Apollonicon
takes up a position as the big brother of the
street organ. So vast was the number of
pipes, that one barrel could not contain all
the pins necessary for working them; there
were three, somewhat under a yard in length
each, studded in a very complex manner.
Mechanism worked the bellows and rotated
the barrels, and the barrels drew out the
stops and opened the pipes. There were forty-five
stops and nineteen hundred pipes; one
pipe was twenty-four feet in length by two
feet in diameter. So long and elaborate
were the pieces of music which this instrument
played automatically, that the barrels
could only accommodate (so to speak) two at
one time; but at intervals of a few years new
barrels with new tunes were introduced, until
the collection comprised Mozart's overtures
to Figaro, to the Zauberflöte, and to La
Clemenza di Tito, Cherubini's overture to
Anacreon, Weber's overture to Der Freischütz,
Handel's introduction to the Dettingen Te
Deum, and Haydn's military movement from
his Twelfth Symphony. Not a note of the
scores was omitted; and all the fortes and
pianos, the crescendos and diminuendos, were
given with precision and delicacy.

The Apollonicon is still in existence; but
has arrived at the position of a superannuated
veteran, no longer fitted for the deeds
which won for it its former glory. The
maladies of age have come upon it. It suffers
from rheumatism in its keys and levers, and
from asthma in its pipes and bellows; it is
shaky and nervous; it is not its former self;
and its guardians wisely deem it better that
its voice shall not be heard at all, than that
its decadence from former splendour should
be made manifest. Requiescat in pace!

Music by the barrel, then, has been sold or
given in many different forms, by many different
persons, in many different places, and
under many different circumstances. But
who sells music by the yard?

In the Great Exhibition the reader may
perchance remember a dusky-looking instrument,
something in shape between a
cabinet-pianoforte and a small church-organ. The
exhibitor was wont to take a sheet of
perforated card-board, insert one end of it
between two rollers, and then turn a handle;
a tune resulted, somewhat lugubrious, it is
true, but still a tune, and evidently produced
with the aid of this perforated card-board.
The instrument is called the Autophon—not