THE ENGLISH PAGANINI.
NOTWITHSTANDING our admiration for PAGANINI'S unrivalled power of finger and of bow, we have always entertained consider- able doubts whether his example were likely to improve the violin school of this or any other country—whether the unheard-of tide of popularity and of profit, on which he is riding, would not induce our performers to imitate those mere exhibitions of manual dex- terity which the crowd are most apt to admire and reward, to the neglect of the more noble uses of the instrument. BUTLER said, very truly, that
" Doubtless the pleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat : As lookers on feel most delight That least perceive a juggler's sleight, And still the less they understand The more th' admire his sleight of hand."
And it was to be anticipated, that, of the number of individuals in this country who have made it their study to play tricks on the violin, some would avail themselves of the love of being cheated, which the people of London possess in a most extraordinary de- gree, and exhibit them while the appetite for this kind of display is keen. Mr. COLLINS is a person of this kind ; possessing a good deal of fair execution on the instrument, mixed with a cer- tain vulgarity of manner, but eminently skilled in all the tricks of which the instrument is capable. Being now exalted from SAD- LER'S Wells to the English Opera, he is a more mentionable person than heretofore ; and, judging from the addition to the audience since his appearance, we should expect that Mr. ARNOLD will find him the most profitable performer of the season. He performs, 1st, a concerto, in which he executes the slow movement (a Scotch air) in harmonics partly above and partly below the fingers. 2nd, He adopts the well-known expedient of slackening the hairs of his bow sufficiently to enable them, by passing the stick under the violin, to embrace the four strings at once, and thus to execute PLEVEL'S German Hymn, with easy variations, in four parts. 3rd, He performs an air on one string with variations ; at the close of which, as the climax of fiddling dexterity, he fixes the bow between his knees, and plays a variation by the motion against it of the violin.
Now, without knowing any thing of Mr. COLLINS, we are bound to say, that to common hearers, his performances are calculated to produce the same kind of pleasure, in an equal degree, with those of PAGANINI himself. It is not difficult to estimate the value of the applause which the mull itude bestows upon it, being usually most loudly given where least deserved. The strange, the novel, the marvellous, are sure to be followed by thunders of applause from the many, while the really great features of PAGANINI's playing are comprehensible only by the few. It may serve as a wholesome check to our best violinists, should they feel any dispo- sition to follow his eccentric track, that a player wholly unknown should start up as an imitator, and, to a certain degree, a success- ful imitator, of PAGANINI. We trust that to such performers as Mr. COLLINS, all the excellence which begins and ends with mere sleight-of-hand will be consigned ; and that our best players will remember, that if the end of solo-playing on the violin be merely to astonish, the person at Astley's who fiddles behind his back while standing erect on two horses going at full speed, must be re- garded as having attained the highest degree of excellence as a performer.
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