" Alpha" on Amateur Conceit.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3594, 3 July 1880, Page 2

" Alpha" on Amateur Conceit.

This is one of the undesirable attributes of the amateurs' character. It is not to be considered iv the same light as honest pride, but it is a blind egotism which gains tenacious hold on all amateurs. The more ignorant of the subject, the more the self-consciousness of knowing a!i about it, and it is sometimes amusiug to listen to a person dilating ou a subject

fully understood by yourself, but about which ho is profoundly ignorant. It is the men who know nothing, who are the greatest braggarts—as they have nothing to recommend themselves to anyone, and they are obliged to make you believe they are learned in order to secure your tolerance. The learned man does not need to brag, as his knowledge needs no pushing, and will of itself come to the front. Amateur musicians are not exempt from this conceit. There is one living next door to a friend of mine, who, with a bevy of girls, tries to make believe he can play on a " box of whustles." These folk sing Sankey and Moody from morning tiil night, as though they were first cousins to those admirable humbugs. Their conceit knows no bounds, and they fully believe they are musicians. Never will they be "in « creation ot'Tom cats!" As an example of their ignorance of music —their musical notions being confined to Moody and the other individual—l woold mention the following :—A gentleman not lou«; since was playing selections from the V Messiah," "St. Paul," " Lauda Sion," " Elijah," '^Israel in Egypt," and other sacred oratorios on a Sunday afternoon. The musicians who were listening were much exercised thereat, and remarked on the irreligious people living in his house, " who never played any sacred music on Sunday." The gentleman who related this anecdote, said, " No, thank Heaven my stock of musical know- j ledge is not confined to the ever to be praised editions , of Sankeymodious hymns." With amateur poets the effect is also the same. A young person forwarded some poetry to the Star, which I was permitted to see, and which I have no hesitation in saying was only fit to be read by the class of people whence it emanated. Poetry! save the mark ! you could, scarcely call it rhyme, and as to metre, it had not a vestige of it. Of coarse, like all such communications of doubtful merit,' it was refused, and the would-be poet was agrieved thereat, and wrote saying that "it was not to the editor's taste," which was intended to mean, I presume, that the editor had no taste at all for poesie. If this was sarcasm, the writer might have made his meaning more apparent. He might have written like Artemus •' of "ours," "This is sarcasm," after the line. From the tenour of his letter it was evident that self • conceit formed a large component in his character. It never seemed to strike him that the poetry might be absurd worthless, unrythmical, bat he evidently considered that the taste for poetry enjoyed by the editor of the Star was very depraved, and that he had sunken so low as to prefer " The Princess," "Gareth and Lynette," " The Lady of Shallot" to the poetic rhapsodies of the Parawai poet. In conclusion, I would remind him of the words of a certain Latin poet—

" Poeta naecitur non fit."

Alpha. "