MUSICAL TRAVELS
THROUGH
ENGLAND.

BY

JOEL COLLIER, Organist.

Nam, adhuc per domum, aut hortos cecinerat; quos utparùm celebres, et tantæ voci angustos, spernebat.Non tamen Romæ incipere ausus.

T A C.

LONDON:

Printed for G. KEARSLY, in Fleet-street.
M. DCC. LXXIV.

(Price One Shilling.)

GOVERNORS of the HOSPITALfor the Maintenance and Education ofexposed and deserted young Children.

GENTLEMEN,

While I was extracting the followingsheets from my voluminous Journal, and connectingthem together as accurately as I wasable, in order to present the Public with aSpecimen of my laborious investigation of thepresent state of Music in this my nativecountry, I was somewhat at a loss to whomI could with most propriety inscribe my work.Whether to Doctor Burney, as the originalinventor of this species of composition,and the first musical traveller of our nation,to whom I stand so much indebted for theplan, and conduct of my book, and of whomI might truly say in his own words, “thativhe has long been my magnus Apollo:”—orwhether I was in duty bound to pay homageto the King of Prussia, as the greatest Dilettanteperformer of the age; who, I suppose,at this present writing, like anotherNero, is playing his new Solfeggi to thedying groans of the obstinate Dantziggers;—orwhether I ought not to call forth fromhis obscurity that venerable Judge, whocontented with less ambitious pleasures, cultivatesthe fine arts by humbler and modester,but not less curious experiments, and amusesthe leisure hours of a long vacation in caponizingblackbirds[1]; or whether I shouldnot do well to express my gratitude, and thatof the nation, to the honourable Directorsof our Opera, for having at last condescendedto permit an Englishwoman to be calledSignora, and by virtue of that title to sharesome of the princely incomes which have beenhitherto lavished on Italians, and which, Idare say, those worthy Noblemen and Gentlemenwould as readily bestow upon EnglishMEN,if they would but consent to be properlyqualified. This dilemma, however,vwas at an end, as soon as I learnt, thatDr. Burney, and Signor Giardini, had,under your authority, just founded a schoolfor music (in imitation, I suppose, of theItalian Conservatorios) in the FoundlingHospital, where about an hundred ofsuch poor children, as have hitherto been placedout to trades and services, in which they hadno o