m. He is described
as being one of those itinerant musicians--perhaps the last of
them--who in winter evenings went to taverns, and for a slender
subsistence bore the insults of those disinclined to listen to their
performance. This order of itinerant musicians may be described as
having descended from the Fiddling minstrels, whom the wealthy in
earlier times often retained in their houses, giving them coats and
badges bearing the family arms. These musicians, in place of amusing
the nobility, ultimately attended wakes and fairs. They were sometimes
retained at the large inns, where the guest while eating, an old
English writer says, was "offered music, which he may freely take or
refuse, and if he be solitary the musicians will give him the good
day, with music in the morning." In Puritan times this class of
musician was thought to have so much increased as to need a special
act for their suppression, which gave rise to Butler's creation, the
"Champion Crowdero." Returning to our subject with Thomas Eccles, we
have the following interesting account of the unfortunate Violinist,
by a musician: "It was about the month of November, 1753, that I, with
some friends, were met to spend the evening at a tavern in the City,
when this man, in a mean but decent garb, was introduced to us by the
waiter; immediately upon opening the door I heard the twang of one of
his strings from under his coat, which was accompanied by the
question, 'Gentlemen, will you please to hear my music?' Our
curiosity, and the modesty of the man's deportment, inclined us to say
yes, and music he gave us, such as I had never heard before, nor shall
again under the same circumstances. With as fine and delicate a hand
as I ever heard, he played the whole fifth and ninth solos of Corelli,
and two songs of Mr. Handel; in short, his performance was such as
would command the attention of the nicest ear, and left us his
auditors much at a loss to guess what it was that constrained him to
seek his living in a way so disreputable. He made no secret of his
name; he said he was the youngest of three brothers, and that Henry,
the middle one, had been his master, and was then in the service of
the King of France. He lodged in the Butcher Row, near Temple Bar, and
was well known to the musicians of his time, who thought themselves
disgraced by this practice of his, for which they have a term of
reproach not very intelligible; they call it _going a-busking_."[4]

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