BIM) MUSICIANS AND MECHANICS.
Our readers may remember that, on the first day of the year 1859, we drew their attention to an admirable Institution for enabling blind work- men and women to help themselves. We then gave a short account of the way in which it sprang up under the fostering care of its foundrees, and an appeal was made to the British public for that sympathetic as- sistance to the unfortunate which is always so readily afforded when the ease is one of undoubted importance and worth. This appeal and others, made subsequently by other newspapers, have been made to some purpose if we may judge from the results we witnessed on Wednesday last, at the Repository of the Institution, properly styled, "The Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind." Some of these results, namely, the enlarged premises, and the increased number of poor blind people employed with the articles manufactured, may be seen by our readers for themselves, if they will go to the Repository, No. 127, Euston Road, near St. Pancras Church. But we regret that they cannot witness one result which we saw and heard on Wednesday hat—the Blind Musicians who gave a quasi private Concert in a room of the house. How unlike the gilded saloons of Ring Street or Hanover Square was that low celled and shapeless room ! But some of the performances would have called forth the low murmur of applauding voices in those haunts of fashionable and fastidious concert lovers. The style in which a blind pianiat, (Mr. James Lea Summers,) played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, was such as to satisfy the most enthusiastic admirer of that coil of linked sweetness. There was no blindness in the execution— the hands, did not feel but saw their way to the notes—the creeping over the keyboards Was done with a grace and careless decision which Halle
that marked and Clauss would have appreciated, and few but they can excel. The absorption of the player in his own performance was a thing it as uncommon. He played as if unconscious that any one heard but
himself, which gave a secret charm to the listener, The enjoyment of all the vocal and instrumental performers, was a thing so evident that it in- creased that of the sympathizing and compassionate audience. "Where art thou, beam of light ?" was most accurately and effectively given, and indeed everything attempted was achieved with more or less success. We shall only be too glad to assist at another such little concert of Blind performers.
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