[A]n event very material to myself had taken place [c. 1805], in my being taken by my Parents to the triennial musical festival at Hereford: the first occasion of my becoming acquainted with any performance of music beyond a single song, or a wandering band or barrel-organ: which explains perhaps the tender feeling I retain towards the latter - out of gratitude for the rare pleasure they gave me, when at Clifton they were accidentally called upon to stop before the windows: I never could comprehend the customary fury expressed against them, as 'disturbers of the peace of the neighbourhood' - when I felt, without finding words to express, that they thrilled through the emptiness of the common atmosphere, with a memento of thought or of passion, of absent & distant joy or woe. The Oratorio of Sampson, on the first evening [at Hereford], & the Messiah on the last morning, are fixed in grateful remembrance. - Mrs. Billington was the Soprano singer, & Harrison & Bartleman were the Tenor & Bass: & did I but possess the musical power, coveted in vain all my life, I could now pour forth from the treasure of song then laid in faithful memory, the strains of the first named, in 'Let the bright Seraphim,' & in 'I know that my Redeemer liveth': & the deep and mellow tones of Bartleman in the Bass songs of the Messiah seem to be still reproduced when I think of them. << less