First Sentence

"Were you to inquire respectfully of the infallible critic (if such indeed there be!) for the source of the aphorism, "Music has charms to soothe a savage beast," he would probably "down" you contemptuously in the Johnsonian fashion by replying that you had "just enough of learning to misquote";-that the last word was notoriously "breast" and not "beast";-and that the line, as Macaulay's, and every Board School-boy besides must be abundantly aware, is to be found in Congreve's tragedy of The Mourning Bride."