In this classification essay, which originally appeared in issue number 153 of The Tatler (April 1, 1710), Joseph Addison compares people's conversational styles to musical instruments. Notice that Addison (writing as Isaac Bickerstaff) waits until the end of the essay to identify his own discursive habits.
The Musical Instruments of Conversation
by Joseph Addison
Bend with tremendous sounds your ears asunder,
With gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder.
[Alexander] Pope
I have heard of a very valuable picture, wherein all the painters of the age in which it was drawn are represented sitting together in a circle and joining in a concert of music. Each of them plays upon such a particular instrument as is the most suitable to his character, and expresses that style and manner of painting which is peculiar to him. The famous cupola-painter of those times, to show the grandeur and boldness of his figures, hath a horn in his mouth, which he seems to wind with great strength and force. On the contrary, an eminent artist, who wrought up his pictures with the greatest accuracy, and gave them all those delicate touches which are apt to please the nicest eye, is represented as tuning a theorbo. The same kind of humor runs through the whole piece.
I have often from this hint imagined to myself, that different talents in discourse might be shadowed out after the same manner by different kinds of music; and that the several conversable parts of mankind in this great city might be cast into proper characters and divisions, as they resemble several instruments that are in use among the masters of harmony. Of these, therefore, in their order, and first of the drum.
Your drums are the blusterers in conversation, that with a loud laugh, unnatural mirth, and a torrent for noise, domineer in public assemblies, overbear men of sense, stun their companions, and fill the place they are in with a rattling sound, that hath seldom any wit, humor, or good breeding in it. The drum, notwithstanding, by this boisterous vivacity, is very proper to impose upon the ignorant, and in conversation with ladies who are not of the finest taste often passes for a man of mirth and wit, and for wonderful pleasant company. I need not observe that the emptiness of the drum very much contributes to its noise.
The lute is a character directly opposite to the drum, that sounds very finely by itself or in a very small concert. Its notes are exquisitely sweet and very low, easily drowned in a multitude of instruments, and even lost among a few, unless you give a particular attention to it. A lute is seldom heard in a company of more than five, whereas a drum will show itself to advantage in an assembly of five hundred. The lutanists, therefore, are men of a fine genius, uncommon reflection, great affability, and esteemed chiefly by persons of a good taste, who are the only proper judges of so delightful and soft a melody.
The trumpet is an instrument that has in it no compass of music or variety of sound, but is notwithstanding very agreeable so long as it keeps within its pitch. It has not above four or five notes, which are, however, very pleasing, and capable of exquisite turns and modulations. The gentlemen who fall under this denomination are your men of the most fashionable education and refined breeding, who have learned a certain smoothness of discourse and sprightliness of air from the polite company they have kept, but at the same time have shallow parts, weak judgments, and a short reach of understanding. A play-house, a drawing-room, a ball, a visiting-day, or a ring at Hyde Park are the few notes they are masters of, which they touch upon in all conversations. The trumpet, however, is a necessary instrument about a court, and a proper enlivener of a concert, though of no great harmony by itself.
Violins are the lively, forward, importunate wits, that distinguish themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee, glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every concert. I cannot, however, but observe, that when a man is not disposed to hear music, there is not a more disagreeable sound in harmony than that of a violin.
There is another musical instrument, which is more frequent in this nation than in any other; I mean your bass-viol, which grumbles in the bottom of the concert, and with a surly masculine sound strengthens the harmony and tempers the sweetness of the several instruments that play along with it. The bass-viol is an instrument of a quite different nature to the trumpet, and may signify men of rough sense and unpolished parts, who do not love to hear themselves talk, but sometimes break out with an agreeable bluntness, unexpected wit, and surly pleasantries, to the no small diversion of their friends and companions. In short, I look upon every sensible, true-born Briton to be naturally a bass-viol.
As for your rural wits, who talk with great eloquence and alacrity of foxes, hounds, horses, quickset hedges, and six-bar gates, double ditches, and broken necks, I am in doubt whether I should give them a place in the conversable world. However, if they will content themselves with being raised to the dignity of hunting-horns, I shall desire for the future that they may be known by that name.
I must not here omit the bagpipe species, that will entertain you from morning to night with the repetition of a few notes which are played over and over, with the perpetual humming of a drone running underneath them. These are your dull, heavy, tedious, story-tellers, the load and burden of conversations, that set up for men of importance, by knowing secret history and giving an account of transactions, that whether they ever passed in the world or not doth not signify an halfpenny to its instruction or its welfare. Some have observed that the northern parts of this island are more particularly fruitful in bagpipes.
Concluded on page two
