Swinburne Hears “Three Blind Mice”

British poet, playwright and critic Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

“For science he had no taste whatever, and his lack of musical ear was a byword among his acquaintances. I once witnessed a practical joke played upon him, which made me indignant at the time, but which now seems innocent enough, and not without interest. A lady, having taken the rest of the company into her confidence, told Swinburne that she would render on the piano a very ancient Florentine ritornello which had just been discovered. She then played ‘Three Blind Mice’, and Swinburne was enchanted. He found that it reflected to perfection the cruel beauty of the Medicis—which perhaps it does.”

—Edmund Gosse, Portraits and Sketches, 1912