Mr. Pierpont was no judge of painting, though he relished a good picture, and had no taste for drawing, or rather no talent for drawing, though he saw readily enough certain errors of exaggeration that abounded in the engravings of the day; and I well remember his calling my attention to the preposterously small feet of the female figures for which Messrs. Draper and Company, the bank-note engravers of that day, were so famous; and yet his handwriting was very beautiful, and the ciphers I have mentioned were neither more nor less than exquisite drawings.  Nor had he any ear for music, to borrow the language we hear at every turn,—­as if all persons who are not deaf by nature had not ears for music, so far as they can hear at all,—­or as if he who can distinguish voices, or learn a language, so far as to be understood when he talks it, had not necessarily an ear for music, in other words, an ear for sounds and for the rhythm of speech; but he was deficient in the organ of tune, phrenologically speaking, though I have heard him warble a Scotch air on the flute with uncommon sweetness—­and feebleness—­without tonguing, and play two or three other tunes, which had been adapted in the choir of his church, upon glass goblets, partly filled with water and set upon a table before him, as if he enjoyed every touch and thrill,—­his long, thin fingers travelling over the damp edges of the glass, and bringing forth “Bonnie Doon,” or “There’s nothing true but Heaven,”—­with his cuffs rolled up as if he were driving a lathe, and turning off some of the little thin boxes and other exquisite toys, in wood or ivory, which he was addicted to, about fifteen years ago, in what he called his workshop.  Like Johnson, however, and Alexander Pope, who, according to Leigh Hunt,

                “Spoiled the ears of the town
    With his cuckoo-song verses, two up and two down,”

he must have had “time” large; for the music of his rhythm was absolutely faultless,—­cloying indeed, so that he introduced the double rhymes to roughen it, just as he indulged in alliteration, where the “lordly lion leaves his lonely lair,” that he might not be supposed incapable of running off upon another track, or into another channel.

But I never heard him sing or try to sing, though he had a deep, manly voice, read as very few are able to read, and his modulation was rich and varied, and very agreeable, both to the understanding and the ear.

His pronunciation was a marvel for correctness.  In all our intercourse I never knew him to give a word otherwise than “according to Walker,” so long as Walker was the standard with him,—­or never but once, when he said cli-mac’ter-ic, instead of cli-mac-ter’ic; and when I remonstrated with him, he lugged out Webster, whom he adhered to forever after.  So exceedingly fastidious and sensitive was he, about the time he left Baltimore for Cambridge, that in his desire to give the pure sound of e, as in met, instead of the sound of u, which is so common as to be almost universal where e is followed by r and another consonant, so that person is pronounced purson, he gave a sound which most people misunderstood for pairson, and went away and laughed at, for pedantry and affectation.