MUSIC. 305 



tree, or in some crevice, when, standing over it, he 

 perforates the stubborn shell. We have often placed 

 nuts in the chink of a gate-post, where nut-hatches 

 have been known to haunt, and have always found 

 that those birds have readily penetrated them. While 

 at work, they make a rapping noise that may be heard 

 at a considerable distance. 



You that understand both the theory and practical 

 part of music, may best inform us why harmony or 

 melody should so strangely affect some men, as it 

 were, by recollection, for days after a concert is over. 

 What I mean, the following passage will most readily 

 explain : 



" Prsehabebat porro vocibus humanis, instrumen- 

 tisque harmonicis, musicam illam avium : non quod 

 alia quoque non delectaretur ; sed quod ex musica 

 humana relinqueretur in animo continens qusedam, 

 attentionemque et somnum conturbans agitatio : dum 

 ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac mutationes illse so- 

 norum et consonantiarum, euntque, redeuntque per 

 phantasiam : cum nihil tale relinqui possit ex modu- 

 lationibus avium, quse, quod non sunt perinde a nobis 

 imitabiles, non possunt perinde internam facultatem 

 commovere." GASSENDUS, in Vitd Peireskii. " He 

 preferred, also, the music of birds to vocal and in- 

 strumental harmony ; not that he did not take plea- 

 sure in any other, but because there was left in the 

 mind some constant agitation, disturbing the sleep 

 and the attention, whilst the several variations of 

 sound and concord go and return through the imagina- 

 tion, when no such effect can be produced by the mo- 

 dulation of birds, because, as they are not equally 

 imitable by us, they cannot equally excite the internal 

 faculty." 



This curious quotation strikes me much by so well 

 representing my own case, and by describing what I 



