122 NATURAL HISTORY. 



232. Sound is likewise meliorated by the mingling 

 of open air with pent air ; therefore trial may be 

 made of a lute or viol with a double belly, making 

 another belly with a knot over the strings ; yet so, 

 as there be room enough for the strings, and room 

 enough to play below that belly. Trial may be 

 made also of an Irish harp, with a concave on both 

 sides, whereas it useth to have it but on one side. The 

 doubt may be, lest it should make too much resound 

 ing, whereby one note would overtake another. 



233. If you sing into the hole of a drum, it maketh 

 the singing more sweet. And so I conceive it would, 

 if it were a song in parts sung into several drums ; 

 and for handsomeness and strangeness sake, it would 

 not be amiss to have a curtain between the place 

 where the drums are and the hearers. 



234. When a sound is created in a wind-instru 

 ment between the breath and the air, yet if the 

 sound be communicated with a more equal body of 

 the pipe, it meliorateth the sound. For, no doubt, 

 there would be a differing sound in a trumpet or 

 pipe of wood : and again in a trumpet or pipe of 

 brass. It were good to try recorders and hunters 

 horns of brass, what the sound would be. 



235. Sounds are meliorated by the intension of 

 the sense, where the common sense is collected most 

 to the particular sense of hearing, and the sight sus 

 pended : and therefore sounds are sweeter, as well 

 as greater, in the night than in the day ; and I 

 suppose they are sweeter to blind men than to 

 others : and it is manifest, that between sleeping 



