254 A HISTORY OF 



kind of satisfaction. Dogs are well known to be very sensible of dif- 

 ferent tones in music; and I have sometimes heard them sustain a very 

 ridiculous part in a concert, where their assistance was neither ex 

 pected nor desired. 



" We are told of Henry IV. of Denmark,* that being one day de- 

 sirous of trying in person whether a musician, who boasted that he 

 could excite men to madness, was not an impostor, he submitted to 

 the operation of his skill : but the consequence was much more terri- 

 ble than he expected ; for, becoming actually mad, he killed four of 

 his attendants in the midst of his transports. A contrary effect of 

 music we havet in the cure of a madman of Alais, in France, by 

 music. This man, who was a dancing master, after a fever of five 

 days, grew furious, and so ungovernable that his hands were obliged 

 to be tied to his. sides : what at first was rage, in a short time was 

 converted into silent melancholy, which no arts could exhilirate, nor no 

 medicine remove. In this sullen and dejected state, an old acquaint- 

 ance accidentally came to inquire after his health ; he found him sit- 

 ting up in bed, tied, and totally regardless of every external object 

 round him. Happening, however, to take up a fiddle that lay in the 

 room, and touching a favourite air, the poor madman instantly seemed 

 to brighten up at the sound ; from a recumbent posture, he began to 

 sit up ; and, as the musician continued playing, the patient seemed 

 desirous of dancing to the sound ; but he was tied, and incapable of 

 leaving his bed, so that he could only humour the tune with his head, 

 and those parts of his arms which were at liberty. Thus the other 

 continued playing, and the dancing-master practised his own art, as 

 far as he was able, for about a quarter of an hour, when suddenly 

 falling into a deep sleep, in which his disorder came to a crisis, he 

 awaked perfectly recovered. 



" A thousand other instances might be added, equally true : let it 

 suffice to add one more, which is not true ; I mean that of the taran- 

 tula. Every person who has been in Italy now well knows that the 

 bite of this animal, and its being cured by music, is all a deception. 

 When strangers come into that part of the country, the country peo- 

 ple are ready enough to take money for dancing to the tarantula. A 

 friend of mine had a servant who suffered himself to be bit ; the 

 wound, which was little larger than the puncture of a pin, was uneasy 

 for a few hours, and then became well without any farther assistance. 

 Some of the country people, however, still make a tolerable liveli- 

 hood of the credulity of strangers, as the musician finds his account 

 in it no less than the dancer." 



Sounds, like light, are not only extensively diffused, but are fre- 

 quently reflected. The laws of this reflection, it is true, are not as 

 well understood as those of light ; all we know is, that sound is 

 principally reflected by hard bodies ; and their being hollow, also, 

 sometimes increases the reverberation. " No art, however, can make 

 an echo ; and some who have bestowed great labour and expense upon 

 such a project, have only erected shapeless buildings, whose silence 

 vas a mortifying lecture upon their presumption." 



* OUi Magni, I 15. hist c. 28 f Hist, de 1'Acad. 1708. p. 21 



