ANIMALS. 39 



which they have left us, capable of exciting mad- 

 ness, or of raising the mind to that ungovernable 

 degree of fury which they describe. As they 

 have exaggerated, therefore, in one instance, we 

 may naturally suppose that they have done the 

 same in the other ; and, indeed, from the few re- 

 mains we have of their music, collected by Mei- 

 bomius, one might be apt to suppose there was 

 nothing very powerful in what is lost. Nor does 

 any one of the ancient instruments, such as we 

 see them represented in statues, appear compara- 

 ble to our fiddle. 



" However this be, we have many odd ac- 

 counts, not only among them, but the moderns, 

 of the power of music ; and it must not be de- 

 nied but that, on some particular occasions, mu- 

 sical sounds may have a very powerful effect. I 

 have seen all the horses and cows hi a field, 

 where there were above a hundred, gather round 

 a person that was blowing a French horn, and 

 seeming to testify an awkward kind of satisfac- 

 tion. Dogs are well known to be very sensible 

 of different 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 desirous 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 



Olaii Magui, 1. 15. hist. c. 28. 



