AMMALS. 36 1 



ments of music ; and, what is remarkable, nie proportion between 

 their notes is in all the same as in ours. This is not the place 

 for entering into the nature of these sounds, their effects upon 

 the air, or their consonances with each other. We are not now 

 giving a history of sound, but of human perception. 



" All countries are pleased with music; and if they have not 

 skill enough to produce harmony, at least they seem willing to 

 substitute noise. Without all question, noise alone is sufficient 

 to operate powerfully on the spirits ; and, if the mind be already 

 p redisposed to joy, I have seldom found noise fail of increasing 

 it into rapture. The mind feels a kind of distracted pleasure in 

 such powerful sounds, braces up every nerve, and riots in the 

 excess. But, as in the eye, an immediate gaze upon the sun 

 will disturb the organs, so, in the ear, a loud unexpected noise 

 disorders the whole frame, and sometimes disturbs the sense 

 ever after. The mind must have time to prepare for the ex- 

 pected shock, and to give its organs the proper tension for its 

 arrival. 



" Musical sounds, however, seem of a different kind. Those 

 are generally most pleasing which are most unexpected. It is 

 not from bracing up the nerves, but from the grateful succession 

 of the sounds, that these become so charming. There are few, 

 how indifferent soever, but have at times felt their pleasing im- 

 pression ; and, perhaps, even those who have stood out against 

 the powerful persuasion of sounds, only wanted the proper tune, 

 or the proper instrument, to allure them. 



" The ancients give us a thousand strange instances of the ef- 

 fects of music, upon men and animals. The story of Arion's 

 harp, that gathered the dolphins to the ship side, is well known ; 

 and what is remarkable, Schotteus assures us, ' that he saw a 

 similar instance of fishes being allured by music. They tell us 

 of diseases that have been cured, unchastity corrected, seditions 

 quelled, passions removed, and sometimes excited even to mad- 

 ness. Dr Wallis has endeavoured to account for these surpris- 

 ing effects, by ascribing them to the novelty of the art. For my 

 own part, I can scarcely hesitate to impute them to the exag- 

 geration of the writers. They ai-e as hyperbolical in the effects 

 of their oratory ; and yet, we well know, there is nothing in the 



i Quod oculis meis spectavi. Scliotti Magic, universalis, pars. ii. lib. 1, p. 26, 



2h 



