PETTICHAPS. 259 



LETTER CI. 



TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden, 

 which f have great reason to think is the pettichaps it is 

 common in some parts of the kingdom ; and I have received 

 formerly several dead specimens from Gibraltar. This bird 

 much resembles the white-throat, but has a more white, or 

 rather silvery, breast and belly; is restless and active, like the 

 willow-wrens, and hops from bough to bough, examining every 

 part for food ; it also runs up the stems of the crown-imperials, 

 and, putting its head into the bells of those flowers, sips the 

 liquor which stands in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes 

 it feeds on the ground like the hedge-sparrow, by hopping 

 about on the grass-plots and mown walks. 



One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man, 

 informs me, that, in the beginning of May, and about ten 

 minutes before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a 

 great cluster of house-swallows, thirty at least, he supposes, 

 perching on a willow that hung over the verge of James 



the grand operas, at which I was present, during several carnivals, and 

 compare them with those which I now experience, on returning from the 

 performance of a piece I have not witnessed for some time, I am fully 

 convinced that nothing acts so powerfully on my mind as all species of 

 music, and particularly the sound of female voices, and of contralto. 

 Nothing excites more various or terrific sensations in my mind. Thus 

 the plots of the greatest number of my tragedies were either formed while 

 listening to music, or a few hours afterwards." In a subsequent passage 

 lie remarks, "My greatest pleasure consisted in attending the opera 

 buffa, though the gay and lively music left a deep and melancholy impres- 

 sion on my mind. A thousand gloomy and mournful ideas assailed^my 

 imagination, in which I delighted to indulge by wandering alone on the 

 shores of the Chiaja Portici. " 



Associations of ideas, awakened by music, have also a powerful effect 

 upon the sensitive mind. The following quotation from the London 

 Magazine strikingly illustrates this fact : "I knew, at Paris, the widow 

 of an Irish patriot, who could not hear the * Exile of Erin' sung without 

 being overpowered to such a degree, that it would have been truly alarming, 

 liad not a flood of tears come to her relief. What is wonderful, so far from 

 having a fine musical ear, she had not even a common-place relish for music. 

 The same effect was produced on her by the ' Minstrel Boy ' of Moore. A 

 young friend of the writer, who has no taste for music, is similarly 

 overpowered, even in a crowded theatre, when * Home, sweet Home, is 

 sung." ED. 



