MUSICAL IMPRESSIONS OF THE SAVAGE. 
65 
days among grassy meads and sunny plains, where 
the sweet song of birds and the beautiful livery of 
fruitful fields, had impressed his heart with gentler 
melodies, and his eye with more subdued objects of 
delight. Our notions of external things are as various 
as the expression of our features. Different impres- 
sions are made by the same objects upon different 
minds according as those minds have been predisposed 
by certain local associations or social influences, repug- 
nant to the notions suggested by the peculiar bias of 
education, that places before our mental organs the 
mirror through which all objects are both morally and 
spiritually discerned. The swarthy African is said 
to paint the devil white, and to his ear that may be 
delightful harmony which to ours is horrid discord. 
The savage 
Whose rough, untutor’d mind 
Sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind, 
may perhaps discover as fine melody in those rude 
tones which shock our more refined perceptions, as we 
do in the ravishing strains of Haydn or Mozart. Our 
fastidious tastes have been taught to reject every- 
thing musical that has not been consecrated by the 
lofty creations of genius, or at least been submitted to 
the intricate rules of science ,* so that we may fail to 
discover in the rude strains of the mere musician of 
nature in savage life, agreeable unions of sound, 
which are evident to less sensitive ears. 
It will then be manifest, if there be any truth in 
the premises I have advanced, that music may really 
exist where we do not perceive it, only because our 
habits have been familiarised, and our emotions wont 
G 3 
