2o6 Dr. burney’s Account, 8 zc. 
It has likewife been imagined by fome, that every child 
might be taught muilc in the cradle, if the experiment 
were made; but to thele it may with truth be faid, that 
fuch an experiment is daily made on every child, by every 
mother and nurfe, that is able to form a tune, on every 
part of the globe. In Italy the ninne nonne , or lullabies, 
are fragments of elegant melodies, become common and 
popular by frequent hearing; and thele, though they help 
to form the national tafte, are not found to flimulate the 
attention of Italian children to melody, or to accelerate 
the difplay of mufical talents at a more early period than 
elfewhere. 
Premature powers in mufic have as often furprized by 
fuddenly becoming ftationary as by advancing rapidly to 
the fummit of excellence. Sometimes, perhaps, nature 
is exhaufted or enfeebled by thefe early efforts; but 
when that is not the cafe, the energy and vigour of her 
operations are feldom properly feconded, being either 
impeded and checked by early felf-complacence, or an 
injudicious courfe of lludy; and fometimes, perhaps, 
genius is kept from expanlion by ill-cliofen models ; ex- 
clufive admiration, want of counfel, or accefs to the moft 
excellent compolitions and performers in the clafs for 
which nature has fitted thofe on whom it is bellowed. 
