140 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
him. That the extravagance is only superficial, witness 
the repeated references of poets, who return again and 
again to these lovely legends because there is a truth 
beneath them which is universal:— 
“ Therefore the poet 
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods; 
Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage, 
But music for the time doth change his nature.” 
The universal poet saw the breadth of the myth, and 
added:— 
“ The man that hath no music in himself, 
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds; 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; 
And his affections dark as Erebus.” 
SnAKsrEUE. 
The spirit of the world was young when music was 
made the handmaid of religion; and it still affords a 
glimpse of that antiquity to know that deeds of heroism 
and valour were sanctified in song, and that music com¬ 
pleted the glory of the inauguration and the festival. 
Whether at the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isth¬ 
mian games, or at the victories of Romulus, 750 years 
before Christ, when the army, horse and foot, followed 
the chariot of the conqueror, hymning their gods in 
songs of their country; or whether at the marriage feast 
or the funeral prayer, the charm of music still predomi¬ 
nates,—interweaves itself with the fate and circum¬ 
stances of man, and creeps into his heart like a sunbird 
seeking for a home. It is this power which rouses a 
rude peasantry from the lethargy of serfdom to repossess 
