"There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave,
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where mem'ry slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains."
Of its influence very many anecdotes, I should rather say, _facts_ are
recorded.
Naturalists assert that animals and birds are sensible to the charms of
music--take one or two instances:--
An officer was confined in the Bastile; he begged the governor to permit
him the use of his lute, to soften by the harmonies of his instrument,
the rigours of his prison. At the end of a few days, this modern
Orpheus, playing on his lute, was greatly astonished to see frisking out
of their holes, great numbers of _mice_, and descending from their woven
habitations crowds of _spiders_, who formed a circle about him, while he
continued breathing his soul-subduing instrument. He was petrified with
astonishment. Having ceased to play, the assembly who did not come to
see him, but to hear his instrument, immediately broke up. As he had a
great dislike to spiders, it was two days before he ventured again to
touch his instrument. At length, having overcome, for the novelty of his
company, his dislike of them, he recommenced his concert, when the
assembly was by far more numerous than at first; and in the course of
further time, he found himself surrounded by a hundred _musical
amateurs_. Having thus succeeded in attracting this company, he
treacherously contrived to get rid of them at his will. For this purpose
he begged the keeper to give him a cat, which he put in a cage, and let
loose at the very instant when the little hairy people were most
enchanted by the Orphean skill he displayed.