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Very different from the lark's merry song, and yet characteristic of the surroundings, is the strange voice of the bell-bird of Brazil, whose voice sounds exactly like the ringing of a bell, and may be heard, at times, for miles. Every morning its loud call resounds over the vast plains, and even at midday, when all other animals sink, overcome by the day's heat, into silent stupor, its cry still continues its fanciful rhythm-a piercing note, then a minute's pause; another note and another cry, and then a third; after this follows an interval of six or eight minutes' silence, and then the three spasmodic cries are repeated.

The ancients added to the number of singing-birds the swan, although they ascribed to him the power of song only at the moment of death. There seems to be no foundation whatever to this statement, and yet, in popular language, the last effort of expiring genius continues to be called his swan's song. Buffon, it is true, said that, amid the trumpet-like blasts which wild swans utter when marshalling their hosts in the air, there may be discovered certain harmonious modulations; to the common ear, however, they are imperceptible.

The ancients seem to have had altogether different views from ours as to the sweetness of sounds. To them there was music in the song of the tree-cricket, and Anacreon dedicated to the insect, of which Tennyson says,

At eve a dry cicada sung,

one of his sweetest odes.

Oh, blessed tree-locust," he says, "thou who singest like a queen upon the high tops of trees, feeding on dew: the Muses love thee, and Phœbus Apollo, who gave thee thy melodious song." Homer also compares the insinuating eloquence of the old men of Troy to the rival songs of the cicadas. One of these remarkable songsters-if the shrill, grating sound produced by the friction of membranes near the abdomen really entitles them to such a name-was, according to an old legend, sent by the gods to decide a

contest between two renowned players and the cithern. One of the rivals had the misfortune that a string of his instrument broke while he played, whereupon the gods despatched a cicada, who took the place of the missing string, and sang its part so sweetly that the owner won the coveted prize. To our ear the noise of the tree-locust is any thing but sweet; in the south of Europe, as well as with us, the dry, harsh noise is associated with great heat and parching drought, and its monotonous repetition becomes easily irksome, if not intolerable. This genuine ventriloquist is often confounded by the ignorant with the true locust, which produces a similar noise, but for another purpose and by different means. All the springers, namely, when they wish to mate, call their females by a chirp produced by the friction of their hard, thickly-veined wing-covers. It is the green field-locust which natives of Africa often carefully raise in miniature cages, because their monotonous lovegong helps to lull these cannibals to sleep. The nomadic locust, on the contrary-the terror of all farmers and gardeners in Eastern lands-produces a much louder noise, by rubbing its hard leg against the horny wing-covers, very much as a violinist's bow passes over the strings of his instrument. A kind of tiny drum, with a thin skin stretched over it, serves to increase the odd sounds, which vary greatly as the owner tries to allure a youthful beauty or defies a dangerous rival. The Persian Yersin has reduced their chirping to notes, as Charles Butler, in his "Female Monarchy," writes down the humming of swarming bees, and states exactly how the young queen begs her mother to let her take a swarm from the old stock, and what the old lady replies.

Amphibia are by no means silent; even the hideous crocodile has its register of notes, from the cat-like cry of the young monster just slipping out of its egg, to the roar of the old man-eater. Even in Egypt, passers-by are occasionally taken in by their cries, which at times sound exactly like the whine of

young children. Most lizards utter notes either when taken up roughly, or, as Anquetil reports, in anticipation of earthquakes. Serpents generally can only hiss, although our own pet friend, the rattlesnake, has a musical instrument of its own, on which it gives fair warning before it strikes, and hence has earned the respect of the Indians, who call it a gentleman, because it never attacks by stealth. Frogs, it is well known, have not only their love-songs, unattractive as they appear to our ear, but perform regular concerts during the warm summer nights. They evidently derive great pleasure from their efforts, and try to outsing their rivals-a tendency which literally silences man and beast in tropical countries. Nor is it true that fish are mute; so far from it, quite a number of them utter more or less distinct sounds, mainly at the time of spawning, and both sexes seem to be equally favored in this respect. The umber-fish, so called because they pass through the water like faint shadows, congregate at certain seasons, and combine in producing what may be literally called unearthly noises, from which circumstance they are also sometimes called organ-fish.

Thus there are a thousand voices continually swelling the great anthems which Nature sings to its Creator by day and by night. For, even when we fancy that all is still and silent around us, in deepest solitude, in the darkest night, on the highest mountain-top, there are still sounds uttered which may not lie within the compass of all ears, but which become distinctly audible when our hearing is properly attuned. For, as there are sounds so low or so high that the human ear cannot perceive them, so we are apt to listen only to those sounds which we expect; and others, heard perhaps by a person standing near us, escape our attention.

Every region, moreover, has its own acoustic nature-large cities have an incessant roar, now low and deep, now loud and overwhelming, the "confusæ sonus urbis "-the result of the unceasing activity of hundred thousands of VOL. VI.-12

men, as the beehive resounds with the hum of busy laborers. The roar of London may be heard for miles and miles; and yet Paris noises are louder, because the city is largely built upon an elastic soil, which overhangs the catacombs, and serves, like a soundingboard, to increase the sound. The country, on the other hand, is filled with Nature's own voices, the singing of birds, the cries of animals, the purling of the brook, and the music of the wind in the branches of trees. In wilder regions, and especially in South America, more powerful voices claim the precedence, as Humboldt describes so graphically in his "Cosmos." He was encamping for the night under the open sky, in a sandy plain on the banks of the Apure, and in close neighborhood to a magnificent forest. The moon was shining brightly, and deep silence reigned all around, broken only now and then by the snorting of sweet-water dolphins. Towards midnight, however, the forest awoke of a sudden with such a medley of fierce cries and terrible noises, that sleep was out of question. It was a fearful concert of all the utterances with which animals may be endowed, from the hoarse gargling noise of the aheates to the flute-like mourning and wailing of little sapajou-monkeys; from the roar of the American tiger, the peccary, and the sloth, to the picrcing cries of countless parrots and other birds. At times the caguar's roar was heard high up in the top branches of trees, and then it was always accompanied by the screaming of monkeys as they tried to escape from the murderer's stealthy paw. The Indians ascribe this fearful noise to the effect which moonlight has on the beasts of the forest; but it rises to the highest pitch during a pouring rain, or when, amid heavy claps of thunder, lightning suddenly strikes and illumines the deep forest.

Noon, on the contrary, presents in the tropics a striking contrast, for then the intolerable heat of the sun drives all animals to seek the shade of the jungle and the forest, and even the birds

creep under the leaves and into small crevices to escape from the death-bearing rays. Their place is swiftly filled with lizards and salamanders of every hue and shape, who lie with panting, open mouth, motionless on the sand or on hot rocks, and seem to inhale the burning air with speechless delight. Yet, even then, the silence that seems to reign on earth is not absolute. Pan slumbers, but countless numbers of insects are still busy way down near the roots of grass and herbs. The attentive listener hears the incessant hum that still continues close to the ground; in every bush, under the bark of trees, in the sand and the moss, and even close below the surface of the ground, life is still busy and sounds are still uttered. Such is the voice in which Nature converses with man.

Man himself has at least two kinds of sounds, by which he can make his thoughts and feelings known to others: one he calls language, the other music. In fact, however, music is a language, like all others, which makes up in softness and beauty what it may lack in precision and accuracy. It has been called, not inaptly, dreamy speech.

The ancients comprehended under the term of music the harmonious order of all things, and hence included, besides the music of our day, dancing, poetry, and even the sciences. The great philosophers of Greece, hence, saw music in the whole system of the universe, and bequeathed thus to posterity the mystic views of a harmony of the spheres and the music of the Cosmos, which was long the favorite theme of medieval writers, revived through the agency of Swedenborg, and will probably long survive, in spite of our better knowledge of the true nature of celestial bodies. Although music is cxclusively man's prerogative-the songs of angels cannot be of the same nature, though miacles may make them audible to human ears-Nature was here also his first teacher. The singing of birds and the thousand sounds of lifeless nature led, no doubt, at an early period, to efforts at imitation. Diodorus re

peats the popular legend which ascribes the invention of flutes to the ingenuity of a shepher, who had listened with delight to the whispering of the wind in the reeds of a lake. String-instruments followed probably soon, and may, plausibly enough, have begun with the hollow shell of a tortoise, over which, accidentally, a string was stretched tightly. The Bible tells us, in like manner, of Jubal, the jubilant, the musician, "the father of all such as handle the harp and the organ," who was descended from Cain through his parents Lamech and Adab-a fact which has led many a stern Puritan and dreamy fanatic to attribute all manner of evil effects to the cultivation of arts, and especially of music.

The origin of music is thus naturally lost in the dark night of man's earliest history; but the effects it has ever produced on his mind have also been noticed from time immemorial. Unlike modern writers, who see in music the only one, pure art, which cannot, by any ingenuity and craft of men, be employed for vile or mean purposes, Plato fancied that certain notes called forth pride and low passions, while others stimulated the nobler affections. He went so far in his apprehensions on this score, that he feared a reform in music might lead to a revolution in the state, unconscious of the dangers with which, if his fears were founded, the author of the "music of the future" would have threatened Europe. The Greeks, at all events, gave a practical form to their views on the subject, for all their laws and regulations, as well as their legends and traditions, were carefully put in verse and set to music, so that they could be publicly recited by the agency of numerous choirs, with instrumental accompaniment. The Chosen People observed the same custom, mainly for the purpose of thus making abstract dogmas attractive, and impressing them, at the same time, more forcibly on the minds of the hearers. It is questionable whether the same happy effect may be expected from the recent attempt, by one of our native artists, to

arrange the Constitution of the United States in the form of a symphony.

The fundamental idea of the ancients in regard to the power of music was this that the human soul had been created in perfect harmony; that this harmony was more or less destroyed by its contact with earthly life, and that music alone had the divine power to restore its pristine purity and perfection. Modern theories, on the contrary, look upon music as the language of angels and sinless beings, with whom man dwelt before he was sent into this wicked world, and teach that a few strains and faint echoes still linger in his mind, which he tries to utter by means of the beautiful art. All nations, however, agree upon the almost magic power indwelling in music. Now it enables . Orpheus to tame the wild beasts of the forest and to induce rocks and mighty trees to join in merry dance, and now it enables Amphion to build the walls of Thebes, the stones following willingly the impulse given by the sounds of his lyre. In one age music thus builds cities; in another it casts down the walls of Jericho. In distant Finland the god Wainamonen strikes his cithern, and the waves of the sea grow calm, the trees wave their branches in time with his strains, the bears remain motionless in the forests, and at last the god himself is so deeply moved, that he sheds a torrent of tears, which instantly change into pearls. India is full of extravagant myths connected with the power of music, not over men only, but over the gods themselves, and speaks of a famous singer, whose charms were so potent, that once, when he recited a song dedicated to Night, the sun hid itself, and deep darkness spread around him as far as his voice reached.

At other times music inflames or soothes the passions of men. David's harp calmed the storm in Saul's fierce heart, and the great tenor, Farinelli, conquered the tempests in the bosom of King Philip V. of Spain. A famous musician could rouse Alexander the Great to madness by the mere style of his performance, and calm him again

by returning to the manner of the Lydians; and Terpander quelled a rebellion in Sparta promptly by singing some verses, accompanied by his cithern. A German author, who quotes this anecdote, naïvely suggests that the police of his native land had perhaps better be armed with flutes and guitars hereafter, instead of their massive and dangerous clubs.

The ancient poem of the Gudrun, one of the noblest songs ever sung by men of our race, praises the power of an old sea-king, Haraud, whose voice had such magic power that, when he sang, the wild beasts in the woods came forth, and the birds in the trecs ceased their carols, in order to listen. One of the Provençal troubadours made good use of the mysterious power inherent in music. He was travelling through a dark forest, when suddenly a band of robbers rushed forth, dragged him from his horse, took his money, stripped him of his clothing, and at last proposed to murder him in cold blood. Then Peter of Chateauneuf begged them at least to let him sing one more favorite song before he must die. The robbers consented, and he sang, accompanying himself with the cithern, a song which he improvised on the spot; it touched them so deeply that they gave him his life, returned him his property, and dismissed him with great admiration and rev

erence.

More familiar is the story of the ratcatcher, who, in the year 460, appeared in Hameln, in Saxony, and offered, for a slight compensation, to rid the town of the countless rats with which it was infested. The inhabitants willingly agreed to his terms. The stranger then drew a flute from his bag, and played upon his uncouth instrument a quaint melody; immediately the rats came out from all the houses and barns, and rushed into a river near by, where they were drowned. When he had made an end of them all, he demanded his pay, but the avaricious and dishonest citizens refused to pay him more than a very small sum. He made no reply, but on the next day he came, drew another uncouth

fife from his bag, and began to play. Immediately all the children in town, between four and twelve years, came forth from their houses and followed him through the streets, out of town, to the foot of a mountain, and there the fifer and his followers disappeared forever. The parents wept and wailed, but all was in vain.

But we need not go back to the days of antiquity, or ancient legends, to find examples of the magic power of music. Every body has heard of the Ranz des Vaches, which makes the children of Switzerland homesick unto death when they hear it in foreign lands, and led so many of the old Swiss Guard of the Bourbons in France to commit suicide, that at last the playing of the air by military bands had to be strictly prohibited. Nor must we forget the importance which all great generals attach to the effect of good music on their men, so that even the present ruler of France has been compelled to reinstate the regimental bands which, in a moment of economical zeal, had been partly abolished. Few men are insensible to the influence of quick, lively music; it drives the blood faster through the veins, and rouses the most sluggish heart. Shakespeare called even the drum the great maker of courage, and history has more than is flattering to our race to tell of the blood. shed by men acting under the impulse given by the Marseillaise. Nevertheless, not all men are equally susceptible to the charms of music; but, where it is not, as often must be the case, purely the fault of the ear, it draws upon the unlucky man in popular estimation, at least, the wellknown stigma, that

The man that hath no music in himself,

perhaps, the more serious misfortune. Some persons cannot hear certain notes, or, at least, certain melodies, without being moved to tears; and even the health of others has been affected by one or the other instrument. Rousseau speaks of a lady who never heard music without having hysterics, and a wellknown composer was cured of a dangerous fever by being forced to play some of his own compositions. The physicians of insane asylums are fully familiar with the effects of music on their unfortunate patients, and employ it largely in their efforts to calm the more excitable sufferers. In the Middle Ages a number of diseases were considered curable by music, including stupidity. Occasionally this opinion rested upon mere superstition, as when Batisto Porta seriously states that a flute of hellebore cured dropsy, and one of poplar-wood was good for rheumatism; but when we are told that St. Vitus' dance can be cured, perhaps homœopathically, by dancing-music, there is at least a grain of truth in the popular fancy. The air prescribed in such cases is generally the Tarantella — a name derived from the poisonous spider, whose bite was in olden times believed to be the cause of the terrible disease. When the latter was endemic in Italy, bands of musicians would wander up and down the peninsula, offering their services to the afflicted; now both the disease and the method of curing it have nearly fallen into oblivion.

The influence which music has on us is mainly exercised through the nervous system; hence children, with their delicate, excitable nerves, are most easily impressed by it, lulled to sleep by a simple lullaby, or frightened to death by a sudden cry. Montaigne's father appreciated this so fully, that he ordered his son to be awaked in the morning by pleasing music, hoping thus to prepare his mind for the day's work with cheerfulness and clearness. But grown men are not less open to the happy influences of music; a hearty song, a rhyth

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. St. Augustine, from whom more Christian charity might have been expected, accounts such insensible persons accursed; but the example of great and otherwise richly-endowed men has taught us to seek the explanation rather in some organic defect. It is even a question, whether too great susceptibility is not, mic beating of the drum, or a clear

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