Here the colonel interposed, by observing, that what effect a flute, or a lute, or a flagelet might have upon the passions of mankind he could not pretend to say, but he apprehended neither one nor the other could have any thing to do with their diseases, and to this Llewellyn assented with a significant nod of approbation. De Lancaster had now got amongst his sophists and grammarians, and committed himself much too far to halt upon a nod; he proceeded therefore as follows—

Whilst there subsists a sympathy between the senses and the soul, the intellectual remedy for man must be sought for in harmony. All the nations under heaven, whether civilized or not, have borne witness to the powers and effects of music. The Mariandyni, a wild people inhabiting the confines of Bithynia, made their national music from pipes, which they formed of the reeds, that grew upon the borders of the lake Acherusia. The pipe was also the favourite of those mountain shepherds of Bœotia, called Aonians; whilst the Egyptians with more ingenuity struck out the complex instrument called Pandura, which was composed of no less than seven pipes.

We have in our practice, said Llewellyn, an instrument with one pipe, but I can’t for my soul conceive the use, that can be made of seven.

It was doubtless an instrument of no inconsiderable difficulty to the performer, replied De Lancaster gravely.

I should not chuse to perform upon it, said the apothecary.

The good old gentleman was in the high road of philology, and kept steadily on—The characters of nations, said he, are to be traced in the different characters of their warlike instruments. The Cretans marched in compact and orderly phalanx to the solemn sound of the harp: the Lacedemonians rushed into battle to the high-pitched screaming notes of the shrill-toned fife; whilst the effeminate Sybarites would not move without the soft accompaniment of their melodious flutes.

But which of all these instruments, said the colonel, is to cure Mrs. De Lancaster?

Refer that question to Asclepiades, replied De Lancaster, and he will answer you; Asclepiades will tell you, when the citizens of Prusa were in actual insurrection, and the city on the point of being laid in ashes, how he contrived to appease the tumult, and sent them all to their homes in peace.

But Mrs. De Lancaster is at home already, said Llewellyn, and peaceable enough, Heaven knows. How does the case of these rioters apply to her?

The colonel saw his friend was staggered, and handsomely turned out to his relief—It is impossible, he said, to foresee what turn a case may take, therefore it is well to be armed against accidents. I should be glad if our good friend would tell us how it was that Asclepiades, whom I have no means of resorting to, contrived to disperse the mob of incendiaries at Prusa.

By a song, replied the old gentleman; he dispersed them by the sweet and soothing melody of a pathetic strain, which assuaged their fury, and lulled them into peace, as an obstreperous child (for men are only children of a larger growth) is hushed to sleep by the humming of its nurse.

I am perfectly satisfied, said the colonel.

CHAPTER VII.

Mr. Philip De Lancaster determines to adopt the Regimen recommended by his Father.

The decisive tone, with which Colonel Wilson, at the close of our last chapter, avowed his perfect satisfaction in De Lancaster’s explanation of Asclepiades’s receipt for quieting a mob, occasioned such a pause, as might very probably have put an end to this topic, had not the Reverend Edward Wilson availed himself of the general silence to revive it. He had been closely attentive to the progress of this whimsical dissertation, and sensibly annoyed by the frequent interruptions it had met with, whereupon, having watched his opportunity, he said—Permit me to observe, that I, for one of Mr. De Lancaster’s hearers, can never be perfectly satisfied so long as he shall be pleased to continue to us the gratification of a discourse, at once so new, and, to me at least, so highly entertaining and instructive. In several passages of it even my small share of reading enables me to recognize some of the authorities he has referred to, and I have no doubt but he is equally warranted in all others, where I am not able to follow him; and allow me to remark, that if his information does not in every point apply to the particular case of the hypochondriac lady, for whose recovery we are interested, yet even in those points of occasional aberration from the subject, there is matter well worthy of our attention, and I therefore hope Mr. De Lancaster will have the goodness to proceed with his dissertation on the effects of music, as recorded and attested by the ancient writers.

Reverend sir, said Robert De Lancaster, your remarks are at once so candid, and your request so flattering to me, that I will contract what I have further to say in such a manner as shall not weary you, and I will ground it upon such authorities as shall not mislead you. Damon, the Pythagorean philosopher, a man not less to be relied upon for his veracity, than for his friendship and fidelity, by the simple recitation of the spondean hymn allayed a drunken fray in the streets of Syracuse, when raging at the height, in an instant, and as it were by magic.

And pray, said the colonel, what kind of composition was the spondean hymn?

It was a hymn, replied De Lancaster, performed by the priests and minstrels in the heathen temples as a prelude to the ceremony of sacrifice, and it was called spondean, as consisting of such syllables only, which gives us to understand the solemn character of the composition, the object of which was to engage the attention, and conciliate the favour of their deities, whilst the incense was in operation.

If it could do that, said the colonel, and make dead idols serviceable, I can’t wonder it should make drunken insurgents sober.

Sir—replied the expounder, (lengthening out the word into a note of something like asperity) You have not heard me out, else I should have told you, that ancient sages cured fevers, fits of melancholy, phrensy, nay, even bodily wounds, by the sanative and enchanting power of song. Who, that has but dipped into their remedies, can be ignorant, that soft airs, well executed on the flute, were found to be a never-failing cure for the sciatica, or hip-gout, as it is called? A host of witnesses conspire to testify to the truth of what I tell you. Can it have escaped the notice of any well-read scholar by what means Theophrastus found a remedy for every malady, every molestation, that could disorder and disturb the health and temperature of the human mind? Sir, he had an instrument appropriated to every mental complaint, a pipe tuned to the pitch of every passion, high or low, flat or sharp. Xenocrates brought men stark mad to their senses. Thales of Crete drove away fevers, nay, even the plague itself, by music. Erophilus regulated the pulsation of the hearts of his patients by the cadences and time-keeping of his lyre.

We do that quite as correctly by our watches, said Llewellyn.

De Lancaster took no notice of this, but proceeded—Can you any longer wonder that the sage, who has made sympathy his study, and is versed in the science of these harmonious modulations and their respective energies, should effect those cures, which are recorded of them, and which, when explained and understood, are no longer hard to be believed? As for what is fabled of Amphion, Orpheus and others, who by the united powers of music and legislative poetry succeeded in reforming and civilizing their barbarous contemporaries, I would not have you to suppose I cannot distinguish allegory from fact. In the same light I regard the account, which Suidas gives us of the philosopher Plato, who was reported to have been begotten of his mother in a vision by the melody of the harp of Apollo.

I should be inclined to doubt that, said the colonel.

Nay, resumed De Lancaster, there is no occasion to debate what nobody wishes you to believe. You cannot but perceive it is merely an allegorical compliment to the genius of that extraordinary person, whose deep researches into the mysterious theory of sounds and numbers having enabled him to speculate in a very ingenious manner upon the doctrine of harmony, as connected with the movements of the celestial spheres, and also with the human soul even after death, was feigned to have been the very offspring of that harmony, which he developed and applied. These legends, and the like of these, I know how to appreciate, and with what latitude they are to be received; at the same time I am not to be shaken in my confidence, when relying on the ancients, who studied music as a science, whilst we do little more than practise it as an art, and of course stand in the like relation to them as fiddlers do to philosophers. In short, my friends, it is not man alone that is the slave of harmony, but the whole brute creation also: if stags can be allured by the pipe; if the fishes in the Alexandrian lake will surrender themselves to the song of the fisherman; if the hyperborean swan, if the birds of the air, at once so fearful and so free; nay, if even the wild elephant of India, and the ear-stricken inhabitants of the ocean, will yield themselves up to the minstrel, who will tell me, that a mere moping hypochondriac, like my poor daughter-in-law, might not be cured of her distempered fancy by the harp of David Williams?

De Lancaster having closed his argument, and dismissed his witnesses, the audience broke up; Llewellyn repaired to his patient, Edward Wilson to his pupil, and Philip whispered to the colonel, that he should be glad to have a few minutes talk with him in private. This was instantly complied with, and Philip opened the important conference, as follows—

I should wish to know, colonel, if you attended to what my father has been saying?

The colonel had attended.

I am glad of it, said Philip, for I was a little absent now and then, and have not carried much of it away. But do you believe all those wonderful things, that he has told us, about music?

I perfectly believe that your father has told nothing about music, but what he has vouchers for, though I don’t know where to look for them.

Nor I neither, Heaven knows, said Philip, for I have no taste for music, nor can distinguish between one tune and another, except as it is either loud or soft: if it is the first, it deafens and distracts me; if the latter, it puts me to sleep. I don’t suppose it is in the art of man to teach me to sing or play a single tune, though it were to save my life.

That won’t quite decide the question however, my good friend; for music certainly can charm others, though it has no charms for you. What I have seen and witnessed I believe; what I am told I pause upon. Martial music will animate martial men, and not them only, but the horses also, which they ride to battle: hounds are sensible to the shouts of the hunter, and the whole race of dogs to the voices of their masters: birds can be taught tunes, though you and I cannot, and there are doubtless great and extraordinary powers in musical sounds, though perhaps all that is said of those powers may not be exactly as it is stated.

I should suppose not; for if I was to believe that David Williams with his harp could cure my melancholy dame of her megrims, don’t you think I ought in conscience to make the trial?

I think at least, friend Philip, that the trial would do her no harm; for if she did not like to hear his music, she could easily put a stop to it.

But suppose, colonel, that she should like to hear it; and suppose also for a moment it should have the same effect upon her as Apollo’s harp had upon Plato’s mother, whereabouts should I be with a whole nursery of harp-begotten brats to provide for, conscious at the same time that I had not touched a single string of the instrument?

That would be rather hard upon you I confess.

Lord love you, colonel, even worse things than that might come to pass. I am very comfortable as I am, but who can tell what a few merry jigs upon the harp may do? They might be the ruin of my peace for ever.

Never fear, my good friend, replied the colonel. Depend upon it, you are in no danger.

Well! if you think so, said Philip, I will go to David Williams, and put my wife under a course of serenades directly: It may perhaps please the Lord, that they shall do her neither good nor harm.

So saying, Philip left the room, and Wilson went to superintend his workmen in the hall.

————

I here close the third book and first volume of my history, and, availing myself of the licence I have assumed in the two preceding books, I stop progress to look back upon what hitherto has been done: no mighty matter I confess; yet it has put me to the labour of turning over many a crabbed antiquated author to furnish out materials for these pages; and to what purpose? Wiser perhaps I had been to have followed the example of those easy gentlemen, who write without any pains what you read without any profit.

What recommendation would it be of this book, if humbly I should say, it can do no harm? But if vainly I avowed that it was my object and endeavour to do good, I might indeed speak the truth as to my wishes, but I should palpably disguise my expectations. It will do no good. Reformers are as unpopular as informers; the medicine, which nobody will take, can do nobody any service. When I witness the avidity, with which men will read a thing called a novel, wherein the characters of their friends are libelled, what folly would it be to suppose they will countenance an attempt to impress them with more kindness for their fellow-creatures than they are disposed to entertain, or will suffer themselves to be persuaded, that their fellow-creatures merit?

I have been too long acquainted with you, my dear candid readers, to trouble you with any compliments, or solicit you for any favours. I have only to say, that I am doing my utmost to amuse you, and if you shall lay down this volume with any appetite for the second, I hope you will not find that my exertions flag.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.


Wright, Printer, St. John’s Square.