ears, but the very arteries, the vital and animal
spirits, it erects the mind, and makes it nimble.”
Lemnius, instit, cap. 44. This it will effect
in the most dull, severe and sorrowful souls, [3471]"expel
grief with mirth, and if there be any clouds, dust,
or dregs of cares yet lurking in our thoughts, most
powerfully it wipes them all away,” Salisbur.
polit. lib. 1. cap. 6. and that which is more,
it will perform all this in an instant: [3472]"Cheer
up the countenance, expel austerity, bring in hilarity”
(Girald. Camb. cap. 12. Topog. Hiber.)
“inform our manners, mitigate anger;” Athenaeus
(Dipnosophist. lib. 14. cap. 10.) calleth it
an infinite treasure to such as are endowed with it:
Dulcisonum reficit tristia corda melos, Eobanus
Hessus. Many other properties [3473]Cassiodorus,
epist. 4. reckons up of this our divine music,
not only to expel the greatest griefs, but “it
doth extenuate fears and furies, appeaseth cruelty,
abateth heaviness, and to such as are watchful it
causeth quiet rest; it takes away spleen and hatred,”
be it instrumental, vocal, with strings, wind, [3474]_Quae,
a spiritu, sine manuum dexteritate gubernetur_, &c.
it cures all irksomeness and heaviness of the soul.
[3475]Labouring men that sing to their work, can tell
as much, and so can soldiers when they go to fight,
whom terror of death cannot so much affright, as the
sound of trumpet, drum, fife, and such like music
animates; metus enim mortis, as [3476]Censorinus
informeth us, musica depellitur. “It
makes a child quiet,” the nurse’s song,
and many times the sound of a trumpet on a sudden,
bells ringing, a carman’s whistle, a boy singing
some ballad tune early in the streets, alters, revives,
recreates a restless patient that cannot sleep in
the night, &c. In a word, it is so powerful a
thing that it ravisheth the soul, regina sensuum,
the queen of the senses, by sweet pleasure (which
is a happy cure), and corporal tunes pacify our incorporeal
soul, sine ore loquens, dominatum in animam exercet,
and carries it beyond itself, helps, elevates, extends
it. Scaliger, exercit. 302, gives a reason
of these effects, [3477]"because the spirits about
the heart take in that trembling and dancing air into
the body, are moved together, and stirred up with
it,” or else the mind, as some suppose harmonically
composed, is roused up at the tunes of music.
And ’tis not only men that are so affected,
but almost all other creatures. You know the
tale of Hercules Gallus, Orpheus, and Amphion, felices
animas Ovid calls them, that could saxa movere
sono testudinis, &c. make stocks and stones, as
well as beasts and other animals, dance after their
pipes: the dog and hare, wolf and lamb; vicinumque
lupo praebuit agna latus; clamosus graculus, stridula
cornix, et Jovis aquila, as Philostratus describes
it in his images, stood all gaping upon Orpheus; and
[3478]trees pulled up by the roots came to hear him,
Et comitem quercum pinus amica trahit.