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 the