to disregard the caution of
the physician, and who could play on the violin, seeing that of the
patient hanging up in the chamber, laid hold of it, and played directly
for him the air most familiar to him. He was cried out against more than
the patient who lay in bed, confined in a straight jacket; and some were
ready to make him desist; when the patient, immediately sitting up as a
man agreeably surprised, attempted to caper with his arms in unison with
the music; and on his arms being held, he evinced, by the motion of his
head, the pleasure he felt. Sensible, however, of the effects of the
violin, he was suffered by degrees to yield to the movement he was
desirous to perform,--when, strange as it may appear, his furious fits
abated. In short, in the space of a quarter of an hour, the patient fell
into a profound sleep, and a salutary crisis in the interim rescued him
from all danger.

FOOTNOTES:

[116] Dr. Burney's History of Music.

[117] It has been asserted by several moderns, that deaf people can hear
best in a great noise; perhaps to prove that Greek noise could do
nothing which the modern cannot operate as effectually: and Dr. Willis
in particular tells us of a lady who could hear only while a drum was
beating, in so much that her husband, the account says, hired a drummer
as her servant, in order to enjoy the pleasures of her conversation.

[118] Many of the ancients speak of music as a recipe for every kind of
malady, and it is probable that the Latin was _praecinere_, to charm
away pain, _incantare_ to enchant, and our own word _incantation_, came
from the medical use of song.

[119] M. Burette, with Dr. Mead, Baglivi, and all the learned of their
time throughout Europe, seem to have entertained no doubt of this fact,
which, however, philosophical and curious enquirers have since found to
be built upon fraud and fallacy. Vide Serrao, _della Tarantula o vero
falangio di Puglia._

[120] Pope's translation of the Iliad, Book 1.

[121] See a curious Dissertation on the musical modes of the Hindoos by
Sir W. Jones.

CHAPTER XV.

PRESAGES, PRODIGES, PRESENTIMENTS, ETC.

The common opinion of comets being the presages of evil is an old pagan
superstition, introduced and entertained among Christians by their
prejudice for antiquity; and which Mr. Bayle says is a remnant of pagan
superstition, conveyed from father to son, ever since the first
conversion from paganism; as well because it has ta