he latter had not arrived at the exquisite policy adopted by the human
vermin "between 1790 and 1800."

But the most singular and delightful gift of the ass, according to the
writer of this pamphlet, is his _voice_, the "goodly, sweet, and
continual brayings" of which, "whereof they forme a melodious and
proportionable kinde of musicke," seem to have affected him with no
ordinary pleasure. "Nor thinke I," he adds, "that any of our immoderate
musitians can deny but that their song is full of exceeding pleasure to
be heard; because therein is to be discerned both concord, discord,
singing in the meane, the beginning to sing in large compasse, then
following on to rise and fall, the halfe note, whole note, musicke of
five voices, firme singing by four voices, three together, or one voice
and a halfe. Then their variable contrarieties amongst them, when one
delivers forth a long tenor or a short, the pausing for time, breathing
in measure, breaking the minim or very least moment of time. Last of
all, to heare the musicke of five or six voices chaunged to so many of
asses is amongst them to heare a song of world without end."

There is no accounting for ears, or for that laudable enthusiasm with
which an author is tempted to invest a favorite subject with the most
incompatible perfections. I should otherwise, for my own taste, have
been inclined rather to have given a place to these extraordinary
musicians at that banquet of nothing-less-than-sweet sounds, imagined by
old Jeremy Collier, (Essays, 1698, part ii., On Music,) where, after
describing the inspiriting effects of martial music in a battle, he
hazards an ingenious conjecture, whether a sort of _anti-music_ might
not be invented, which should have quite the contrary effect of "sinking
the spirits, shaking the nerves, curdling the blood, and inspiring
despair and cowardice and consternation." "'T is probable," he says,
"the roaring of lions, the warbling of cats and screech-owls, together
with a mixture of the howling of dogs, judiciously imitated and
compounded, might go a great way in this invention." The dose, we
confess, is pretty potent, and skilfully enough prepared. But what shall
we say to the ass of Silenus, who, if we may trust to classic lore, by
his own proper sounds, without thanks to cat or screech-owl, dismayed
and put to rout a whole army of giants? Here was _anti-music_ with a
vengeance,--a whole _Pan-Dis-Harmonicon_ in a single lungs of leather!

B