POWER OF MUSIC IN BATTLE.

Music has sometimes the effect of inspiring courage in the most timid dispositions, and thus even triumphing over nature. An old officer who served under the Duke of Marlborough, was naturally so timid, as to show the utmost reluctance to an engagement, until he heard the drums and trumpets; when his spirits were raised to such a degree, that he became most ardent to be engaged with the enemy, and would then expose himself to the utmost dangers.

"MONSIEUR TRES MAUVAIS."

Volumir, who was by birth a Frenchman, possessed no particular talent as a composer, but was an excellent player on the violin. In 1713, he went from Berlin to Dresden, as leader of the concert. He possessed considerable discrimination in the choice of the pieces; those which had a particular effect, he placed in great order on music shelves; and over every department was written in large characters, the name of the composer. Such pieces, however, as had not undergone the ordeal, or had been rejected, he placed in a separate drawer, and wrote over them tres mauvais. After his death, when his music was to be sold in Dresden, a Polish musician inspected them, and was not a little astonished to behold so extensive a collection of celebrated masters. The lower department, however, from its superior bulk, attracted his attention most,

and he was heard to exclaim, "Ah! Monsieur Tres Mauvais, M. Tres Mauvais, very great composer. indeed; composed more than all the rest put together!"

ARRANGING PRECEDENCE.

The lady of Sir Robert Walpole, enchanted with the strains and popularity of the two most celebrated Italian singers of the day, Cuzzoni and Faustini, invited them to assist at a concert at her house. The nobility who were present, gave their hostess little trouble about precedence; but to prevail on either of the opera singers to relinquish the pas, was found impossible. In this dilemma, Lady Walpole very ingeniously invited Faustini to accompany her to a remote part of the house, under pretence of showing her some beautiful china; and during their absence, the company obtained a song from Cuzzoni, who supposed that her rival had quitted the field. A similar expedient was used with equal success to obtain the happiness of a song from Faustini.

THE HINDOSTAN GIRL.

An officer in the East Indies, previous to his departure for England, being desirous of restoring to her parents an Hindoo girl, who had lived for several years in his family, sent her to them in a palanquin, some days journey up the country. The girl was extremely attached to her master, and was so affected at parting with him, that, according to the relation of the bearers of the palanquin, she

could not be prevailed on to receive any sustenance during the journey, and was incessantly singing a plaintive Hindoo air, to words expressive of her attachment. The air has since found its way to this country, and has been published, with English words adapted to it by Mrs. Opie.

MUSICAL INFANT.

In 1788, a musical prodigy of the name of Sophia Hoffman, attracted the notice of the scientific and the curious. This child, when only nine months old, discovered so violent an attachment to musical sounds, that if taken out of a room where any person was playing on an instrument, it was frequently impossible to appease her but by bringing her back. The nearer she was carried to the performer, the more delighted she appeared, and would often clap her little hands together in accurate time. Her father, who was a musician, cultivated her infantine genius so successfully, that when she was a year and three quarters old, she could play a march, a lesson, and two or three songs, with tolerable correctness; and when two years and a half old, she could play several tunes. If she ever struck a wrong note, she did not suffer it to pass, but immediately corrected herself.

DEAF AND DUMB AMATEUR.

It is a singular fact, that the deaf and dumb are not excluded from the pleasures arising from music; a remarkable proof of this is related of an artist of the

name of Arrowsmith, a member of the Royal Academy, who resided some months at Winnington, about the year 1816, exercising his profession of a miniature and portrait painter. "He was," says Mr. Chippindale of Winnick, who relates the anecdote, quite deaf. It will scarcely be credited, that a person thus circumstanced should be fond of music; but this was the case with Mr. Arrowsmith. He was at a gentleman's glee club, of which I was president at that time, and as the glees were sung, he would place himself near some article of wooden furniture, or a partition, door, or window-shutter, and would fix the extreme end of his finger nails, which he kept rather long, upon the edge of some projecting part of the wood, and there remain until the piece under performance was finished; all the time expressing, by the most significant gestures, the pleasure he felt in the perception of musical sounds. He was not so much pleased with a solo, as with a pretty full clash of harmony; and if the music was not very good, or rather if it was not correctly performed, he would not show the slightest sensation of pleasure. But the most extraordinary circumstance in this case is, that he was evidently most delighted with those passages in which the composer displayed his science in modulating the different keys. When such passages happened to be executed with precision, he could scarcely repress the emotions of pleasure which he received within any bounds ; for the delight he evinced, seemed to border on ecstasy. This was expressed most remarkably at our club, when the glee was sung with which

we often conclude; it is by Stevens, and begins with the words, Ye spotted snakes,' from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. In the second stanza, on the words, Weaving spiders come not here,' there is some modulation of the kind above alluded to, and here Mr. Arrowsmith would be in raptures, such as would not be exceeded by any one who was in immediate possession of the sense of hearing."

ECCENTRIC CONCERT.

In the reign of Charles IX. of France, music was much patronized; and Mersennus gives a curious description of a viol, sufficiently spacious to contain young pages, who sung treble to the airs, while he who played the bass part on the viol, sung the tenor, in order to form a complete concert in three parts.

WEST INDIAN HARPER.

says,

In an old history of Barbadoes by Richard Ligon, we meet with the following curious passage. Being at St. Iago, one of the Cape de Verd Islands, belonging to the Portugueze, he "Dinner being over, in comes an old fellow, his head and beard milk-white, his countenance bold and cheerful, a lute in his hand, and played us for a novelty the passam sares galliard, a tune in great esteem in Harry the IVth's dayes, for when Sir John Falstaffe makes his amours to Mistress Doll Tearsheet, Sneake and his company, the admired fidlers of that age,