MUSICAL ANECDOTE FROM MARVILLE.
Marville has given us the following anecdote. He says, “that doubting the truth of those who say it is natural for us to love music, especially the sound of instruments, and that beasts themselves are touched with it, being one day in the country, I enquired into the truth; and, while a man was playing on the trump-marine, made my observations on a cat, a dog, a horse, an ass, a hind, cows, small birds, and a cock and hens, who were in a yard, under a window on which I was leaning.
“I did not perceive that the cat was the least affected, and I even judged, by her air, that she would have given all the instruments in the world for a mouse, sleeping in the sun all the time. The horse stopped short, from time to time, before the window, raising his head up now and then, as he was feeding on the grass. The dog continued for above an hour seated on his hind legs, looking stedfastly at the player. The ass did not discover the least indication of his being touched, eating his thistles peaceably. The hind lifted up her large wide ears, and seemed very attentive. The cows slept a little, and, after gazing, as though they had been acquainted with us, went forward. Some little birds, who were in an aviary, and others on the trees and bushes, almost tore their little throats with singing: but the cock, who minded only his hens, and the hens who were solely employed in scraping a neighbouring dunghill, did not show, in any manner, that they took the least pleasure in hearing the trump-marine.”