RECOVERY OF THE VOICE BY MUSIC.
“In the beginning of December, 1801, Elizabeth Sellers, a scholar in the Girls’ Charity School, at Sheffield, aged 13, lost her voice: so that she was unable to express herself on any occasion, otherwise than by a whisper. She, however, enjoyed very good health, and went through several employments of the school, such as knitting, sewing, spinning, on the high and low wheel, &c. without any indulgence. Read audibly she could not; and her infirmity resisted, without intermission, all medical assistance, till, in the evening of the 20th of March, 1803, she, hearing some of her schoolfellows singing a hymn, in which she wished to join, went up to one Sarah Milner, and whisperingly begged that she would shout down her throat. Milner, at first, was shocked at the proposal, and refused to comply with her request. But, at length, through her repeated solicitations, she consented, and shouted down her throat with all her might; upon which Sellers immediately regained her voice, and, to the astonishment of the whole school, wept and sung, as if she had been almost in a state of derangement, and has continued in possession of her voice ever since.”
Gentleman’s Magazine, 1803, p. 524.
THE EFFECT OF MUSIC ON A HARE.
The following anecdote was communicated, some years since, by Mr. James Tatlow, of Wiegate, near Manchester, who had it from those who were witnesses of the fact.
“One Sunday evening, five choristers were walking on the banks of the river Mersey, in Cheshire, after some time, they sat down on the grass, and began to sing an anthem. The field in which they sat, was terminated, at one extremity, by a wood, out of which, as they were singing, they observed a hare to pass with great swiftness towards the place where they were sitting, and to stop at about twenty yards distance from them. She appeared highly delighted with the music, often turning up the side of her head to listen with more facility.
“As soon as the harmonious sound was over, the hare returned slowly towards the wood; when she had reached nearly the end of the field, they began the same piece again; at which the hare stopped, turned about, and came swiftly back again, to about the same distance as before, where she seemed to listen with rapture and delight, till they had finished the anthem, when she returned again, by a slow pace, up the field, and entered the wood.—The harmony of the choristers, no doubt, drew the hare from her seat in the wood.”
Eastcott’s Sketches of the Origin and
Effects of Music.
THE POWER OF MUSIC ON THE ELEPHANT.
“At Paris, some curious experiments have been lately made on the power of music, over the sensibility of the elephant. A band of music went to play in a gallery, extending round the upper part of the stalls, in which were kept two elephants, distinguished by the names Margaret and Hans. A perfect silence was procured; some provisions, of which they were very fond, were given them to engage their attention, and the musicians began to play. The music no sooner struck their ears, than they ceased from eating, and turned, in surprise, to observe whence the sounds proceeded. At the sight of the gallery, the orchestra, and the assembled spectators, they discovered considerable alarm, as though they imagined there was some design against their safety. But the music soon overpowered their fears, and all other emotions became completely absorbed in their attention to it. Music, of a bold and wild expression, excited in them turbulent agitations, expressive, either of violent joy, or of rising fury. A soft air, performed on the bassoon, evidently soothed them to gentle and tender emotions. A gay and lively air moved them, especially the female, to demonstrations of highly sportive sensibility. Other variations of the music produced corresponding changes in the emotions of the elephants.”