The question has been often mooted, as to whether song-birds acquire their respective warble or song by the ear alone, that is, by listening and imitating, as a child would do, or whether it is intuitive; the answer is not very easy. There is an impulse in song-birds to express their feelings of pleasure or enjoyment, by giving utterance to modulated sounds, so pleasing to the human ear, that their song leads too frequently to their friendly imprisonment. Young birds, brought up by their parents, and with a vocal pipe best fitted for the enunciation of the strain of their parents, (or rather male parent,) rapidly acquire that strain, and soon begin to record, or try it over in an under tone, and bearing it in memory, break out into full song when leafy spring returns. Nevertheless, birds, taken early from the nest, and put under the tuition of other birds, acquire to a certain extent the song of the latter, often, indeed, apparently perfect; yet, perhaps, could our ears catch it, we should find that the bird had much of the parent accent in its acquired language.
Though birds receive ideas of a simple character, and express simple feelings, understood by each other, through the medium of various sounds, yet nothing from age to age is thereby added to their knowledge; they remain what they have been from the commencement of their creation. Their ears are far less the inlets to knowledge than their eyes, and this observation applies generally to the lower animals.
Now let us turn to man. Setting aside meaningless sounds and noises, (some of which, however, through the association of ideas, are very grateful, as those of the multifarious denizens of a farm-yard,) man derives both pleasure and knowledge from a definite succession of sounds, which appeal to his mind, as sound cannot appeal to the mind of the lower orders. How laughable is the fabled contest of the lutist and the nightingale, and of the death of the latter disappointed of the victory—the lutist might have enjoyed the warbling of the bird, but the bird could not have entered as a rival into the strains of the lutist. Nevertheless, from personal observation, and from the most credible authorities, we fearlessly assert, that many animals are allured by sweet sounds; we have seen rats peeping out of their holes, listening to airs played on a flute; and sir Walter Scott says,
"Rude Heiskar's seals through surges dark,
Will long pursue the minstrel's bark."
A little lizard (the anolis) in the West Indies, and snakes in North Africa and India, are attracted by the notes of a rude pipe; to deny this is futile; it has been proved in modern days, and the fact is noticed in Scripture. Some animals, when certain notes are struck, or certain keys tried over, are decidedly agitated, and perhaps feel as we do when some horrid sound "sets our teeth on edge,"—that is, irritates by a mysterious sympathy the whole nervous system. In the same way, perhaps, are animals pleased with certain sounds; that is, a sympathetic tranquillity or pleasing excitement of the nervous system is produced, and they yield, instinctively, to "the voice of the charmer."
With regard to ourselves, music (we need not enter into a learned explanation of what it is) operates far less upon the reasoning than the instinctive faculties of man. Tones, modulations, swellings, and cadences, though no words be sung, excite all the emotions of which our animal nature is capable. But when words are used—when music is married to immortal verse, and an appeal through language is also made to the mind, then, indeed, the effect is tremendous. A song shouted forth in the streets may overturn an empire. Who knows not what was the effect of the Jacobite songs in Scotland, when Charlie came "o'er the water?" Who knows not the effects resulting from Caira and the Marseillaise Hymn? Whose bosom has not beat high when our own national hymn, when Rule Britannia, and other patriotic airs, have been energetically and effectively delivered? In fine, who is there that is not affected by music? very few; it is and has been a natural expression of human feeling appealing to human feeling, since the time of Jubal even unto the present day; and Miriam's song of triumph, and the songs (how mournful!) of the daughters of Judah on the willowy banks of Babel's rivers, were equally expressive of natural emotions.
Music, then, without words, appeals rather to our animal feelings than to our reason or mind; music, with suitable words, appeals both to our animal feelings and our mind; and music, with merely recollected words, does the same by concatenation of ideas; and this also is often the result of tones, passages, and cadences, to which we have never heard words applied; hence, we talk of a lively air, a merry air, a martial air, a melancholy air; and hence a great poet wrote—
"That strain again! it had a dying fall.
Oh! it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour."
Some airs, again, are solemn, and tend to fill the mind with awe, or a feeling of devotion; deep strains of melody were those which resounded through the great temple, when the holy psalms of the shepherd-king were chanted, and deeply was every heart moved to the worship and adoration of the living God. Oh, such should ever be our sacred music! Perhaps we are wrong, but we confess that the sweetest air composed for an ordinary song, (however pure, elegant, or patriotic that song may be,) when introduced into the house of God grates upon our feelings. We divide literature into profane and sacred (meaning nothing offensive by the term profane)—let, then, music be as strictly divided, so that the association of ideas which a popular air will, in spite of ourselves, engender, shall not creep in to intertwine with the sacred exercise of praise and thanksgiving to our Creator and Redeemer, which alone should engage the full force of our mind.
The power of music in elevating the mind, in cheering it, or, on the contrary, in depressing it, has been felt from the earliest ages. When Saul was troubled in spirit, "David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him."[16]