The good old gentleman was in the high road of philology, and kept steadily on—The characters of nations, said he, are to be traced in the different characters of their warlike instruments. The Cretans marched in compact and orderly phalanx to the solemn sound of the harp: the Lacedemonians rushed into battle to the high-pitched screaming notes of the shrill-toned fife; whilst the effeminate Sybarites would not move without the soft accompaniment of their melodious flutes.
But which of all these instruments, said the colonel, is to cure Mrs. De Lancaster?
Refer that question to Asclepiades, replied De Lancaster, and he will answer you; Asclepiades will tell you, when the citizens of Prusa were in actual insurrection, and the city on the point of being laid in ashes, how he contrived to appease the tumult, and sent them all to their homes in peace.
But Mrs. De Lancaster is at home already, said Llewellyn, and peaceable enough, Heaven knows. How does the case of these rioters apply to her?
The colonel saw his friend was staggered, and handsomely turned out to his relief—It is impossible, he said, to foresee what turn a case may take, therefore it is well to be armed against accidents. I should be glad if our good friend would tell us how it was that Asclepiades, whom I have no means of resorting to, contrived to disperse the mob of incendiaries at Prusa.
By a song, replied the old gentleman; he dispersed them by the sweet and soothing melody of a pathetic strain, which assuaged their fury, and lulled them into peace, as an obstreperous child (for men are only children of a larger growth) is hushed to sleep by the humming of its nurse.
I am perfectly satisfied, said the colonel.
CHAPTER VII.
Mr. Philip De Lancaster determines to adopt the Regimen recommended by his Father.
The decisive tone, with which Colonel Wilson, at the close of our last chapter, avowed his perfect satisfaction in De Lancaster’s explanation of Asclepiades’s receipt for quieting a mob, occasioned such a pause, as might very probably have put an end to this topic, had not the Reverend Edward Wilson availed himself of the general silence to revive it. He had been closely attentive to the progress of this whimsical dissertation, and sensibly annoyed by the frequent interruptions it had met with, whereupon, having watched his opportunity, he said—Permit me to observe, that I, for one of Mr. De Lancaster’s hearers, can never be perfectly satisfied so long as he shall be pleased to continue to us the gratification of a discourse, at once so new, and, to me at least, so highly entertaining and instructive. In several passages of it even my small share of reading enables me to recognize some of the authorities he has referred to, and I have no doubt but he is equally warranted in all others, where I am not able to follow him; and allow me to remark, that if his information does not in every point apply to the particular case of the hypochondriac lady, for whose recovery we are interested, yet even in those points of occasional aberration from the subject, there is matter well worthy of our attention, and I therefore hope Mr. De Lancaster will have the goodness to proceed with his dissertation on the effects of music, as recorded and attested by the ancient writers.
Reverend sir, said Robert De Lancaster, your remarks are at once so candid, and your request so flattering to me, that I will contract what I have further to say in such a manner as shall not weary you, and I will ground it upon such authorities as shall not mislead you. Damon, the Pythagorean philosopher, a man not less to be relied upon for his veracity, than for his friendship and fidelity, by the simple recitation of the spondean hymn allayed a drunken fray in the streets of Syracuse, when raging at the height, in an instant, and as it were by magic.