Whatever Miller may have thought of this proposal, there was a passage in Mason's Essay in favour of voluntaries which was in perfect accord with Dr. Dove's notions. “Prompt and as it were casual strains,” says the Poet, “which do not fix the attention of the hearer, provided they are the produce of an original fancy, which scorns to debase itself by imitating common and trivial melodies, are of all others the best adapted to induce mental serenity. We in some sort listen to such music as we do to the pleasing murmur of a neighbouring brook, the whisper of the passing breeze, or the distant warblings of the lark and nightingale; and if agreeable natural voices have the power of soothing the contemplative mind, without interrupting its contemplations, simple musical effusions must assuredly have that power in a superior degree. All that is to be attended to by the organist is to preserve such pleasing simplicity; and this musical measures will ever have, if they are neither strongly accented, nor too regularly rhythmical. But when this is the case, they cease to soothe us, because they begin to affect us. Add to this that an air replete with short cadences and similar passages is apt to fix itself too strongly on the memory; whereas a merely melodious or harmonical movement glides, as it were, through the ear, awakens a transient pleasing sensation, but leaves behind it no lasting impression. Its effect ceases, when its impulse on the auditory nerve ceases;—an impulse strong enough to dispel from the mind all eating care (to use our great Poet's own expression) but in no sort to rouze or ruffle any of its faculties, save those only which attend truly devotional duty.”
This passage agreed with some of the Doctor's peculiar notions. He felt the power of devotional music both in such preparatory strains as Mason has here described, and in the more exciting emotions of congregational psalmody. And being thus sensible of the religious uses which may be drawn from music, he was the more easily led to entertain certain speculations concerning its application in the treatment of diseases, as will be related hereafter.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
ECCENTRIC PERSONS, WHY APPARENTLY MORE COMMON IN ENGLAND THAN IN OTHER COUNTRIES. HARRY BINGLEY.
Blest are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please.
HAMLET.
There is a reason why eccentricity of character seems to be much more frequent in England than in other countries.—
Here some reflective reader, methinks, interrupts me with—“seems, good Author?”