Anecdote of Lord Kenyon. Soon after Lord Kenyon was appointed master of the rolls he was listening very attentively to a young clerk, who was reading to him, in the presence of a number of gentlemen of the long robe, the conveyance of an estate, and on coming to the word “enough,” he pronounced it “enow.” “ Hold! hold!” said his honor, immediately interrupting him, “you must stand corrected. Enough is, according to the vernacular custom, pronounced ‘enuff’ and so must all other English words which terminate in ‘ough,’ as, for example, tough, rough, &c.” The clerk bowed, blushed, and proceeded for some time; when coming to the word “plough,” he, with a loud voice, and penetrating look at his honor, called it “pluff.” The great lawyer stroked his chin, and with a smile candidly said, “Young man, I sit corrected.”
Carrier Pigeons, A. D. 1099. The secret of turning to account the peculiar instinct of these birds would appear to have been known and practised in the east at an early period. Maimbourg, in his history of the crusades, relates a curious anecdote on this subject:—“As the Christian army continued its march, by the narrow passage which is between the sea and Mount Carmel, they saw a dove, which, having escaped from the claws of a bird of prey, who had let go his hold at the great noise made by the soldiers, fell half dead at their feet. There was found, tied beneath his tail, a small scroll of paper, in which the emir of Ptolemais wrote to the emir of Cæsarea, to do all the harm in his power to the army of dogs who were about to pass through his territories, as he, more easily than the former, could hinder their passage.”
Power of Music. Prince Cantimir, in his account of the transactions of the Ottomans, relates that Sultan Amurath, having besieged Bagdad and taken it, ordered 30,000 Persians to be put to death, though they had yielded and laid down their arms. Amongst these unfortunate victims was a musician, who besought the executioner to spare him one moment that he might speak to the emperor. He appeared before the sultan and was permitted to give a specimen of his art. He took up a kind of psaltery, which resembles a lyre, and has six sides, and accompanied the sounds of the instrument with his voice. He sung the taking of Bagdad and the triumph of Amurath; its pathetic and exulting sounds melted even Amurath, who suffered the musician to proceed, till, overpowered with harmony, tears of pity gushed from his eyes, and he revoked his cruel orders. Influenced by the musician’s powerful talent, he not only ordered the lives of the prisoners to be spared, but restored them to liberty.
Coleridge. Coleridge was very fond of music, and he has left us an interesting remark or two upon it:—“An ear for music,” he observes, “is a very different thing from a taste for it. I have no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the intensest delight in music, and can detect good from bad. Naldi, a good fellow, remarked to me once at a concert, that I did not seem much interested with a piece of Rossini’s, which had just been performed. I said, ‘it sounded to me like nonsense verses;’ but I could scarcely contain myself when a thing of Beethoven followed.”
Instinct. Smellie mentions a cat, which, being confined in a room, in order to meet its mate of the other sex, learnt of itself to open the latch of a door; and I knew a pony in the stable here, that used both to open the latch of the stable, and raise the lid of the corn-chest—things which must have been learnt by himself from his own observation, for no one is likely to have taught them to him. Nay, it was only the other day that I observed one of the horses taken to grass in a field through which the avenue runs, open one of the wickets by pressing down the upright bar of the latch, and open it exactly as you or I do.—Lord Brougham.