14th. An account of a ‘Recent Voyage to the South Seas,’ states the following as the effect of European music on the natives:—‘In the midst of the shouting (at Nuka-hiva, one of the Washington Islands) and apparent importunity for us to land, Captain Finch ordered the music on deck, and the moment its full and animated strains reached the shore, the effect on them was evident; they instantly crouched to the ground in perfect silence, as if under the influence of a charm. Nothing of the kind, it is probable, ever broke upon their ears before, and well might there have been a mingling of superstition in their minds with the sudden swelling on the breeze of sounds new and seemingly unearthly.’ It might have been said, that they—
————wondering on their faces fell
To worship the celestial sound.
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell,
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
We have only to imagine a guitar instead of flutes, violins, &c. and Dryden’s lines would well apply to the scene.
21st. Madame Mara, once the idol of the British nation, died at Revel on the 20th of January last, in the eighty-fourth year of her age. She lost the whole of her property by the great conflagration at Moscow during the invasion of Bonaparte, and has ever since depended on the kindness of a friend who knew her when she was high in public favour, and afterwards when she had retired to Russia, in prosperous circumstances. An interesting memoir of her, from the German, is contained in the Harmonicon for the year 1828.