trangers, (Syst. Nat.) And the European dogs, that have been carried to
Guinea, are said in three or four generations to cease to bark, and only
howl, like the dogs that are natives of that coast, (World Displayed, Vol.
XVII. p. 26.)
A circumstance not dissimilar to this, and equally curious, is mentioned by
Kircherus, de Musurgia, in his Chapter de Lusciniis, "That the young
nightingales, that are hatched under other birds, never sing till they are
instructed by the company of other nightingales." And Jonston affirms, that
the nightingales that visit Scotland, have not the same harmony as those of
Italy, (Pennant's Zoology, octavo, p. 255); which would lead us to suspect
that the singing of birds, like human music, is an artificial language
rather than a natural expression of passion.
X. Our music like our language, is perhaps entirely constituted of
artificial tones, which by habit suggest certain agreeable passions. For
the same combination of notes and tones do not excite devotion, love, or
poetic melancholy in a native of Indostan and of Europe. And "the
Highlander has the same warlike ideas annexed to the sound of a bagpipe (an
instrument which an Englishman derides), as the Englishman has to that of a
trumpet or fife," (Dr. Brown's Union of Poetry and Music, p. 58.) So "the
music of the Turks is very different from the Italian, and the people of
Fez and Morocco have again a different kind, which to us appears very rough
and horrid, but is highly pleasing to them," (L'Arte Armoniaca a Giorgio
Antoniotto). Hence we see why the Italian opera does not delight an
untutored Englishman; and why those, who are unaccustomed to music, are
more pleased with a tune, the second or third time they hear it, than the
first. For then the same melodious train of sounds excites the melancholy,
they had learned from the song; or the same vivid combination of them
recalls all the mirthful ideas of the dance and company.
Even the sounds, that were once disagreeable to us, may by habit be
associated with other ideas, so as to become agreeable. Father Lasitau, in
his account of the Iroquois, says "the music and dance of those Americans,
have something in them extremely barbarous, which at first disgusts. We
grow reconciled to them by degrees, and in the end partake of them with
pleasure, the savages themselves are fond of them to distraction," (Moeurs
des Savages, Tom. ii.)
There are indeed a few sounds, that we very generally ass
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