s to give a temporary relief in
certain diseases, and even a radical cure. De Mairan, Bianchini, and
other respectable names, have pursued the same career. But the ancients
recorded miracles!

The Rev. Dr. Mitchell, of Brighthelmstone, wrote a dissertation, "_De
Arte Medendi apud Priscos, Musices ope atque Carminum_," printed for J.
Nichols, 1783. He writes under the assumed name of Michael Gaspar; but
whether this learned dissertator be grave or jocular, more than one
critic has not been able to resolve me. I suspect it to be a satire on
the parade of Germanic erudition, by which they often prove a point by
the weakest analogies and most fanciful conceits.

Amongst half-civilized nations, diseases have been generally attributed
to the influence of evil spirits. The depression of mind which is
generally attendant on sickness, and the delirium accompanying certain
stages of disease, seem to have been considered as especially denoting
the immediate influence of a demon. The effect of music in raising the
energies of the mind, or what we commonly call animal spirits, was
obvious to early observation. Its power of attracting strong attention
may in some cases have appeared to affect even those who laboured under
a considerable degree of mental disorder. The accompanying depression of
mind was considered as a part of the disease, perhaps rightly enough,
and music was prescribed as a remedy to remove the symptom, when
experience had not ascertained the probable cause. Homer, whose heroes
exhibit high passions, but not refined manners, represents the Grecian
army as employing music to stay the raging of the plague. The Jewish
nation, in the time of King David, appear not to have been much further
advanced in civilization; accordingly we find David employed in his
youth to remove the mental derangement of Saul by his harp. The method
of cure was suggested as a common one in those days, by Saul's servants;
and the success is not mentioned as a miracle. Pindar, with poetic
licence, speaks of AEsculapius healing acute disorders with soothing
songs; but AEsculapius, whether man or deity, or between both, is a
physician of the days of barbarism and fable. Pliny scouts the idea that
music could affect real bodily injury, but quotes Homer on the subject;
mentions Theophrastus as suggesting a tune for the cure of the hip gout,
and Cato as entertaining a fancy that it had a good effect when limbs
were out of joint, and likewise that Va