ted what no other medicine
could.

I now prepare to give the reader some _facts_, which he may consider as
a trial of credulity.--Their authorities are, however, not
contemptible.--Naturalists assert that animals and birds, as well as
"knotted oaks," as Congreve informs us, are sensible to the charms of
music. This may serve as an instance:--An officer was confined in the
Bastile; he begged the governor to permit him the use of his lute, to
soften, by the harmonies of his instrument, the rigours of his prison.
At the end of a few days, this modern Orpheus, playing on his lute, was
greatly astonished to see frisking out of their holes great numbers of
mice, and descending from their woven habitations crowds of spiders, who
formed a circle about him, while he continued breathing his
soul-subduing instrument. He was petrified with astonishment. Having
ceased to play, the assembly, who did not come to see his person, but to
hear his instrument, immediately broke up. As he had a great dislike to
spiders, it was two days before he ventured again to touch his
instrument. At length, having overcome, for the novelty of his company,
his dislike of them, he recommenced his concert, when the assembly was
by far more numerous than at first; and in the course of farther time,
he found himself surrounded by a hundred _musical amateurs_. Having thus
succeeded in attracting this company, he treacherously contrived to get
rid of them at his will. For this purpose he begged the keeper to give
him a cat, which he put in a cage, and let loose at the very instant
when the little hairy people were most entranced by the Orphean skill he
displayed.

The Abbe Olivet has described an amusement of Pelisson during his
confinement in the Bastile, which consisted in feeding a spider, which
he had discovered forming its web in the corner of a small window. For
some time he placed his flies at the edge, while his valet, who was with
him, played on a bagpipe: little by little, the spider used itself to
distinguish the sound of the instrument, and issued from its hole to run
and catch its prey. Thus calling it always by the same sound, and
placing the flies at a still greater distance, he succeeded, after
several months, to drill the spider by regular exercise, so that at
length it never failed appearing at the first sound to seize on the fly
provided for it, even on the knees of the prisoner.

Marville has given us the following curious anecdote on t