That, in enlightened countries, so many wonders should have been related and credited,--if no phenomena that could justify them were truly observed,--may perhaps on first reflection, appear so unaccountable, as almost to induce belief of the wonders themselves, as less inexplicable than the very credit which was given to them. But it must be remembered, that, in all ages, and even in countries of philosophers, there is a very large fund of credulity in man,--which yields, very readily, to every thing that is not absolutely impossible, and which is even not very nice, in estimating what is impossible,--leaning always, whenever there is the slightest doubt on this point, with a very favourable inclination to the side of the _possibility_;--and, in the second place, that the phenomena of music are precisely of a kind, which gives this credulity the widest scope. They are pleasing in themselves, and of a kind therefore, on which it is gratifying to the imagination to dwell--their influence on the mind is felt in a very high and wonderful degree, even without any fabulous addition;--they are produced by instruments, which seem, in their sensible appearance, so little adequate to the production of them, that the result is almost like the effect of supernatural agency, to which we know not how to give any limits;--and, when a little mystery is once admitted, the imagination, which has fairly got over the difficulty of this first admission, is not very scrupulous afterwards as to degrees, but is sufficiently ready of itself to admit a great deal more, without pausing to consider its exact amount.