Mr. Oran had long before shown a taste for music, and with some little instruction from a marine officer in the Tornado, had become a proficient on the flute and French horn.[14] He could never be brought to understand the notes; but, from hearing any simple tune played or sung two or three times, he never failed to perform it with great exactness and brilliancy of execution. I shall merely observe, _en passant_, that music appears, from this and several similar circumstances, to be more natural to man than speech. The old captain was fond of his bottle of wine after dinner, and his glass of grog at night. Mr. Oran was easily brought to sympathise in this taste;[15] and they have many times sat up together half the night over a flowing bowl, the old captain singing Rule Britannia, True Courage, or Tom Tough, and Sir Oran accompanying him on the French horn. During a summer tour in Devonshire, I called on my old friend Captain Hawltaught, and was introduced to Mr. Oran. You, who have not forgotten my old speculations on the origin and progress of man, may judge of my delight at this happy _rencontre_. I exerted all the eloquence I was master of to persuade Captain Hawltaught to resign him to me, that I might give him a philosophical education.[16] Finding this point unattainable, I took a house in the neighbourhood, and the intercourse which ensued was equally beneficial and agreeable to all three. _Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ And what part did you take in their nocturnal concerts, with Tom Tough and the French horn? _Mr. Forester._ I was seldom present at them, and often remonstrated, but ineffectually, with the captain, on his corrupting the amiable simplicity of the natural man by this pernicious celebration of vinous and spirituous orgies; but the only answer I could ever get from him was a hearty damn against all water-drinkers, accompanied with a reflection that he was sure every enemy to wine and grog must have clapped down the hatches of his conscience on some secret villainy, which he feared good liquor would pipe ahoy; and he usually concluded by striking up _Nothing like Grog_, _Saturday Night_, or _Swing the flowing Bowl_, his friend Oran’s horn ringing in sympathetic symphony. The old captain used to say that grog was the elixir of life: but it did not prove so to him; for one night he tossed off his last bumper, sang his last stave, and heard the last flourish of his Oran’s horn. I thought poor Oran would have broken his heart; and, had he not been familiarised to me, and conceived a very lively friendship for me before the death of his old friend, I fear the consequences would have been fatal.