A little lizard (the _anolis_) in the West Indies, and snakes in North Africa and India, are attracted by the notes of a rude pipe; to deny this is futile; it has been proved in modern days, and the fact is noticed in Scripture. Some animals, when certain notes are struck, or certain keys tried over, are decidedly agitated, and perhaps feel as we do when some horrid sound "sets our teeth on edge,"--that is, irritates by a mysterious sympathy the whole nervous system. In the same way, perhaps, are animals pleased with certain sounds; that is, a sympathetic tranquillity or pleasing excitement of the nervous system is produced, and they yield, instinctively, to "the voice of the charmer." With regard to ourselves, music (we need not enter into a learned explanation of what it is) operates far less upon the reasoning than the instinctive faculties of man. Tones, modulations, swellings, and cadences, though no words be sung, excite all the emotions of which our animal nature is capable. But when words are used--when music is married to immortal verse, and an appeal through language is also made to the mind, then, indeed, the effect is tremendous. A song shouted forth in the streets may overturn an empire. Who knows not what was the effect of the Jacobite songs in Scotland, when Charlie came "o'er the water?" Who knows not the effects resulting from _Caira_ and the Marseillaise Hymn? Whose bosom has not beat high when our own national hymn, when Rule Britannia, and other patriotic airs, have been energetically and effectively delivered? In fine, who is there that is not affected by music? very few; it is and has been a natural expression of human feeling appealing to human feeling, since the time of Jubal even unto the present day; and Miriam's song of triumph, and the songs (how mournful!) of the daughters of Judah on the willowy banks of Babel's rivers, were equally expressive of natural emotions. Music, then, without words, appeals rather to our animal feelings than to our reason or mind; music, with suitable words, appeals both to our animal feelings and our mind; and music, with merely recollected words, does the same by concatenation of ideas; and this also is often the result of tones, passages, and cadences, to which we have never heard words applied; hence, we talk of a lively air, a merry air, a martial air, a melancholy air; and hence a great poet wrote-- "That strain again! it had a dying fall. Oh! it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour."