The passage is so entertaining, that it admits of transcription.

"After food, when the operations of digestion and absorption give so much employment to the vessels, that a temporary state of mental repose must be found, especially in hot climates, essential to health, it seems reasonable to believe that a few agreeable airs, either heard or played without effort, must have all the good effects of sleep, and none of its disadvantages; putting the soul in tune, as Milton says, for any subsequent exertion; an experiment often successfully made by myself. I have been assured by a credible eye-witness, that two wild antelopes used often to come from their woods to the place where a more savage beast, Siràjuddaulah, entertained himself with concerts, and that they listened to the strains with an appearance of pleasure, till the monster, in whose soul there was no music, shot one of them to display his archery. A learned native told me, that he had frequently seen the most venomous and malignant snakes leave their holes upon hearing tunes on a flute, which, as he supposed, gave them peculiar delight. An intelligent Persian declared he had more than once been present, when a celebrated lutanist, surnamed Bulbul, (i. e. the nightingale) was playing to a large company, in a grove near Schiraz, where he distinctly saw the nightingales trying to vie with the musician, sometimes warbling

on the trees, sometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wished to approach the instrument, and at length dropping on the ground in a kind of extacy, from which they were soon raised, he assured me, by a change of the mode."

: Some of the anecdotes in this article have a ludicrous air; yet those of the modern traveller seem to confirm them; while the effects of music, as detailed by Sir William Jones, on the softer animals and birds, may not appear less strange, though their veracity cannot be equally doubtful.

Who will deny, as that late pleasing composer, Jackson of Exeter, in his thirty letters does, that music cannot raise in man any passion? In reply to the question of Dryden, "What pas

sion cannot music raise or quell?" he sarcastically returns, "What passion can music raise or quell?" Few men, even with an indifferent ear, but feel the passions which music inspires. Would not a savage, who had never listened to a musical instrument, feel certain emotions at listening to one for the first time. But civilized man is no doubt particularly affected by association of ideas, as all pieces of national inusic evidently prove.

The RANS DES VACHES, mentioned by Rousseau, in his dictionary of music, though without any thing striking in the composition, has such a powerful influence over the Swiss, and impresses

them with so violent a desire to return to their own country, that it is forbidden to be played in the Swiss Regiments, in the French service, on pain of death. There is also a Scotch tune, which has the same effect on some of our North Britons. In one of the late battles in Calabria, a bagpiper of the 78th Highland Regiment, when the light infantry charged the French, posted himself on their right, and remained in his solitary situation during the whole of the battle, encouraging the men with a famous Highland charging tune; and actually upon the retreat and complete rout of the French changed it to another, equally celebrated in Scotland upon the retreat of and victory over an enemy. His next hand neighbour guarded him so well that he escaped unhurt. This was the spirit of the "Last Minstrel," who infused courage among his countrymen, by possessing it in so animated a degree and in so venerable a cha

racter.

MINUTE WRITING.

The Iliad of Homer in a nutshell, which Pliny says that Cicero once saw, it is pretended might have been a fact, however to some it may appear impossible. Ælian notices an artist who wrote a distich in letters of gold, which he inclosed in the rind of a grain of corn.

Antiquity, and modern times record many such

penmen, whose glory consisted in writing in so small a hand that the writing could not be legible to the naked eye. One wrote a verse of Homer on a grain of millet, and another more indefatigably trifling, transcribed the whole Iliad in so confined a space, that it could be inclosed in a nutshell. Menage mentions, he saw whole sen-> tences which were not perceptible to the eye without the microscope; and pictures and portraits, which appeared at first to be lines and scratches thrown down at random; one of them formed the face of the Dauphiness, with the most pleasing delicacy and correct resemblance. He read an Italian poem, in praise of this princess, containing some thousands of verses, written by an officer in a space of a foot and half. This species of curious idleness has not been lost in our own country; about a century ago, this minute writing was a fashionable curiosity. A drawing of the head of Charles I. is in the library of St. John's College at Oxford. It is wholly composed of minute written characters, which at a small distance resemble the lines of engraving. The lines of the head, andthe ruff, are said to contain the book of Psalms, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. In the British Museum we find a drawing representing the portrait of Queen Anne, not much above the size of the hand.

ber of lines and

On this drawing appear a numscratches, which the librarian

assures the marvelling spectator, includes the entire contents of a thin folio, which on this occasion is carried in the hand.

On this subject it may be worth noticing that the learned Huet, asserts that he, like the rest of the world, for a long time considered as a fiction the story of that industrious writer, who is said to have inclosed the Iliad in a nutshell. But having examined the matter more closely, he thought it possible. One day in company at the Dauphin's, this learned man trifled half an hour in proving it. A piece of vellum, about ten inches in length and eight in width, pliant and firm, can be folded up and inclosed in the shell of a large walnut. It can hold in its breadth one line, which can contain 30 verses, and in its length 250 lines. With a crowquill the writing can be perfect. A page of this piece of vellum will then contain 7500 verses, and the reverse as much; the whole 15,000 verses of the Iliad. And this he proved in their presence, by using a piece of paper, and with a common pen. The thing is possible to be ef fected; and if some occasion should happen, when paper is excessively rare; it may be useful to know, that a volume of matter may be contained in a very small space.

NUMERAL FIGURES.

THE learned, after many contests, have at length