Arion made fishes follow him, which, as common experience evinceth, [3479] are much affected with music.  All singing birds are much pleased with it, especially nightingales, if we may believe Calcagninus; and bees amongst the rest, though they be flying away, when they hear any tingling sound, will tarry behind. [3480]"Harts, hinds, horses, dogs, bears, are exceedingly delighted with it.”  Scal, exerc. 302. Elephants, Agrippa adds, lib. 2. cap. 24. and in Lydia in the midst of a lake there be certain floating islands (if ye will believe it), that after music will dance.

But to leave all declamatory speeches in praise [3481]of divine music, I will confine myself to my proper subject:  besides that excellent power it hath to expel many other diseases, it is a sovereign remedy against [3482] despair and melancholy, and will drive away the devil himself.  Canus, a Rhodian fiddler, in [3483]Philostratus, when Apollonius was inquisitive to know what he could do with his pipe, told him, “That he would make a melancholy man merry, and him that was merry much merrier than before, a lover more enamoured, a religious man more devout.”  Ismenias the Theban, [3484]Chiron the centaur, is said to have cured this and many other diseases by music alone:  as now they do those, saith [3485]Bodine, that are troubled with St. Vitus’s Bedlam dance. [3486]Timotheus, the musician, compelled Alexander to skip up and down, and leave his dinner (like the tale of the Friar and the Boy), whom Austin, de civ.  Dei, lib. 17. cap. 14. so much commends for it.  Who hath not heard how David’s harmony drove away the evil spirits from king Saul, 1 Sam. xvi. and Elisha when he was much troubled by importunate kings, called for a minstrel, “and when he played, the hand of the Lord came upon him,” 2 Kings iii.  Censorinus de natali, cap. 12. reports how Asclepiades the physician helped many frantic persons by this means, phreneticorum mentes morbo turbatas—­Jason Pratensis, cap. de Mania, hath many examples, how Clinias and Empedocles cured some desperately melancholy, and some mad by this our music.  Which because it hath such excellent virtues, belike [3487]Homer brings in Phemius playing, and the Muses singing at the banquet of the gods.  Aristotle, Polit. l. 8. c. 5, Plato 2. de legibus, highly approve it, and so do all politicians.  The Greeks, Romans, have graced music, and made it one of the liberal sciences, though it be now become mercenary.  All civil Commonwealths allow it:  Cneius Manlius (as [3488]Livius relates) anno ab urb. cond. 567. brought first out of Asia to Rome singing wenches, players, jesters, and all kinds of music to their feasts.  Your princes, emperors, and persons of any quality, maintain it in their courts; no mirth without music.  Sir Thomas More, in his absolute Utopian commonwealth, allows music as an appendix to every meal, and that throughout, to all sorts.  Epictetus calls mensam