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fupply its place. This circulation of warm and cool, i. e. of light and heavy, air, is eafily rendered vifible, in a room where there is a fire, by means of a little smoke.

In the paffage of the electrified vapour to the northward, for inftance, in the form of clouds, great part of it is precipitated, before it arrives at the polar regions, in rain, fnow, or hail. That these contain electric matter, is rendered evident by receiving them in infulated veffels; to which they communicate their electricity.

In the temperate regions, this electricity is readily received and imbibed by the earth; which, in thofe climates, is a good conductor; and which will receive it either filently, conveyed to it by the rain, &c. or fuddenly, in the explofions attending thunder ftorms.

In the cold polar regions, however, the cafe will be different. That part of the electrified vapour which reaches them, and defcends with the fnow, does not fall on a conducting earth; but on a vitriform cake of ice, with which the earth is there eternally covered; and which (particularly when the cold is extreme +) will not conduct electricity. The electric matter therefore not being able to penetrate through this non-conducting ftratum, will be accumulated on the furface of it, as on a plate of glass.

This plate of ice thus becoming overcharged, the electric matter will, at different times, burft from it, as happens when a Leyden vial has been overcharged; and will break through the fuperincumbent atmosphere (lower here than at the equator) till it arrives at the vacuum, or highly rarefied air, above, which is a good conductor; where it will run along towards the equator, diverging as the degrees of longitude enlarge; and exhibiting appearances refembling those which the electric matter is known to prefent, in our experiments made on it, in vacuo.

Thefe are the principal outlines of the Author's hypothefis. The paper itself is thort, and aphoriftical; and is faid to have been read to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, at their meeting after Eafter last year. The Editor has added to it feveral ingenious notes, confifting of illuftrations, queries, fpeculations, &c, and has hazarded a new conjecture on the subject.-For this, however, as well as many other pieces of the Author not noticed by us, we muft refer our Readers to the voJume itfel; not without expreffing our hopes that the ingenious

+ The Author had long ago obferved, that ice, in America, would not conduct a shock. He does not feem to have been acquainted with the late fingular experiments on this fubject, made by M. Achard; who found that, in a very confiderable degree of cold, ice acquired electric qualities nearly approaching thofe of glafs; fo as even to bear a charge, &c.

Editor

Editor will proceed in the pious task of collecting the remaining valuable relics-for many fuch, we are told, exift-of one for whom he expreffes fo great and well founded a veneration.

ARI. V. PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS of the Royal Society of
London. Vol. LXIX. Part 1.
For the Year 1779. 4to.

7 s. 6d. fewed. Davis. 1779.

Music.

T is fortunate that the gifted mufical infant, who is the

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fubject of this curious Article, fhould meet with a cotemporary hiftorian fo well qualified, and fo extenfively and advantageously known in the literary world, as Dr. Burney, to record his marvellous mufical talents and attainments, to which he has himself been an eye-witnefs. Having had repeated opportunities of hearing and ftudying this extraordinary child; and after having afcertained his age by a recourfe to the parifh register; he prefaces his own obfervations on him by a relation, among others, of the following extraordinary facts, preceding his acquaintance with him; and thefe are founded on evidence, the authenticity of which cannot reasonably be difputed.

When he was only a year and a half old, he would leave his food to attend to an organ built by his father; a plain man, who could barely play a few eafy tunes upon it: and when he was two years old, he had acquired fuch a knowledge of the conftruction of that inftrument, or of the fituation of the keys of it, as to touch the key-note of his favourite tunes, in order to point out the particular tune which he wanted his father to play to him. Soon after this, he would strike the two or three first notes of a tune, not being able to name it, when he thought that the key-note alone did not fufficiently explain which he wifhed to have played.

At the precife age of two years and three weeks, he, on a fudden, commenced practical musician himself, to the great furprize of his father, then working in a room above; and who, on coming immediately down ftairs, heard and faw him playing (affifted by an elder brother, whom he had engaged to blow the bellows) the first part of God fave great GEORGE our King: -a melody, which had the most frequently been administered to him as a narcotic by his mother, during the first year of his life,' and which he had often been accustomed to hear his father play. It feems too that his nerves, by this time on the full ftretch, had been exceffively agitated, on hearing the fuperior performance of Mrs. Lulman, a mufical lady, who came to try his father's organ.

The next day, fays Dr. Burney, he made himself master of the treble of the fecond part; and, the day after, he attempted the base, which he performed nearly correct in every particular, REV. Mar. 1780. `except

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except the note immediately before the clofe; which being an octave below the preceding found, was out of the reach of his little hand.'

When he was two years and four months old, (in November 1777) having heard a voluntary performed on his father's organ, by Mr. Mully, a mufic-mafter;- as foon as he was gone, the child feeming to play on the organ in a wild and different manner from what his mother was accustomed to hear, she asked him what he was doing? And he replied," I am playing the gentleman's fine thing." But he was unable to judge of the refemblance: however, when Mr. Mully returned a few days after, and was afked, whether the child had remembered any of the paffages in his voluntary, he answered in the affirmative;-and for a confiderable time after, he would play nothing elfe but thefe paffages."

At this time, fays Dr. Burney, fuch was the rapid progrefs he made in judging of the agreement of founds, that he played the Eafter-Hymn with full harmony; and in the last two or three bars of Hallelujah, where the fame found is sustained, he played chords with both hands, by which the parts were multipled to fix, which he had great difficulty in reaching on account of the shortnefs of his fingers.'-In making a base to tunes which he had recently caught by his ear, whenever the harmony displeafed him, he would continue the treble note till he had formed a better accompaniment."

When Dr. Burney heard him, we apprehend he was about three years and three or four months old. About this time, on first hearing the voice of Signior Pacchierotti, he did not seem fenfible of the fuperior taste and refinement of that exquifite performer;-refinements indeed are not to be expected in the infancy of any art-but he called out very foon after the air was begun-" He is finging in F."-This, adds Dr. Burney, is one of the aftonishing properties of his ear, that he can diftinguifh at a great diftance from any inftrument, and out of light of the keys, any note that is ftruck, whether 4, B, C, &c. In this I have repeatedly tried him, and never found him miftaken even in the half notes; a circumftance the more extraor dinary, as many practitioners and good performers are unable to diftinguifh by the ear, at the opera or elsewhere, in what key any air or piece of mufic is executed.

But this child, Dr. Burney obferves, was able to find any note that was ftruck in his hearing, when out of fight of the keys, at two years and a half old, even before he knew the letters of the alphabet.-This faculty accidentally discovered itself in January 1778. While his father was playing the organ, a particular note hung, or in the organ-builders language, ciphered; fo that the tone was continued without the preffure of

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the finger. The very maker of the inftrument could not find out what note it was: but the infant, who was then amusing himfelf with drawing on the floor-for this child of Apollo is a painter too, as well as musician-left that employment, and going to the organ, immediately laid his hand on the note that ciphered. His father next day purposely caused several notes to cipher fucceffively; all which he inftantly difcovered: and at laft he weakened the fprings of two keys at once, which, by preventing the valves of the wind cheft from clofing, occafioned a double cipher; both of which he directly found out.

Another part of his wonderful prematurity was the being able, at two years and four months old, to tranfpofe into the moft extraneous and difficult keys whatever he played; and now, in his extemporaneous flights, he modulates into all keys with equal facility.'

Our teftimony is by no means neceffary to corroborate that of Dr. Burney; yet it may not be amifs here to obferve that, in September 1778, when he was about three years and nine weeks old, we had repeated occafions of obferving, on his being interrupted in his voluntary playing, (of which he was very fond) by a requeft to play a particular tune; whenever he complied, he fet off in the key he happened to be playing in at the time; and though he thus often became befet with a numerous hoft of flats or fharps, he played with equal facility as in the natural keys. He indeed evidently appeared to poffefs a most intimate knowledge of all the keys, and of their powers; or had present in his mind, a priori, the precife tone which any particular key would produce when put down; and put it down accordingly with as much confidence, as that of a compofitor at the prefs, when he lays hold of a particular letter; or of a painter dipping his pencil into a particular colour. But the compofitor and painter have the actual letter or colour difplayed before them; whereas in the cafe of young Crotch, the found which he feeks is only potential, or in fieri; and has no natural connection with the black or white keys before his eyes. But he did not often condefcend to make use even of his eyes on the occafion. To us it did not appear the least extraordinary part of his performance, that he frequently played for a long time together without once looking at the inftrument, though playing on the most aukward keys; which were therefore now evidently become as familiar to him from feeling, as originally from fight. Dr. Burney has taken notice of the fame circumftance..

The laft qualification which Dr. Burney points out as extraordinary in this infant-musician, is his being able to play an extemporary bafe, though certainly not correct according to the rules of counterpoint, to eafy melodies performed by another

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perfon

perfon on the fame inftrument. In this cafe, he obferves that if the fame paffages are not frequently repeated, the changes of modulation must be few and flow; otherwife correctness cannot be expected, even from a profeffor. He found him as ready too at finding a treble to a bafe, as a bafe to a treble, if played in flow notes, even in chromatic paffages. Thus, fays the Author, if, after the chord of C natural is ftruck, C be made fharp, he foon finds out that A makes a good bafe to it; and, on the contrary, if after the chord of D, with a fharp third, F is made natural, and A is changed into B, he inftantly gives G for the bafe. From a variety of experiments which Dr. Burney tried upon this infant contrapuntift, he felects the following as an example; in which the Doctor played the upper part, and left it to the feelings and genius of young Crotch to follow his lead, and attend him with a proper base.

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Some have confidered harmony as a mere creature of art; but this infant's ready and fpontaneous adoption of it furnishes a proof that its principles are innate in man: though art has greatly improved and refined upon them, fo as to render modern harmony a very complicated and difficult fcience, full of conventional, as well as natural, beauties. The fpecimens that have been exhibited by this young, untutored, and unprejudiced mind are fuch, as cannot be afcribed to a fervile imitation of what he had heard and remembered; but muft owe their origin to certain pleafurable fenfations, excited in him by particular combinations of founds; and instinctively prompting and directing him to the natural accompaniment to a given melody. Inftruction is here out of the queftion. He had never had any, nor was capable of fubmitting or giving attention to any.

Dr. Burney mentions fome other inftances of mufical prodigies; and particularly the two fons of the Rev. Mr. Wefley; the youngest of which, before he was fix years old, arrived at fuch knowledge in mufic, that his extemporary performance on keyed inftruments, like Mozart's, was fo mafterly in point of invention, modulation, and accuracy of execution, as to furpafs, in many particulars, the attainments of moft profeffors at any period of their lives.'-An account of these two young muficians is propofed foon to be given to the Public, by the Hon. Mr. Barrington.

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