attack. Moreover, by means of intoxicating music a kind of
demoniacal festival for the rude multitude was established, which
had the effect of spreading this unhappy malady wider and wider.
Soft harmony was, however, employed to calm the excitement of
those affected, and it is mentioned as a character of the tunes
played with this view to the St. Vitus's dancers, that they
contained transitions from a quick to a slow measure, and passed
gradually from a high to a low key. It is to be regretted that no
trace of this music has reached out times, which is owing partly
to the disastrous events of the seventeenth century, and partly to
the circumstance that the disorder was looked upon as entirely
national, and only incidentally considered worthy of notice by
foreign men of learning. If the St. Vitus's dance was already on
the decline at the commencement of the seventeenth century, the
subsequent events were altogether adverse to its continuance.
Wars carried on with animosity, and with various success, for
thirty years, shook the west of Europe; and although the
unspeakable calamities which they brought upon Germany, both
during their continuance and in their immediate consequences, were
by no means favourable to the advance of knowledge, yet, with the
vehemence of a purifying fire, they gradually effected the
intellectual regeneration of the Germans; superstition, in her
ancient form, never again appeared, and the belief in the dominion
of spirits, which prevailed in the middle ages, lost for ever its
once formidable power.



CHAPTER II--THE DANCING MANIA IN ITALY