290

Oh! the heart that has truly loved, never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,

As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turn'd when he rose!

No. III.

ΤΟ

THE MARCHIONESS DOWAGER OF DONEGAL.

WHILE the Publisher of these Melodies very properly
inscribes them to the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland
in general, I have much pleasure in selecting one from
that number to whom my share of the Work is parti-
cularly dedicated. Though your Ladyship has been
so long absent from Ireland, I know that you remem-
her it well and warmly-that you have not allowed the
charm of English society, like the taste of the lotus, to
produce oblivion of your country, but that even the
humble tribute which I offer derives its chief claim
upon your interest from the appeal which it makes
Indeed, absence, however fatal to
to your patriotism.
some affections of the heart, rather strengthens our
love for the land where we were born; and Ireland is
the country, of all others, which an exile must remem-
ber with enthusiasm. Those few darker and less amia-
ble traits, with which bigotry and misrule have stained
her character, and which are too apt to disgust us upon
a nearer intercourse, become softened at a distance, or

altogether invisible; and nothing is remembered but
her virtues and her misfortunes-the zeal with which
she has always loved liberty, and the barbarous policy
which has always withheld it from her-the ease with
which her generous spirit might be conciliated, and
wring
the cruel ingenuity which has been exerted to
her into undutifulness. »

It has often been remarked, and oftener felt, that

of Charles and his ministers, and remembering just enough of past sufferings to enhance the generosity of their present sacrifice. The plaintive melodies of Carolan take us back to the times in which he lived, when our poor countrymen were driven to worship their God in caves, or to quit for ever the land of their birth (like the bird that abandons the nest which human touch has violated); and in many a song do we hear the last farewell of the exile, mingling regret for the ties he leaves at home, with sanguine expectations of the honours that await him abroad-such honours as were won on the field of Fontenoy, where the valour of Irish Catholics turned the fortune of the day in favour of the French, and extorted from George the Second that memorable exclamation,

deprive me of such subjects!»

Cursed be the laws which

Though much has been said of the antiquity of our music, it is certain that our finest and most popular airs are modern; and perhaps we may look no further than the last disgraceful century for the origin of most of those wild and melancholy strains, which were at once the offspring and solace of grief, and which were applied to the mind, as music was formerly to the body,

decantare loca dolentia.»>

Mr Pinkerton is of opi

nion that none of the Scotch popular airs are as old as the middle of the sixteenth century; and, though musical antiquaries refer us, for some of our melodies, to so early a period as the fifth century, I am persuaded that there are few, of a civilized description (and by this I mean to exclude all the savage Ceanans, cries,3 etc.), which can claim quite so ancient a date as Mr

Pinkerton allows to the Scotch. But music is not the

was a native of the North of Ireland.6

By some of these archæologists, it has been imagined that the Irish were early acquainted with counterpoint,7 and they endeavour to support this conjecture

only subject upon which our taste for antiquity is rather unreasonably indulged; and, however heretical it cannot help thinking that it is possible to love our may be to dissent from these romantic speculations, I country very zealously, and to feel deeply interested in her honour and happiness, without believing that Irish was the language spoken in Paradise; that our ancestors were kind enough to take the trouble of poour music is the truest of all comments upon our his-lishing the Greeks; or that Abaris, the Hyperborean, tory. The tone of defiance, succeeded by the languor of despondency- a burst of turbulence dying away into softness-the sorrows of one moment lost in the levity of the next-and all that romantic mixture of mirth and sadness, which is naturally produced by the efforts of a lively temperament, to shake off, or forget, the wrongs which lie upon it :-such are the features of our history and character, which we find strongly and faithfully reflected in our music; and there are many airs which, I think, it is difficult to listen to, without recalling some period or event to which their expression seems peculiarly applicable. Sometimes, when the strain is open and spirited, yet shaded here and there by a mournful recollection, we can fancy that we behold the brave allies of Montrose, marching to the aid of the royal cause, notwithstanding all the perfidy

A phrase which occurs in a letter from the Earl of Desmond to the Earl of Ormond, in Elizabeth's time.-Serinia Sacra, as quoted by Curry.

There are some gratifying accounts of the gallantry of these Irish auxiliaries in The Complete History of the Wars in Scotland, under Montrose,s (1660). See particularly, for the conduct of an Irishman at the battle of Aberdeen, chap. 6, p. 49; and, for a tribute to the bravery of Colonel O'Kyan, chap. 7, p. 55. Clarendon owns that the Marquis of Montrose was indebted for much of his miraculous sucess to this smail band of Irish heroes under Macdonnell.

1 The Associations of the Hindò Music, though more obvious and defined, were far less touching and characteristic. They divided their Jones) they were able to recal the memory of autumnal merriment, 500gs according to the seasons of the year, by which (says Sir William at the close of the harvest, or of separation and melancholy during Asiatic Transactions, vol. 3, on the Musical the cold months, etc. Modes of the Hindus. What the Abbé du Bos says of the symphobold and impassioned airs: Elles auroient produit de ces effets, pies of Lully, may be asserted, with much more probability, of our qui nous paroissent fabuleux dans le récit des anciens, si on les

avoit fait entendre à des hommes d'un naturel aussi vif que les Athéniens. » -- Reflex, sur la Peinture, etc. tom. 1, sect. 45,

Dissertation, prefixed to the second volume of his Scottish Ballads. Of which some genuine specimens may be found at the end of Mr Walker's work upon the Irish Bards. Mr Bunting has disfigured his last splendid volume by too many of these barbarous rhapsodies. 4 See Advertisement to the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin.

O'llalloran, vol. 1, part. 1, chap. 6.

Id. ib. chap. 7.

It is also supposed, but with as little proof, that they understood the diésis, or enharmonic interval.-The Greeks seem to have formed their ears to this delicate gradation of sound: and, whatever difficulties or objections may lie in the way of its practical use, we mu. agree with Mersenne (Préludes de l'Harmonie, quest. 7), that the

by a well-known passage in Giraldus, where he dilates,
with such elaborate praise, upon the beauties of our
national minstrelsy. But the terms of this eulogy are
too vague, too deficient in technical accuracy, to prove
that even Giraldus himself knew any thing of the ar-
tifice of counter-point. There are many expressions
in the Greek and Latin writers which might be cited,
with much more plausibility, to prove that they under-
stood the arrangement of music in parts; yet I be-
lieve it is conceded in general by the learned, that,
however grand and pathetic, the melody of the ancients
may have been, it was reserved for the ingenuity of
modern Science to transmit the light of Songs through
the variegating prism of Harmony.
Indeed the irregular scale of the early Irish (in which,
as in the music of Scotland, the interval of the fourth
was wanting) must have furnished but wild and re-
fractory subjects to the harmonist. It was only when
the invention of Guido began to be known, and the
powers of the harp3 were enlarged by additional strings,
that our melodies took the sweet character which in-
terests us at present; and, while the Scotch persevered
in the old mutilation of the scale, our music became

theory of music would be imperfect without it; and, even in prac tice (as Tosi, among others, very justly remarks, Observations on Florid Song, chap. 1, sec. 16), there is no good performer on the violin who does not make a sensible difference between D sharp and E flat, though, from the imperfection of the instrument, they are the same notes upon the piano-forte. The effect of modulation by enharmonic transitions is also very striking and beautiful.

gradually more amenable to the laws of harmony and counter-point.

In profiting, however, by the improvements of the moderns, our style still kept its originality sacred from their refinements; and, though Carolan had frequent opportunities of hearing the works of Geminiani, and other masters, we but rarely find him sacrificing his native simplicity to the ambition of their ornaments, or affectation of their science. In that curious composition, indeed, called his Concerto, it is evident that he laboured to imitate Corelli; and this union of manners, so very dissimilar, produces the same kind of uneasy sensation which is felt at a mixture of different styles of architecture. In general, however, the artless flow of our music has preserved itself free from all tinge of foreign innovation,' and the chief corruptions, of which we have to complain, arise from the unskilful performance of our own itinerant musicians, from whom, too frequently, the airs are noted down, encumbered by their tasteless decorations, and responsible for all their ignorant anomalies. Though it be sometimes impossible to trace the original strain, yet, in most of them, auri per ramos aura refulget,▾2 the pure gold of the melody shines through the ungraceful difficult duty of a compiler is to endeavour, as much foliage which surrounds it; and the most delicate and as possible, by retrenching these inelegant superfluities, and collating the various methods of playing or singing each air, to restore the regularity of its form, and the chaste simplicity of its character.

her.

The words Totxλdex and ét spopata, in a passage of Plato, I must again observe, that, in doubting the antiand some expressions of Cicero, in Fragment. lib. ii, de Republ., quity of our music, my scepticism extends but to those induced the Abbé Fragnier to maintain that the ancients had a knowledge of counter-point. M. Burette, however, has answered polished specimens of the art, which it is difficult to conbim, I think, satisfactorily.-(Examen d'un passage de Platon, in ceive anterior to the dawn of modern improvement; the 3d vol. of Histoire de l'Acad.) M. Huet is of opinion (Pensées and that I would by no means invalidate the claims of Diverses) that what Cicero says of the music of the spheres, in his Ireland to as early a rank in the annals of minstrelsy dream of Scipio, is sufficient to prove an acquaintance with baras the most zealous antiquary may be inclined to allow mony; but one of the strongest passages which I recollect in favour of the supposition, occurs in the Treatise, attributed to Aristotle, In addition, indeed, to the power which music Hept Koguou-Mouston de ošets apa nui fapets, z... must always have possessed over the minds of a people Another lawless peculiarity of our music is the frequency of what 'so ardent and susceptible, the stimulus of persecution composers call consecutive fifths; but this is au irregularity which can bardly le avoided by persons not very conversant with the rules the charms of song were ennobled with the glories of was not wanting to quicken our taste into enthusiasm; of composition; indeed, if I may venture to cite my own wild attempts in this way, it is a fault which I find myself continually martyrdom, and the acts against minstrels, in the reigns committing, and which has sometimes appeared so pleasing to any of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, were as successful, I ear, that I have surrendered it to the critic with considerable re- doubt not, in making my countrymen musicians, as luctance. May there not be a little pedantry in adhering too rigidly to this rule?-I have been told that there are instances in the penal laws have been in keeping them Catholics. Haydn of an undisguised succession of fifths; and Mr Shield, in his Introduction to Harmony, seems to intimate that Handel has been sometimes guilty of the same irregularity.

3 A singular oversight occurs in an Essay upon the Irish Harp, by Mr Beauford, which is inserted in the Appendix to Walker's Historical Memoirs. The Irish (says be), according to Bromton, in the reign of Henry II, had two kinds of harps, Hibernici tamen in duobus masici generis instrumeutis, quamvis præcipitem et velocem, suavem tamen et jucundam,' the one greatly bold and quick, the other soft and pleasing. -How a man of Mr Beauford's learning could so mistake the meaning, and mutilate the grammatical construction of, this extract, is unaccountable. The following is the passag as I find it entire in Bromton, and it requires but little Latin to perceive the injustice which has been done to the words of the old chronicler :- Et cum Scotia, hujus terræ filia, utatur iyra, tympano et choro, ac Wallia cithara, tubis et choro Hibernici tamen in duobus musici generis instrumentis, quamvis precipitem et velocem, s: avem tamen et jucndam, crispatis modulis et intricatis notulis, efficiunt harmoniam.» -Hist. Angelic. Script, pag. 1975. I should not have thought this error worth remarking, but that the compiler of the Disseriation on the Harp, prefixed to Mr Bunting's last Work, has adopted it implicitly.

The Scotch lay claim to some of our best airs, but there are strong traits of difference between their melodies and ours. They had for

With respect to the verses which I have written for these Melodies, as they are intended rather to be sung than read, I can answer for their sound with somewhat more confidence than their sense; yet, it would be affectation to deny that I have given much attention to

merly the same passion for robbing us of our Saints, and the learned Dempster was, for this offence, called The Saint Stealer. I sup pose it was an Irishman who, by way of reprisal, stole Dempster's beautiful wife from him at Pisa.-See this anecdote in the PinacaLeca of Erytbræus, part 1, page 25.

Among other false refinements of the art, our music (with the except on perhaps of the air called « Mamma, Mamma, and one or two more of the same ludicrous description) las avoided that puerile mimickry of natural noises, motions, etc, which disgraces so often the works of even the great Bandel himself. D'Alembert ought to have had better taste than to become the patron of this imitative affectation. Disccurs Prél'minaire de l'Encyclopédie.—The reader may find some good remarks on the subject in Avison upon Musical Expression; a work which, though under the name of Avison, was written, it is said, by Dr Brown.

* Virgil, Æneid, lib. 6, v. 204.

the task, and that it is not through want of zeal or industry, if I unfortunately disgrace the sweet airs of my country, by poetry altogether unworthy of their taste, their energy, and their tenderness.

Though the humble nature of my contributions to this work may exempt them from the rigours of literary criticisms, it was not to be expected that those touches of political feeling, those tones of national complaint, in which the poetry sometimes sympathizes with the music, would be suffered to pass without censure or alarm. It has been accordingly said, that the tendency of this publication is mischievous,' and that I have chosen these airs but as a vehicle of dangerous politicsas fair and precious vessels (to borrow an image of St Augustin) from which the wine of error might be administered. To those who identify nationality with treason, and who see, in every effort for Ireland, a system of hostility towards England,- -to those too, who, nursed in the gloom of prejudice, are alarmed by the faintest gleam of liberality that threatens to disturb their darkness (like that Demophon of old, who, when the sun shone upon him, shivered!3)-to such men I shall not deign to apologize for the warmth of any political sentiment which may occur in the course of these pages. But, as there are many, among the more wise and tolerant, who, with feeling enough to mourn over the wrongs of their country, and sense enough to perceive all the danger of not redressing them, may yet think that allusions in the least degree bold or inflammatory should be avoided in a publication of this popular description-I beg of these respected persons to believe, that there is no one who deprecates more sincerely than I do any appeal to the passions of an ignorant and angry multitude; but, that it is not through that gross and inflammable region of society a work of this nature could ever have been intended to circulate. It looks much higher for its audience and readers-it is found upon the piano-fortes of the rich and the educated-of those who can afford to have their national zeal a little stimulated, without exciting much dread of the excesses into which it may hurry them; and of many, whose nerves may be, now and then, alarmed with advantage, as much more is to be gained by their fears, than could ever be expected from their justice.

Having thus adverted to the principal objection which has been hitherto made to the poetical part of this work, allow me to add a few words in defence of my ingenious coadjutor, Sir John Stevenson, who has been accused of having spoiled the simplicity of the airs, by the chromatic richness of his symphonies, and the elaborate variety of his harmonics. We might cite the example of the admirable Haydn, who has sported through all the mazes of musical science, in his arrangement of the simplest Scottish melodies; but it appears to me, that Sir John Stevenson has brought a national feeling to this task, which it would be in vain to expect from a foreigner, however tasteful or judicious. Through many of his own compositions we trace a vein of Irish sentiment, which points him out as pe

culiarly suited to catch the spirit of his country's music; and, far from agreeing with those critics who think that his symphonies have nothing kindred with the airs which they introduce, I would say that, in general, they resemble those illuminated initials of old manuscripts, which are of the same character with the writing which follows, though more highly coloured' and more curiously ornamented.

In those airs which are arranged for voices, his skill has particularly distinguished itself; and, though it cannot be denied that a single melody most naturally expresses the language of feeling and passion, yet, often, when a favourite strain has been dismissed, as having lost its charm of novelty for the ear, it returns, in a harmonized shape, with new claims upon our interest and attention; and to those who study the delicate artifices of composition, the construction of the inner parts of these pieces must afford, I think, considerable satisfaction. Every voice has an air to itself, a flowing succession of notes, which might be heard with pleasure, independent of the rest, so artfully has the harmonist (if I may thus express it) gavelled the melody, distributing an equal portion of its sweetness to every part.

If your Ladyship's love of Music were not known to me, I should not have hazarded so long a letter upon the subject; but as, probably, I may have presumed too far upon your partiality, the best revenge you can take is to write me just as long a letter upon Painting; and I promise to attend to your theory of the art, with a pleasure only surpassed by that which I have so often derived from your practice of it.-May the mind which such talents adorn, continue calm as it is bright, and happy as it is virtuous!

Believe me, your Ladyship's
Grateful Friend and Servant,

Dublin, January, 1810.

THOMAS MOORE.

ERIN! OH ERIN!
AIR-Thamama Halla.

LIKE the bright lamp that shone in Kildare's holy fane,1
And burn'd through long ages of darkness and storm,
Is the heart that afflictions have come o'er in vain,
Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm!
Erin! oh Erin! thus bright, through the tears
Of a long night of bondage, thy spirit appears!

The nations have fallen, and thou still art young,

Thy sun is but rising, when others are set;
And though slavery's cloud o'er thy morning hath hung,
The full moon of freedom shall beam round thee yet.
Erin! oh Erin! though long in the shade,
Thy star will shine out, when the proudest shall fade!

Unchill'd by the rain, and unwaked by the wind,
The lily lies sleeping through winter's cold hour,

The word chromatic might have been used here, without any violence to its meaning.

The inextinguishable fire of St Bridget, at Kildare, which GiralSee Letters, under the signatures of Timæus, etc. in the Morning dus mentions, Apud Kildariam occurrit Ignis San tæ Brigidæ quem Post, Pilot, and other papers.

inextinguibilem vocant; non quod extingui non possit, sed quod 3. Non accuso verba, quasi vasa electa atque pretioan; sed vinum tam solicite moniales et sanctæ mulieres ignem, suppetente materia, erroris, quod cum eis nobis propinatur.»—Lib, 1. Confess, cap. 16. fovent et nutriunt, ut a tempo e virginis per tot annorum curricula >This emblem of modern bigots was head-butler (pamegomotos) semper mansit inextinctus.»-Giraki, Camb, de Mirabil. Hibern. Dis. to Alexander the Great.—Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypoth. lib. 1.

2, c. 34.