Erin! thy silent tear never shall cease, Thy various tints unite, OH! BREATHE NOT HIS NAME. OH! breathe not his name; let it sleep in the shade, But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps. WHEN HE WHO ADORES THEE. WHEN he who adores thee has left but the name Of his fault and his sorrows behind, Oh! say, wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame Yes, weep, and however my foes may condemn, For Heaven can witness, though guilty to them, With thee were the dreams of my earliest love; In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above, Oh! blest are the lovers and friends who shall live But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give Is the pride of thus dying for thee. THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS. THE harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts, that once beat high for praise, No more to chiefs and ladies bright The chord alone, that breaks at night, Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, Is when some heart indignant breaks, FLY NOT YET. FLY not yet; 'tis just the hour And maids who love the moon. 'Twas but to bless these hours of shade Fly not yet; the fount that played To burn when night was near, And thus should woman's heart and looks When did morning ever break, OH THINK NOT MY SPIRITS ARE ALWAYS AS LIGHT. On! think not my spirits are always as light, And as free from a pang, as they seem to you now: Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow. No;-life is a waste of wearisome hours, Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns, And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers Is always the first to be touched by the thorns. * Solis Fons, near the Temple of Ammon. Y George II. that memorable exclamation, "Cursed be the laws which deprive me of such subjects !" 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 opinion that none of the Scotch popular airs are as old as the middle the sixteenth century; and though musical antiquaries refer us 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,* &c.) which can claim quite so ancient a date as Mr. Pinkerton allows to the Scotch. But music is not the only subject upon which our taste for antiquity is rather unreasonably indulged; and, however heretical it may be to dissent from these romantic speculations, I cannot help thinking that it is possible to love our country very zealously, and to feel deeply interested in her honour and happiness, without believing that Irish was the language spoken in Paradiset-that our ancestors were kind enough to take the trouble of polishing the Greeks-or that Abaris, the Hyperborean, was a native of the north of Ireland. § By some of these archeologists it has been imagined that the Irish were early acquainted with the counterpoint, || and they endeavour to support this conjecture 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 anything of the artifice of counterpoint. There are many expressions in the Greek and Latin writers which might be cited with much more plausibility to prove that they understood the arrangement of music in parts; yet I believe * 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. + See Advertisement to the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin. O'Halloran, vol. i., part i., chap. vi. § Id. ib., chap. vii. 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 must agree with Mersenne, (Preludes de l'Harmonie, quest. 7,) that the theory of music would be imperfect without it; and, even ir. practice, as Tosi, among others, very justly remarks, (Observations on Florid Song, chap. i., § 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 pianoforte. The effect of modulation by enharmonic transitions is also very striking and beautiful, Η The words ποικιλια and ἑτεροφωνια, in a passage of Plato, and some expressions of Cicero, in fragment, lib. ii., De Republ., induced the Abbé Fraguier to maintain that the ancients had a knowledge of counterpoint. M. Burette, however, has answered him, I think, satisfactorily, ("Examen d'un Passage de Platon," in the third volume of Histoire de l'Acad.) M. Huet is of opinion (Pensées Diverses) that what Cicero says of the music of the 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 song" 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 refractory subjects to the harmonist. It was only when the invention of Guido began to be known, and the powers of the harp + were enlarged by additional strings, that our melodies took the sweet character which interests us at present; and while the Scotch persevered in the old mutilation of the scale,+ our music became gradually more amenable to the laws of harmony and counterpoint. 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 spheres, in his dream of Scipio, is sufficient to prove an acquaintance with harmony; but one of the strongest passages which I recollect in favour of the supposition occurs in the Treatise, attributed to Aristotle, IIept KooμovΜουσικη δε όξεις άμα και βαρεις, κ. τ. λ. * Another lawless peculiarity of our music is the frequency of what composers call consecutive fifths; but this is an irregularity which can hardly be avoided by persons not very conversant with the rules of composition; indeed, if I may venture to cite my own wild attempts in this way, it is a fault which find myself continually committing, and which has sometimes appeared so pleasing to my ear that I have surrendered it to the critic with considerable reluctance. May there not be a little pedantry in adhering too rigidly to this rule? I have been told that there are instances in 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. A singular oversight occurs in an Essay on the Irish Harp by Mr. Beauford, which is inserted in the Appendix to Walker's Historical Memoirs, "The Irish," says he, "according to Bromton, in the reign of Henry II., had two kinds of harps, 'Hibernici tamen in duobus musici generis instrumentis, 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 passage 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 lyrâ, tympano et choro, ac Wallia citharâ, tubis et chorâ Hibernici, tamen in duobus musici generis instrumentis, quamvis præcipitem et velocem, suavem tamen et jucundam, crispatis modulis et intricatis notulis, efficiunt harmoniam." (Hist. Anglic. Script., p. 1075.) I should not have thought this error worth remarking, but that the compiler of the Dissertation 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 formerly the same passion for robbing us of our saints, and the learned Dempster was, for this offence, called "The Saint-stealer." N has preserved itself free from all tinge of foreign innovation,* and ne 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," the pure gold of the melody shines through the ungraceful foliage which surrounds it; and the most delicate and difficult duty of a compiler is to endeavour, as much 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. I must again observe that, in doubting the antiquity of our music, my scepticism extends but to those polished specimens of the art. which it is difficult to conceive anterior to the dawn of modern improvement; and that I would by no means invalidate the claims of Ireland to as early a rank in the annals of minstrelsy as the most zealous antiquary may be inclined to allow her. In addition, indeed, to the power which music must always have possessed over the minds of a people so ardent and susceptible, the stimulus of persecution was not wanting to quicken our taste into enthusiasm ; the charms of song were ennobled with the glories of martyrdom, and the acts against minstrels in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth were as successful, I doubt not, in making my countrymen musicians as the penal laws have been in keeping them Catholics. With respect to the verses which I have written for these melo. dies, 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 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 tender ness. Though the humble nature of my contributions to this work may exempt them from the rigours of literary criticism, it was not to be expected that those touches of political feeling, those tones of national complaint, in which the poetry sometimes sympathises 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 politics—as fair and precious vessels (to borrow an image * Among other false refinements of the art, our music (with the exception, perhaps, of the air called "Mamma, Mamma," and one or two more of the same ludicrous description) has avoided that puerile mimicry of natural noises, motions, &c., which disgraces so often the works of even the great Handel himself. D'Alembert ought to have had better taste than to become the patron of this imitative affectation, (Discours Préliminaire 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, Eneid, lib. 6, v. 204. See Letters, under the signatures of "Timæus," &c., in the Morning Post, Pilot, and other papers. |