On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays,' He sees the round towers of other days, From the heretic girl of my soul shall I fly, COME, SEND ROUND THE WINE. AIR-We brought the Summer with us. COME, Send round the wine, and leave points of belief To simpleton sages, and reasoning fools; This moment 's a flower too fair and brief, To be wither'd and stain'd by the dust of the schools. Your glass may be purple and mine may be blue, But, while they are fill'd from the same bright bowl, The fool who would quarrel for difference of hue Deserves not the comfort they shed o'er the soul. Shall I ask the brave soldier, who fights by my side In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree? Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried, If he kneel not before the same altar with me? It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden overflowing the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under the water. ■ Piscatores aquæ illius turres ecclesiasticas, quæ more patriæ arcte sunt et aliæ, necnon et rotunde, sub undis manifeste, sereno tempore conspiciunt et extraneis transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus, frequenter ostendunt. Topogr. Hib. Dist. a. c. 9. To make this story intelligible in a song, would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorised to inflict upon an audience at once; the reader must therefore be content to learn, in a note, that Fionnuala, the daughter of Lir, was, by some supernatural power, transformed into a swan, and condemned to wander, for many hundred years, over certain lakes and rivers in Ireland, till the coming of Christianity, when the first sound of the mass-bell was to be the signal of her release.-I found this fanciful fiction among some manuscript translations from the Irish, which were begun under the direction of that enlightened friend of Ireland, the late Countess of Moira. SUBLIME WAS THE WARNING. SUBLIME was the warning which Liberty spoke, Till it move, like a breeze, o'er the waves of the west- While you add to your garland the Olive of Spain! For the Shamrock of Erin and Olive of Spain! Ye Blakes and O'Donnels, whose fathers resign'd Join, join in our hope that the flame, which you light, God prosper the cause!-oh! it cannot but thrive, Its devotion to feel, and its rights to maintain. BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS. AIR-My Lodging is on the cold Ground. BELIEVE me, if all those endearing young charms, Which I gaze on so fondly to-day, Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms, Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art, It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, Oh! the heart that has truly loved, never forgets, As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets, 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 remember 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 to your patriotism. Indeed, absence, however fatal to 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 remember with enthusiasm. Those few darker and less amiable 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 the cruel ingenuity which has been exerted to « wring 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, « 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 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, 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 archeologists, 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 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 Paradise; that our ancestors were kind enough to take the trouble of po our 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,2 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 Eail of Ormond, in Elizabeth's time.-Scrinia 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 (1660). See particula ly, 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 was that the Marquis of Montrose was ind Eted for much of his miraculous success to this small band of Tri leheroes under Macsandl. 1 The associations of the Hindû Music, though more obvious and ! defined, were far less touching and characteristic. They divided their i songs according to the seasous of the year, by which (says Sir William Jones) they were able to recal the memory of autumnal mefistavat, at the close of the harvest, or of separation and melancholy during, the cold months, etc. Asiatic Transactions, vol. 3, on the Musical | Modes of the Hindus. What the Ablé du Bos says of the symph -8-s of Lully, may be asserted, with much more probability of our by tá and impassioned airs:- Elles auroient produit de cos effets, qui n23 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 Ballaða. * Of which some genuine specimens may be found at the end of Mr Walker's work upon the Irish Barda. Mr Bunting has disbgemi his last splendid volume by too many of these barbarous rhapsodus 4 See Advertisement to the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin. 50'llloran, vol. 1. part 1. 6 Id. ib. chap. 7. It is also supposed, but with as little proof, that they understand the diésis, or enharmonic interval.-The Greeks seem to have forand their cars to this delicate gradation of sound: and, whatever difüi-sities or objections may lie in the way of its practical use, we mus, pre with Mersenne (Préludes de l'Harmonie, quest. 7), that the theory of 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 artifice 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 understood the arrangement of music in parts; yet I believe 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 harp3 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 music would be imperfect without it; and, even in practice (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 respousible 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 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 anti 1 The words 761X1xxiα and iTepoz@vid, in a passage of Plato, and some expressions of Cicero, in Fragment. lib. ii. de Republ., induced the Abbé Fragnier to maintain that the ancients had a know-quity of our music, my scepticism extends but to those ledge of counter-point. M. Burette, however, bas answered him, I think, satisfactorily.(Examen dun passage de Platon, in the 3d vol. of Histoire de l'Acad.) M. Huet is of opinion (Pensées Diverses) that what Cicero says of the music of the spheres, in his dream of Seipio, 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, Пeps Kooμou-her. In addition, indeed, to the power which music Μουσική δε οξεις αμα 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 I 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 he 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 irregu larity. 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 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 hold 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 lyra, tympano et choro, ac Wallia cithara, tubis et choro 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, pag. 1975. 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. 4 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 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 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. merly the same passion for robbing us of our Saints, and the learned Dempster was, for this offence, called The Saint Stealer.. I suppose it was an Irishman, who, by way of reprisal, stole Dempster's beautiful wife from him at Pisa.-See this anecdote in the Pinacotheca of Erythræus, part 1, page 25. 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 mimickry of natural noises, motions, etc. 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 affeetation.-Discours Préliminaire de l'Encyclopédie. The reader may find some good remarks on the subject in Avison upon Musical Fxpression; a work which, though under the name of Arison, wat written, it is said, by Dr Brown. Virgil, Eneid, lib. 6. v. 204. 292 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. 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, consider able 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. 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 politics as fair and precious vessels (to borrow an image of St Augustin2) from which the wine of error might be administered. To those who identify nationality with effort for Ireland, a systreason, and who in every see, tem 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 warrath of any political sentiment which may occur in the course of If your Ladyship's love of Music were not known to these pages. But, as there are many, among the more me, I should not have hazarded so long a letter upor wise and tolerant, who, with feeling enough to mourn may have presumed over the wrongs of their country, and sense enough to the subject; but as, probably, I perceive all the danger of not redressing them, may yet too far upon your partiality, the best revenge you can think that allusions in the least degree bold or inflam- take is to write me just as long a letter upon Painting; and I promise to attend to your theory of the art, with matory should be avoided in a publication of this popular description-I beg of these respected persons to a pleasure only surpassed by that which I have so often believe, that there is no one who deprecates more sin-derived from your practice of it.-May the mind which cerely than I do any appeal to the passions of an iguo- such talents adorn, continue calm as it is bright, and rant and angry multitude; but, that it is not through happy as it is virtuous! 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 harmonies. 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 1 See Letters, under the signatures of Timens, etc. in the Morning Post, Pilot, and other papers. 2. Non accuso verba, quasi vasa electa atque pretiosa; sed vinum erroris, quod cum eis nobis propinatur.-Lib. 1, Confess. cap. 16. Believe me, your Ladyship's Dublin, January, 1810. THOMAS MOORE. ERIN! OH ERIN! LIKE the bright lamp that shone in Kildare's holy fane,' The nations have fallen, and thou still art young, Thy sun is but rising, when others are set; Unchill'd by the rain, and unwaked by the wind, The word chromatics might have been used here, without any violence to its meaning. 2 The inestinguishable fire of St Bridget, at Kildare, which Garal! dus mentions. Apud Kildariam occurrit Ignis Sanctæ Brigidæ, quem i inextinguibilem vocant; non quod extingui non possit, sed quod Les solicite moniales et sanciæ mulieres ignem, suppetente materia, farent This emblem of modern bigots was head-butler (Td30-et nutriunt, ut a tempore virginis per tot annorum curricula semper ποιος) to Alexander the Great-Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypoth, lib. 1. mansit inextinctus.-Girald. Camb. de Mirabil. Hibern. Dis. 2. c. 4. Till spring, with a touch, her dark slumber unbind, And day-light and liberty bless the young flower.' Erin! oh Erin! thy winter is past, And the hope that lived through it shall blossom at last. DRINK TO HER. DRINK to her, who long What gold could never buy. It yields not half the tone." The girl who gave to song At Beauty's door of glass When Wealth and Wit once stood, They ask'd her « which might pass ?>> She answer'd, «he who could.» With golden key Wealth thought To pass-but 't would not do: While Wit a diamond brought, Which cut his bright way through! So here's to her, who long Hath waked the poet's sigh, The girl who gave to song What gold could never buy! The love that seeks a home, That dwells in dark gold mines. But oh! the poet's love Can boast a brighter sphere; Though woman keeps it here! OH! BLAME NOT THE BARD." On! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers, Mrs H. Tighe, in her exquisite lines on the lily, has applied this image to a still more important subject. We may suppose this apology to have been uttered by one of those wandering bards, whom Spencer so severely, and, perhaps, truly. describes in his State of Ireland, and whose poems, he tells us, were sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness unto them, the which it is great pity to see abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which, with good usage, would serve to adorn and beautify virtue.. The string, that now languishes loose o'er the lyre, Might have bent a proud bow to the warrior's dart,' And the lip, which now breathes but the song of desire, Might have pour'd the full tide of a patriot's heart. But alas! for his country-her pride is gone by, For 't is treason to love her, and death to defend. Unprized are her sons, till they 've learn'd to betray; Undistinguish'd they live, if they shame not their sires; And the torch, that would light them through dignity's way, Must be caught from the pile where their country expires! Then blame not the bard, if, in pleasure's soft dream, Through the gloom of his country, and mark how he 'll feel! That instant his heart at her shrine would lay down But, though glory be gone, and though hope fade away, Will he lose the remembrance of thee and thy wrongs! WHILE GAZING ON THE MOON'S LIGHT. AIR-Oonagh. WHILE gazing on the moon's light, A moment from her smile I turn'd, Each proud star, For me to feel its warming flameMuch more dear That mild sphere, Which near our planet smiling came;3 Thus, Mary, be but thou my ownWhile brighter eyes unheeded play, I'll love those moon-light looks alone, Which bless my home and guide my way! 1 It is conjectured by Wormius, that the name of Ireland is derived from Yr, the Runic for a bow, in the use of which weapon the Irish were once very expert. This derivation is certainly more creditable to us than the following: So that Ireland (called the land of Ire, for the constant broils therein for 400 years) was now become the land of concord.-Lloyd's State Worthies, Art. The Lord Grandison. See the Hymn, attributed to Alcæus, Ev μupтou had тo 105 copnow. I will carry my sword, hidden in myrtles, like Harmodius and Aristogiton, etc. 3. Of such celestial bodies as are visible, the sun excepted, the single moon, as despicable as it is in comparison to most of the others, is much more beneficial than they all put together.-WRISTON'S THEOAT, etc. In the Entretiens d'Ariste, among other ingenious emblems, we find a starry sky without a moon, with the words. Non mille, quod absens. |