APPENDIX:

CONTAINING

THE ADVERTISEMENTS

ORIGINALLY PREFIXED TO THE DIFFERENT NUMBERS,

AND

THE PREFATORY LETTER ON IRISH MUSIC.

ADVERTISEMENT

PREFIXED

TO THE FIRST AND SECOND NUMBERS.

POWER takes the liberty of announcing to the Public a Work which has long been a Desideratum in this country. Though the beauties of the National Music of Ireland have been very generally felt and acknowledged, yet it has happened, through the want of appropriate English words, and of the arrangement necessary to adapt them to the voice, that many of the most excellent compositions have hitherto remained in obscurity. It is intended, therefore, to form a Collection of the best Original Irish Melodies, with characteristic Symphonies and Accompaniments; and with Words containing, as frequently as possible, allusions to the manners and history of the country. Sir John Stevenson has very kindly consented to undertake the arrangement of the Airs; and the lovers of Simple National Music may rest secure, that, in such tasteful hands, the native charms of the original melody will not be sacrificed to the ostentation of science.

In the Poetical Part, Power has had promises of assistance from several distinguished Literary Characters; particularly from Mr. Moore, whose lyrical talent is so peculiarly suited to such a task, and whose zeal in the undertaking will be best understood from the following Extract of a Letter which he has addressed to Sir John Stevenson on the subject:

"I feel very anxious that a work of this kind should be undertaken. We have too long neglected the only talent for which our English neighbours ever deigned to allow us any credit. Our National Music has never been properly collected '; and, while the composers of the Continent have enriched their Operas and Sonatas with melodies borrowed from Ireland, -very often without even the honesty of acknowledgment, we have left these treasures, in a great degree, unclaimed and

1 The writer forgot, when he made this assertion, that the public are indebted to Mr. Bunting for a very valuable col

fugitive. Thus our Airs, like too many of our countrymen, have, for want of protection at home, passed into the service of foreigners. But we are come, I hope, to a better period of both Politics and Music; and how much they are connected, in Ireland at least, appears too plainly in the tone of sorrow and depression which characterises most of our early Songs.

"The task which you propose to me, of adapting words to these airs, is by no means easy. The Poet who would follow the various sentiments which they express, must feel and understand that rapid fluctuation of spirits, that unaccountable mixture of gloom and levity, which composes the character of my countrymen, and has deeply tinged their Music. Even in their liveliest strains we find some melancholy note intrude, -some minor Third or flat Seventh,-which throws its shade as it passes, and makes even mirth interesting. If Burns had been an Irishman (and I would willingly give up all our claims upon Ossian for him), his heart would have been proud of such music, and his genius would have made it immortal.

6

"Another difficulty (which is, however, purely mechanical) arises from the irregular structure of many of those airs, and the lawless kind of metre which it will in consequence be necessary to adapt to them. In these instances the Poet must write, not to the eye, but to the ear; and must be content to have his verses of that description which Cicero mentions, Quos si cantu spoliaveris nuda remanebit oratio. That beautiful Air, The Twisting of the Rope,' which has all the romantic character of the Swiss Ranz des Vaches, is one of those wild and sentimental rakes which it will not be very easy to tie down in sober wedlock with Poetry. However, notwithstanding all these difficulties, and the very moderate portion of talent which I can bring to surmount them, the design appears to me so truly National, that I shall feel much pleasure in giving it all the assistance in my power. "Leicestershire, Feb. 1807."

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE THIRD NUMBER.

In presenting the Third Number of this work to the Public, Power begs leave to offer his acknow

lection of Irish Music; and that the patriotic genius of Miss Owenson has been employed upon some of our finest airs.

ledgments for the very liberal patronage with which it has been honoured; and to express a hope that the unabated zeal of those who have hitherto so admirably conducted it, will enable him to continue it through many future Numbers with equal spirit, variety, and taste. The stock of popular Melodies is far from being exhausted; and there is still in reserve an abundance of beautiful Airs, which call upon Mr. Moore, in the language he so well understands, to save them from the oblivion to which they are hastening.

Power respectfully trusts he will not be thought presumptuous in saying, that he feels proud, as an Irishman, in even the very subordinate share which he can claim, in promoting a Work so creditable to the talents of the Country, -a Work which, from the spirit of nationality it breathes, will do more, he is convinced, towards liberalizing the feelings of society, and producing that brotherhood of sentiment which it is so much our interest to cherish, than could ever be effected by the mere arguments of well-intentioned but uninteresting politicians.

LETTER

ΤΟ

THE MARCHIONESS DOWAGER OF DONEGAL,

PREFIXED TO

THE THIRD NUMBER.

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 particularly dedicated. I know that, though your Ladyship has been so long absent from Ireland, you still continue to remember it well and warmly, that you have not suffered the attractions of English society to produce, like the taste of the lotus, any forgetfulness of your own country, but that even the humble tribute which I offer derives its chief claim upon your interest and sympathy from the

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

2 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 particularly, for the conduct of an Irishman at the battle of Aberdeen, chap. vi. p. 49.; and for a tribute to the bravery of Colonel O'Kyan, chap. vii. 55. Clarendon owns that the Marquis of Montrose

appeal which it makes to your patriotism. Indeed, absence, however fatal to some affections of the heart, rather tends to strengthen our love for the land where we were born; and Ireland is the country, of all others, which an exile from it must remember with most 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 at a distance softened, or altogether invisible. 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 been often remarked, and still oftener felt, that in our music is found the truest of all comments upon our history. 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 even many airs, which it is difficult to listen to, without recalling some period or event to which their expression seems applicable. Sometimes, for instance, when the strain is open and spirited, yet here and there shaded 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 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 takes 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. In many of these mournful songs we seem to hear the last farewell of the exile3, mingling regret for the ties

was indebted for much of his miraculous success to the small band of Irish heroes under Macdonnell.

3 The associations of the Hindu music, though more obvious and defined, were far less touching and characteristic. They divided their songs according to the seasons of the year, by which (says Sir William Jones)" they were able to recall the memory of autumnal merriment, at the close of the harvest, or of separation and melancholy during the cold months," &c.— Asiatic Transactions, vol. iii. on the Musical Modes of the

which he leaves at home, with sanguine hopes of the high 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, 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 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 2, &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 has been 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 Paradise3, that our ancestors were kind enough to take the trouble of polishing the Greeks 4, or that Abaris, the Hyperborean, was a native of the North of Ireland.5

By some of these zealous antiquarians it has been imagined that the Irish were early acquainted with counter-point; 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 much 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 parts7; and it is in general now conceded, I believe, 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 en

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 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 Scipio, is suf

2 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.

strongest passages, which I recollect, in favour of this supposition, occurs in the Treatise (Пegi Korμov) attributed to Aristotle-Moveinn di ožuis àμa nas Bagus, n. T. λ.

8 Another lawless peculiarity of our music is the frequent occurrence of, what composers call, consecutive fifths; but

4 O'Halloran, vol. i. part iv. chap. vii. 5 Id. ib. chap. ví.

6 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 (Préludes de l'Harmonie, Quest.7.), that the theory of Music would be imperfect without it. Even in practice, too, as Tosi, among others, very justly remarks, (Observations on Florid Song, chap. i. sect. 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.

7 The words oıkım and irigoçavia, in a Passage of Plato,

by persons not conversant with all the rules of composition. If I may venture, indeed, to cite my own wild attempts in this way, it is a fault which I find myself continually committing, and which has even, at times, appeared so pleasing to my ear, that I have surrendered it to the critic with no small 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.

9 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 jucundum: the one greatly bold and quick, the other soft and pleasing.'- How a man of Mr. Beauford's learning could so