When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, | In France, when the heart of a woman sets sail, But just pilots her off, and then bids her good-bye! Ever smiling beside his faithful oar, Through billows of woe and beams of joy The same as he look'd when he left the shore. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Through this world whether eastward or westward you roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, EVELEEN'S BOWER. AIR-Unknown. OH! weep for the hour, When to Eveleen's bower The Lord of the valley with false vows came; From the heavens that night, On Lough Neagh's bank as the fishermen strays,' THE SONG OF FIONNUALA.2 Sadly, oh Moyle! to thy winter wave weeping, Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping, And wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's shame. When will that day-star, mildly springing, Every trace on the path where the false Lord came; in Ireland. Long before the birth of Christ, we find a here But there's a light above Which alone can remove That stain upon the snow of fair Eveleen's fame. ditary order of chivalry in Ulster, called Cura idhe na Craoibhe ruadh, or the knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called Teagh na Craoibhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Red Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bronbhearg, or the house of the sorrowful soldier."-O'Hallo LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD. ran's Introduction, etc. part. i. chap. 5. AIR-The Red Fox. LET Erin remember the days of old, Which he won from her proud invader; 1 "This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the Monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory."-Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i. book 9. 2 "Military orders of knights were very early established 1 It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldas, 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 arctæ sunt et altæ, necnon et rotundæ, sub undis manifeste, sereno tempore conspiciunt et extraneis transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus, frequenter ostendunt."-Topogr Hib. Dist. 2. c. 9. 2 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 Counters of Moira. Your glass may be purple and mine may be blue, To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss? Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will, And around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known, As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets, The same look which she turn'd when he rose ! SUBLIME WAS THE WARNING. SUBLIME was the warning which Liberty spoke, Till it move, like a breeze, o'er the waves of the west Give the light of your look to each sorrowing spot, Nor, oh! be the Shamrock of Erin forgot, While you add to your garland the Olive of Spain! If the fame of our fathers bequeath'd with their rights, Give to country its charm, and to home its delights, If deceit be a wound and suspicion a stainThen, ye men of Iberia! our cause is the same: And oh may his tomb want a tear and a name, Who would ask for a nobler, a holier death, Than to turn his last sigh into victory's breath For the Shamrock of Erin and Olive of Spain! Ye Blakes and O'Donnels, whose fathers resigned vain, God prosper the cause!-oh! it cannot but thrive, While the pulse of one patriot heart is alive, Its devotion to feel, and its rights to maintain. Then how sainted by sorrow its martyrs will die! The finger of Glory shall point where they lie, While, far from the footstep of coward or slave, The young Spirit of Freedom shall shelter their 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, No. III. TO 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 particularly 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."1 It has often been remarked, and oftener felt, that our music is 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 many airs which, I think, it is difficult 1 A phrase which occurs in a letter from the Earl of DesWere to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,mond to the Earl of Ormond, in Elizabeth's time.-Scri |nia Sacra, as quoted by Curry. Like fairy gifts fading away! to listen to, without recalling some period or event to thinking that it is possible to love our country very which their expression seems peculiarly applicable. zealously, and to feel deeply interested in her honour Sometimes, when the strain is open and spirited, yet and happiness, without believing that Irish was the shaded here and there by a mournful recollection, we language spoken in Paradise ;' that our ancestors were can fancy that we behold the brave allies of Mon- kind enough to take the trouble of polishing the trose,' marching to the aid of the royal cause, notwith-Greeks; or that Abaris, the Hyperborean, was a na standing all the perfidy of Charles and his ministers, tive of the North of Ireland.' 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!" By some of these archæologists, 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 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 melodies 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, 1 See Advertisement to the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin. 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 only subject upon which our taste for antiquity is rather unreasonably indulged; and, however heretical it may be to dis-on the violin who does not make a sensible difference besent from these romantic speculations, I cannot help 1 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. 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 saccess to this small band of Irish heroes under Macdonnell. 2 The associations of the Hindû 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 recal the memory of autumnal merriment, 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 Abbé du Bos says of the symphonies of Lully, may be asserted, with much more probability, of our bold and impassioned airs:-"Elles auroient produit de ces effets, qui nous paroissent fabuleux dans le récit des anciens, si on les avoit fait entendre à des hommes d'un natural aussi vif que les Athéniens."-Reflex. sur la Peinture, etc. tom. 1. sect. 45. 2 O'Halloran, vol. 1. part 1. chap. 6. 4 It is also supposed, but with as little proof, that they understood the diesis, or enharmonic interval.-The Greeks seem to have formed their ears to this delicate gradation of the way of its practical use, we must agree with Mersenne sound: and, whatever difficulties or objections may lie in (Préludes de l'Harmonie, quest. 7,) that the theory of music would be imperfect without it; and, even in practice (as Florid Song, chap. 1. sec. 16,) there is no good performer Tosi, among others, very justly remarks, Observations on tween 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." 5 The words A and Tepova, 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 knowledge of counter-point. 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 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, IIap Kormou-Mourinn de ogers are as BxPEAS, *. T. X. 6 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 reluc 3 Dissertation, prefixed to the second volume of his Scot-tance. May there not be a little pedantry in adhering too tish Ballads. 4 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. 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. and the powers of the harp' were enlarged by addi- or singing each air, to restore the regularity of its tional strings, that our melodies took the sweet cha- form, and the chaste simplicity of its character. racter 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 counter-point. I must again observe, that, in doubting the anti quity 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 sti 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 com- mulus of persecution was not wanting to quicken our position, indeed, called his Concerto, it is evident that taste into enthusiasm; the charms of song were enhe laboured to imitate Corelli; and this union of man- nobled with the glories of martyrdom, and the acts ners, so very dissimilar, produces the same kind of against minstrels, in the reigns of Henry VIII. and uneasy sensation which is felt at a mixture of different Elizabeth, were as successful, I doubt not, in making styles of architecture. In general, however, the artless my countrymen musicians, as the penal laws have flow of our music has preserved itself free from all been in keeping them Catholics. 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," 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 a possible, by retrenching these inelegant superfluities, and collating the various methods of playing 774 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 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 I A singular oversight occurs in an Essay upon the Irish complaint, in which the poetry sometimes sympaHarp, by Mr. Beauford, which is inserted in the Appendix thizes with the music, would be suffered to pass withto Walker's Historical Memoirs." The Irish (says he,) according to Bromton, in the reign of Henry II. had two out censure or alarm. It has been accordingly said, kinds of harps, Hibernici tamen in duobus musici generis that the tendency of this publication is mischievous,' instrumentis, quamvis præcipitem et velocem, suavem tamen and that I have chosen these airs but as a vehicle of et jucundam,' the one greatly bold and quick, the other soft and pleasing."-How man of Mr. Beauford's learning dangerous politics-as fair and precious vessels (to could so mistake the meaning, and mutilate the grammatical borrow an image of St. Augustin2) from which the construction of this extract, is unaccountable. The follow-wine of error might be administered. To those who ing is the passage as I find it entire in Brompton, and it requires but little Latin to perceive the injustice which has identify nationality with treason, and who see, in been done to the words of the old chronicler:-"Et cum every effort for Ireland, a system of hostility towards Scotia, hujus terræ filia, utatur lyra, tympano et choro, ac England,-to those too, who, nursed in the gloom of Wallia cithara, tubis et choro Hibernici tamen in duobus musici generis instrumentis, quamvis præcipitem et velo- prejudice, are alarmed by the faintest gleam of libecem, suavem tamen et jucundam, crispatis modulis et intri- rality that threatens to disturb their darkness (like that catis notulis, efficiunt harmoniam."-Hist. Anglic. Script. Demophon of old, who, when the sun shone upon pag. 1075. I should not have thought this error worth remarking, but that the compiler of the Dissertation on the him, shivered!)-to such men I shall not deign to Harp, prefixed to Mr. Bunting's last Work, has adopted it apologize for the warmth of any political sentiment implicitly. 2 The Scotch lay claim to some of our best airs, but there which may occur in the course of these pages. But, are strong traits of difference between their melodies and as there are many, among the more wise and toleours. They had formerly the same passion for robbing us rant, who, with feeling enough to mourn over the of our Saints, and the learned Dempster was, for this offence, called "The Saint Stealer." I suppose it was an Irishman, wrongs of their country, and sense enough to perwho, by way of reprisal, stole Dempster's beautiful wife ceive all the danger of not redressing them, may yet from him at Pisa-See this anecdote in the Pinacotheca of think that allusions in the least degree bold or infiamErythræus, part i. page 25. matory should be avoided in a publication of this popular description-I beg of these respected per 3 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 affectation.-Discours. Préliminaire de Encyclopedie 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. 4 Virgil, Eneid, lib. 6. v. 204. 1 See Letters, under the signatures of Timæus, etc. in the Morning Post, Pilot, and other papers. sed vinum erroris, quod cum eis nobis propinatur."-Lib. i 2" Non accuso verba, quasi vasa electa atque pretiosa; Confess. cap. 16. 3 This emblem of modern bigots was head-butler (paC) to Alexander the Great.-Sext. Empir. Pyrrh Hypoth. lib. i. Believe me, your Ladyship's THOMAS MOORE Dublin, January, 1810. sons to believe, that there is no one who deprecates May the mind which such talents adorn, continue more sincerely than I do any appeal to the passions calm as it is bright, and happy as it is virtuous! 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 pianofortes 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 whose which it may hurry them; and of many, ERIN! OH ERIN! nerves may be, now and then, alarmed with advan- LIKE the bright lamp that shone in Kildare's holy tage, as much more is to be gained by their fears, than could ever be expected from their justice. fane,' And burn'd through long ages of darkness and storm, Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm! hung, The full moon of freedom shall beam round thee yet. Having thus adverted to the principal objection which has been hitherto made to the poetical part of Is the heart that afflictions have come o'er in vain, 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 peculiarly 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. 1 The word "chromatic" might have been used here, without any violence to its meaning. Erin! oh Erin! though long in the shade, The lily lies sleeping through winter's cold hour, 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. When Wealth and Wit once stood, She answer'd," he who could.” 1 The inextinguishable fire of St. Bridget, at Kildare, which Giraldus mentions, "Apud Kildariam occurrit Ignis Sancta Brigida, quem inextinguibilem vocant; non quod extingui non possit, sed quod tam solicite moniales et sancta mulieres ignem, suppetente materia, fovent et nutriunt, ut a tempore virgin's per tot annorum curricula semper mansit inextinctus."-Girald. Camb. de Mirabil. Hibern. Dis. 2. |