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PREFATORY NOTICES. |
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the composers of the Continent have enriched their Operas and Sonatas -with Melodies borrowed from Ireland,—very often witk-out even the honesty of acknowledgment,—we have left these treasures, in a great degree, unclaimed and 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.
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 Ifanz des Vach.es, 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 little 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.
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Leicestershire, Feb. 1807. |
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