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LETTER ON MUSIC. |
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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 sad 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, 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 f 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 J, &c), which can claim quite so ancient a date as Mr. Pinker-ton 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 Paradise § ; that our ancestors were kind enough to take the trouble
* 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. — Astatic Transactions, vol. iii., on the
Musical Modes of the Hindus__What the Abbe du Cos says of the symphonies of
Lully, may be asserted, with much more probability, of our bold and impassioned airs — " clles auroient produit de ces effets, qui nous paroissent fabuleux dans le recit des anciens, st on les avoit fait entendre & des hommes d*un naturel aussi vif que les Atheniens." — Reflex, sur la PeirUure, %c. torn. i. sect. 45.
t Dissertation, prefixed to the 2d volume of his Scottish Ballads.
% 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.
J See Advertisement to the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin, L 3 |
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