the authors there cited. This subject is too profound to be touched lightly, and too important to be passed unnoticed. couragement of music. Circumstances in themselves trivial often assume Ancientenconsequence from their application to an object of importance. It is of little or no moment, whether any and what individuals played on musical instruments 3000 years ago in Ireland. Their chronicles undoubtedly assure us, us, there were distinguished families of musicians among them; and that mu sical accomplishments were holden in the highest estimation by the nation, and rewarded by hereditary settlements in land*. This was a peculiarity unknown to any other European nation in those early times. Every vestige therefore of their musical ge nius and habits tends powerfully to authenticate the annals which record the usage; and the national and * It was the high fashion in the days of Cambden for every English writer to decry the Irish. Even his stern regard for truth in historical disquisitions was not altogether proof against the courtly bias. His authority therefore in favor of Ireland is above all exception. An Irish poet did not inaptly say of him, Perlustras Anglos oculis Cambdene duobus, Uno oculo Scotas, cæcus Hybernigenas. His account of these peculiar customs in Ireland, is, Habent enim exclusive retention of the use and skill in playing upon the most ancient instruments, comes nearly to demonstration, that the nation, in which they are thus early traced, preexisted those nations, into which they were more lately introduced, or to which they were scarcely known. That the profession of music was in the remotest of times honourable, and confined to particular families, we have the authority of the inspired penman, who in the very concise epitome which he has left us of antediluvian names, usages, and incidents, has recorded, that Lamech's second son, Jubal, was the father of all such as handled the harp and the organ. It is, then, a sure badge of the high antiquity of a people, whenever it can be proved to have encouraged proficiency upon these instruments, as an honorable attainment. The early invention of cord and wind instruments carries a proof of the civilization and refinement of the first inhabitants of the earth, and reconciles to the mind the fact of the ornamental as well as useful arts having been encouraged by our earliest ancestry. The ancient and peculiar use of the harp in Ireland is emblazoned to perpetuity in the national arms. There is not certainly the like notorious proof of their use of that is, the brehons were of one tribe and name, their historians of another, and so of the rest, who instruct their children and relations in their several arts and professions; and they are always their successors, to whom they leave the estates and reve nues assigned them." Even the avowed traducer of the Irish Cambrensis admits, that of all the nations within our knowledge, this is beyond comparison the first in musical composition. the organ; but when it is considered, that the bagpipe was the first wind instrument, that answers the description of the organ*, and it is beyond question, that the harp and the bagpipe are the two musical instruments, which can be traced to the remotest period, it falls little short of demonstration, that the nation, in which its habitual use can be immemorially established, has an uncontrovertible claim to the highest antiquity. Stanihurst is one of the British writers, of whose infidelity and traductions the Irish complain: his authority, therefore, for any point, that goes to establish the antiquity of the Irish nation, cannot be reasonably ob jected to by the Pyrrhonites, who make common cause with every author professing to derogate from the antiquity of their nation, and the authenticity of their annals. This author between 200 and 300 years ago gives a very quaint and elaborate description of a bagpipe, as an instrument at that time hardly known elsewhere than in Ireland; in which that people had from time immemorial singularly delighted; and the The invention of the bagpipe is by some derived from Jubal, who is called in Scripture Pater canentium organo et cithard. But as most inventions of remote antiquity, from the corruptions of idolatry (the diabolical art of which ever was to conceal and suppress the true history of the creation of man, and the progress of religion and population) degenerated into fable; so, from the establishment of the Grecian mythology, the invention of the bagpipe was successively attributed to Pan, Mercury, Faunus, Marsyas, and the young Sicilian Daphnos. It is universally allowed to have been used in times of the highest antiquity, to celebrate the praises of heroes and great men at sacrifices, feasts, combats, funerals, &c. Profession of music honorable sound of which excited them, as the trumpet did other nations, to martial ardour *. Moses was cotemporary with Feniusa Pharsa, or Phoenius, whom the Milesians claim as the head or in the time founder of their race; and although the sacred pen of Moses. men wrote under the influence or guidance of divine inspiration, yet they expressed themselves according to the capacity, comprehension, and general usage of the people, amongst whom they wrote. It is therefore to be presumed, that in the time of Moses the skill of handling the harp and the organ was an honourable and lucrative attainment, and confined to particular families; and therefore the pedigree or genealogy of those, who played on or sung to the harp and organ, was traced by Moses from Jubal. When in the same chapter mention is made of Tubalcaine, no more is said of him, than that he was an artificer in iron and brass; which calling, though it required ingenuity, and might have been lucrative, *Hoc genus systri apud Hybernicos, bellica virtutis cotem esse constal. Nam ut alii milites tubarum sono, ita isti hujus clangore ad pugnandum ardenter incenduntur. Stan. de Reb. Hyb. p. 40. This author, says Ware, wrote after Giraldus Cambrensis, and knew nothing of the Irish language. He was uncle to Archbishop Usher; was brought up at the University college, Oxford; he afterwards went over to the church of Rome, in which he took orders. O'Sullivan says 1. 1. c. 4.) that seeing his book condemned by every one, and it having been publicly burnt by order of the Inquisition in Portugal, he publicly declared his intention of retracting his false by the publication of a true history of Ireland. He died, however, without having effected it. Vid. Har. Script. Hyb. vol. ii. c. 13. ; and 1 Macgeoghegan, p. 50. was not honorable, or confined to particular families, as the profession of a musician appears then to have been. Emigrants or colonists from a country, in which these usages prevailed, must have carried the usages with them. If they settled in an island, which was not broken in upon by invasion or foreign intercourse, they were likely to keep up their customs and institutions longer than the mother-country, from which they were exported. Irish cha Before we take leave of the external proofs of the Ancient ancient history of Ireland, it will not be irrelevant to racter. the general scope of this Dissertation, to close with a general remark upon the characters, in which these ancient metrical annals are written. They are evidently different from the Roman characters, the use of which in Ireland is never even spoken of before the introduction of the christian religion in the time of St. Patrick. Upon this subject, all that can with any plausibility be submitted to the curious reader, must be extracted from those writers, who profess to know and "When St. Patrick had made a number of proselytes, there was a necessity to have the priesthood encreased; for the few, who accompanied him upon this occasion, could not be sufficient to stem the torrent of opposition from the pagan priests and the contumacy of the common people every where. It was, therefore, highly expedient to ordain many priests; and the sooner they were prepared for it, the work would be certainly the more prosperously effected. Therefore, as it is well known, the service of the church was then performed in the Latin tongue, it became absolutely necessary to instruct them in that tongue, and consequently in the letters proper to it. This was the reason of his having recommended the Ab |