The National Music of Ireland.

"But though glory be gone, and though hope fade away,
Thy name, loved Erin! shall live in his songs;
Not even in the hour when his heart is most gay,
Will he lose the remembrance of thee and thy wrongs.
The stranger shall hear thy lament on his plains,
The sigh of thy harp shall be sent o'er the deep,
Till thy masters themselves, as they rivet thy chains,
Shall pause at the song of their captive and weep.'

Irish Melodies.

ONE nation alone on the face of the globe has as the emblem of its nationality a musical instrument - only one country is peculiarly and appropriately known as the "land of song," and that is the fair land of Erin. "When other nations," said the Irish Lacordaire, Father Burke, "stand in the battle-field in the hour of national effort and national triumph — when other nations celebrate their victories when they unfold the national banner, we behold there the lion, or some emblem of power; the cross, or some emblem of faith; the stars, as in the 'star-spangled banner' of America,- an emblem of rising hope; but it was only in the by-gone days, when Ireland had a national standard, and upheld it gloriously on the battle-field-it was only then that Ireland unfolded that national standard, which, floating out upon the breezes of heaven, displayed, embodied in that field of green, the golden harp of Erin.” *

Music is inherent in the nature of man. No tribe or people, no matter in what state of barbarity they may exist, no matter in what zone — tropical or frigid—their lot may be cast, ever lived whose minds and souls were not susceptible of that sweet emotion produced by the melody of harmonic rhythm. Every one is acquainted with that memorable incident in the history of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay. The selfsacrificing sons of Saint Ignatius were carrying the cross into the very heart of the savage regions of South America. They were unable to effect a landing-but least of all were they able to conciliate the savage sons of the prairie. The pious Fathers manned a canoe, and as the setting sun gilded the green foliage of the trees of that tropic land, slowly pulled down the limpid waters of one of its broad rivers. The Indians lined the banks in an instant, and with their hideous grimaces and wonted hostile threatenings, gave sufficient indications that an immediate death was in store for the white men. A happy thought struck one of the Jesuits. He picked up from the bottom of the canoe an old guitar, or some such musical instrument, and tipped some pleasing melody on its strings. In an instant the savages laid down their arms, rushed weaponless down to the water's edge, and received the missionaries into their arms. Such a potent sway has music over the soul of

man.

牵 "Lectures on Faith and Fatherland." By Very Rev. Thomas N. Burke, O. P.

"Music! Oh! how faint, how weak,
Language fades before thy spell!

Why should feeling ever speak

When thou canst breathe her soul so well?"

So natural is music to man. Nature has thus constituted him; but most of all music is natural to the Celtic character. Hence it is that music was especially cultivated and cherished by the Irish people from the very cradle-hood of their race. When the torch of piety and learning burned brightly in the monastic institutions of Ireland, in the fifth and sixth and seventh centuries, it would seem as if the liberal arts had fled from the groves of Academus to the halls of Hibernia. One of these arts was music, and the success that crowned its cultivation is attested in the history of the succeeding ages.

The history of Irish music could be traced back to the times when wanderers from Oriental climes landed on Irish soil. But without going back through such a long and dark roll of centuries, a noteworthy fact, clearly authenticated in the more modern annals of Ireland, shows in what high esteem music was held by our forefathers. When the representatives of the five constituent orders of the kingdom met at their feis, or great national assemblies, at Tara, the representatives of music and song had precedence of all others except royalty itself. The bards, who were divided into three classes, the Filea, Seanachie, and the Brehon, were, as their names imply, the historians, antiquarians, and legislators of the country. And like the Arabians of old, the Irish kings and chieftains kept in their train a numerous band of musicians, the fame of one of them, the celebrated Dubhthach, chief bard of Leogaire, being transmitted down to our own times. "Thus," writes Father Buckley, "from the earliest dawn of Irish history the bardic body were a national institution; they charmed the ears of their princes and people; they enriched the literature of their native land; and, doubtless, had Ireland been able to preserve her nationality, her language and literature, like other nations of Europe, these great and gifted men of old, who, even to us, their fellow-countrymen are either unknown or unregarded, would rank with the proudest sons of song whose names illuminate the historical pages of more fortunate nations." *

Some writers go back to the time of the Milesian invaders in tracing the history of Irish music, and attribute the authorship of many a wandering distich to these ancient children of song. "The disjecta membra of Amergin, the son of Milesius," again writes the graceful biographer of Father Arthur O'Leary, "are as well authenticated to-day as the melodies of Moore, and of the two are certainly more Irish."

But distinguished as the bardic genius of Erin was in the days when Druidic priests performed their mystic rites, that genius expanded under the ennobling halo of the light of the Gospel. Saint Patrick set foot on Irish soil in the year 432, and forthwith the rites of Bel gave place to the worship of the Lamb of God. The eloquence of Patrick captivated the heart of the nation; for in truth it was the eloquence of heaven. Leogaire fell captive to its sway, and amongst the first of the

"The National Music of Ireland," a lecture delivered by Father Buckley in Cork, in the December of the year 1868.

Christian proselytes were the bards. Then they lent the genius of their souls to proclaim the praises of the one true God. Sacred chant swelled in tone to the clear blue vault of heaven from the hundred choirs of the island. Then was music, sacred and profane, cultivated in peace in our happy land. Then did the stranger from many a foreign shore raise his sail, and steer his bark to the fountain of knowledge in the "Insula Sanctorum" of the Western ocean. It is said that the foreigner could not travel far through any part of the country without meeting the old harper on his way. The chieftain never laid a banquet for his clansmen at which the halls did not resound to the music of the lyre. Well did the poet write:

"When the light of my song is o'er,

Oh! take my harp to your ancient hall;
Hang it up at that friendly door

Where weary travellers love to call:
Then, if some bard who roams forsaken
Revives its soft notes in passing along,
Oh! let one thought of its master awaken
Your warmest smile for the child of song."

At the time of the English invasion, at the close of the twelfth century, the Irish bards and harpers had attained an extraordinary success in their art. Witness to this is borne by men whose prejudices against Ireland were notorious. Preeminent amongst such witnesses is Giraldus Cambrensis. He certainly was not remarkable for his leanings towards Ireland. Doubtless, though, he was a man of cultured mind and of vast knowledge. He must have been a musician himself, or at least, he had acquired very great familiarity with the language of the musical writers of his time, as is evident from the well-known passage relating to the Irish bards in the "Topographia Hiberniæ." Having travelled throughout almost every European country, and fixed his residence for some years in Paris and Rome, he must have been a competent judge of music, and, under the circumstances, a reliable witness. Yet this is the way this almost habitual reviler of the Irish speaks of their proficiency in music:

"This people, however, deserve to be praised for their successful cultivation of instrumental music, in which their skill is, beyond comparison, superior to that of any other nation we have seen. For their modulation is not drawling nor morose, like our instrumental music in Britain; but the strains, while they are lively and rapid, are also sweet and delightful. It is astonishing how the proportionate time of the music is preserved, notwithstanding such impetuous rapidity of the fingers, and how, without violating a single rule of art, in running through shakes and slurs and variously intertwined organizing or counterpoint, with so sweet a rapidity, so unequal an equality of time, so apparently discordant concord of sounds, the melody is harmonized and rendered perfect."

But a dark cloud was soon to pass through the Irish sky. The bardic profession was soon to be persecuted with a vengeance. The Irish music was captivating the iron hearts of the English adventurers. "To the praise of victors and vanquished," writes Father Buckley, "be

it stated, that such was the music of the Celt and such the appreciation of the Saxon, that an Irish minstrel became an indispensable appendage of baronial magnificence; while every wandering child of song found a cordial welcome in the English camp, and a cead mille failthe in every Anglo-Irish castle." But it little suited the interest of the English. sovereign to allow the bewitching harper, blending the music of his lyre to the soul-stirring songs of his native land, in presence of the royal servants. There was a danger which only proved too true that they would become "ipsis Hibernicis Hiberniores"-more Irish than the Irish themselves. Proclamation followed proclamation to prevent the English of the Pale from enjoying the luxury of the sweet music of Ireland. But the charm of the Irish music was too swaying, and it required the statute of Kilkenny, of 1367, to prevent the dangerous intercourse. English vengeance against the harpers culminated in the person of Queen Elizabeth, who gave a commission to Lord Barrymore to hang the minstrels of the harp. "The charms of song," says Moore, "were ennobled with the glories of martyrdom, and the acts against minstrels in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth were as successful, I doubt not, in making my countrymen musicians, as the Penal Laws have been in keeping them Catholics."

But, if possible, a still fiercer storm was to blow over the Irish children of song. The day came when Cromwell desecrated Erin's verdant shores. The Irish aristocracy, the patrons of the bards, were decimated; with them the minstrels passed away, and at the death of O'Carolan, in 1738, died the last of the Irish bards.

"The bigots of the iron time

Had called his harmless art a crime;
A wandering harper, scorned and poor,
He begged his bread from door to door
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,

The harp that kings had loved to hear."

The national music of Ireland lay scattered about the country; a great deal of it, no doubt, preserved in the minds of the people, but nevertheless quickly fading away. But the "star of Ireland's song". Thomas Moore - was presently to arise and render an undying service to his country,- he was to preserve, yea, immortalize the music of his native land. He took those old airs that were scattered about the country some of them dating back to pagan times, some of them to the thirteenth century, as, for example, Eileen Aroon, the composition of the minstrel O'Daly, and some of them having their origin in times nearer his own. To these old airs Thomas Moore wedded words of his own, and the result was the immortal Irish Melodies. "He restored forever," writes Father Buckley, "to the memories of mankind, the joyous and the melancholy music of Erin's song, long past; the hymns of peace, the marches of war, the peans of triumph in which our ancestors celebrated the varying fortunes of their times; he wed immortal words to immortal music; he has photographed to posterity the smiles and tears that blend like the rainbow in the eyes of Erin."

LADY'S BRIDGE, CASTLEMARTYR, Co. CORK.

"VIATOR."

Notes on Foreign Travel.

THE ROMAN FORUM.

"ROME," says Goethe, "is like the ocean, the farther you enter into it, the deeper it becomes." Let us wander awhile by the shores of that great ocean, picking up a few stray shells which may give forth some far-off murmur of the mighty waves of human existence which have broken with a noise that filled the world on the Seven Hills, and have ebbed away forever into the fathomless depths of mystery whence they arose.

Everything about Rome is so intensely interesting, that even the story which geology has to tell of the physical formation of the soil on which the city stands, possesses a peculiar charm and attraction of its A feeling akin to awe arises in the mind at the thought that, unnumbered ages before the dawn of history, the waters of the sea covered the plain which is now strewn with the wrecks of centuries of time. These at least are majestic reminders of a greatness that once had been; but the sole memorials which the sea has left of its presence are the yellow sands and hard limestone rock of the Vatican and Aventine Hills.

After the waters had receded, volcanic forces came into play, and the hills arose from which the Roman eagles were one day to wing their flight to the uttermost limits of the known world. That these volcanoes were in active operation at no distant day is proven from the fact that traces of human life have been discovered under the flood of lava which swept down from the Alban Hills, and stopped short only three miles. from Rome by the tomb of Cæcilia Metella on the Appian Way. The showers of red-hot sand and ashes converted the forests which then grew on the Palatine Hill into masses of charcoal, which may still be seen embedded in the rocks above which now stand the ruins of the palace of the Cæsars.

Before the dawn of the historic period the surrounding hills were both more numerous and more abrupt than at the present day. On their summits lived tribes hostile to each other, entrenched behind earthen ramparts and wooden palisades, out of reach both of human foes and of the malaria exhaling from the low, swampy grounds. Under such conditions the great aim of the inhabitants was to increase the steepness of these cliffs, and render access as difficult as possible. But at a later time, when a fusion took place between these warring tribes, and a single united government held sway, these same physical peculiarities had become sources of grave inconvenience to a people who wished to build a city with some regard to beauty and symmetry. Engineering skill was accordingly called into requisition, the tops of hills were levelled, ridges cut away, and gentle slopes formed in the place of abrupt cliffs.

Under the present surface of the soil four cities may be said to lie buried the regal and early republican city, the later republican, the imperial, and the medieval. The history of these several periods is written