COUNCIL

OF

The Percy Society.

President.

THE RT. HON. LORD BRAYBROOKE, F.S.A

THOMAS AMYOT, Esq. F.R.S. TREAS. S.A.

WILLIAM HENRY BLACK, Esq

WILLIAM CHAPPELL, Esq. F.S.A.

J. PAYNE COLLIER, Esq. F.S.A.

C. PURTON COOPER, Esq. Q.C., F.R.S., F.S.A.

PETER CUNNINGHAM, Esq.

J. H. DIXON, Esq.

WILLIAM JERDAN, Esq. F.S.A., M.R.S L.

CAPTAIN JOHNS, R.M.

T. J. PETTIGREW, Esq. F.R.S., F.S.A.

LEWIS POCOCK, Esq. F.S.A.

SIR CUTHBERT SHARP.

WILLIAM SANDYS, Esq. F.S.A.

WILLIAM J. THOMS, Esq. F.S.A.

THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq. M.A., F.S.A, Secretary and

Treasurer.

ΤΟ

THE VISCOUNTESS GUILLAMORE.

DEIGN to accept these lays! how rude so e'er;
For once the chieftei is 0. my native land
Bent in attention mute the strains to hear,

While the rapt minstrel's modulating hand

Moved o'er the sounding harp-or damsel bland,

With cheek soft blushing, "stened to the song

Which told her beauties, her attrac ons scanned,--

Flowing in liquid measures from the tongue

Of yellow-vested youth, Momonia's groves among.

Even he, that master spirit of old Mole,

The mighty minstrel of" the Fairy Queen,"

Heard the sweet dit.ies with delighted soul,

Though much the bard who sung, he loa hed, I ween.

Yet spite of all the hatred them between

Spite of discordat creed, detested race,—

Still, when he heard the melancholy keen,

Or the proud song old deeds of aims retrace,

His poet's soul extolled their "comeliness and grace."

Rosamond's Bower, Fulham.

25th May 1844.

INTRODUCTION.

66

KEEN, which is here written according to its sound to the English ear, is, in its correct modern orthography, Caòine ;-" anciently and properly," says O'Brien, "Cine." And, he adds, "it is almost equal in letters and pronunciation to the Hebrew word cina, which signifies lamentation, or crying, with clapping of hands,-lamentatio, planctus, ploratus, vide 2 Sam. i. 17, and in its plural, Cinim, lamentations, Ez. ii. 10. In Welsh, Kuyn is a complaint." And according to the Armoric vocabulary of the Jesuit Julian Manoir, Queini signifies to bewail or bemoan, and queinean, a moan or lamentation.

The word Caoine is explained by Lloyd in his Archæologia Britannica as "a sort of verse used in elegies or funeral poems, and sometimes also in panegyricks and satyrs.' Dr. O'Brien, in his Irish Dictionary, describes the Caoine as "the Irish lamentation for the dead, according to certain loud and mournful notes and verses, wherein the pedigree, land, property, generosity, and good

b