Even the arts, in these stirring times of social concentration, awakened from their long and deadly slumbers; and the slowly reviving school of painting in England received some of its most noted disciples from Ireland, a country so little adapted, by its miseries and its commotions, to the cultivation of the most tranquil and meditative of intellectual pursuits.* At this time, too, the Irish muse found a willing and a worthy priestess in one of the fair daughters of the land,† where her temples had so long been closed; and "the mother of sweet singers," awakened by the genius of national melody, beheld her sons

"Thronging round her magic cell,"

Jervas, (Pope's Raphael,) Bindon, Roberts the landscape-painter, Barrett, &c.

+ Miss Brook, the elegant translator and composer of the "Relics of Ancient Irish Poetry."

F

as in the days of the Mayos* and the O'Con

nors.t

It

The Lord Mayo, of the early part of the eighteenth century, here alluded to, was a model of the genuine Irish resident nobleman, living in his rural palace, surrounded by his family, his bards, and musicians. One of these, "his retainer," David Murphy, composed an Irish Ode of some celebrity, called "Tiagherna Mhaigho," the "Lord of Mayo," which another of his retainers, O'Keeneghan, set to music. This Carolan was wont to play at night in the hall of the Burkes, on his harp. happened that during Carolan's last visit to Lord Mayo, Geminiani arrived from Italy by special invitation from the amateur Earl; and his Italian music completely usurped the attention of the Ladies Susan and Bridget Burke, of whose praise Carolan was especially jealous, and he frankly complained to his noble host of this neglect. Lord Mayo, rallying the bard on his feelings, concluded by telling him, that when he should produce the same music as Geminiani, he would meet with the same atten

The triumphs of Carolan, the last of the Firsgealaighthes or Irish Troubadours, were followed by those of Handel and Piccini; * and though the wild sweet tones of the Irish harp were still occasionally heard in the pauses of

tion. On this Carolan proposed a wager, that he on his harp would follow the Italian in any piece of his composition, but that Geminiani should not follow him through an Irish planxty: the wager was accepted by the Italian, and won by the Irish bard. + The O'Connors of Ballingar, the favourite residence of Carolan.

* "In the year 1740, the sublime genius of Handel roused our feelings from the lethargy into which they had fallen.”-Memoirs of the Irish Bards.

Banished from London by the intrigues of a party, Handel* fled to Ireland, where, with his

ciad:

Pope alludes to this banishment of Handel in his Dun

Strong in new arms, lo! Giant Handel stands

Like bold Briareus with his hundred hands,-&c. &c. &c.

Arrest him, Goddess, or you sleep no more:

She heard, and drove him to Hibernia's shore."

the Messiah and of the elegant Armida, still, taste, improving with the developement of the art, soon rendered the Italian and German schools of music the exclusive study in Ireland; and they excited an enthusiasm which well belonged to a people who, in all their wretchedness and degradation, had found in music a vehicle for their feelings and their passions, for their deep-seated indignation, and their long-meditated revenge. St. Bridget now hid her diminished head in her "cell of the oak; while St. Cecilia saw more tapers light

friend Dubourg, the violin of his age, he was received with rapture. His first public exhibition in Dublin was the Messiah, which he performed for the benefit of the city prisons. Whoever had the happiness of knowing the late Richard Kirwan, the Irish philosopher, may judge of the enthusiasm of the travelled Irish gentlemen for Italian music, and the vogue which Piccini obtained through their

means.

* St. Bridget was accustomed to pray under the

ed at her shrine in the Irish capital than ever illumined her dusky chapel in the Trastevere at Rome. Music halls were built for public concerts; and musical societies, assuming the importance and dignities of corporate bodies, were formed out of the amateur and professional talent of the country; while the conciliating genius of harmony, refusing that "to a party which was meant for mankind," devoted its divine powers to smoothing political austerities, reknitting the social affections, and promoting the first of all human virtues-charity. Oh! shade of an oak, a circumstance which has given its name to an Irish county, Cil doire, the cell. of the oak (Kildare.)

* "Concerts were the favourite amusement in the houses of the nobility and gentry, and musical societies were formed in all the great towns."--Memoirs of Irish Bards.

+ The Philharmonic Society gave up its subscriptions towards building the hospital in Townsendstreet, 1753.