THIS venerable instrument, the least impaired Gaelic Harp existing, is known as Queen Mary's Harp, and belongs to C. Durrant Steuart, Esq., of Dalguise, near Dunkeld. Of Gaelic Harps we can only reckon seven that may be dated earlier than the eighteenth century, the oldest being the Queen Mary and Lamont Harps, now in Edinburgh, and the harp named after Brian Boru (Boromha), preserved at Trinity College, Dublin; these three dating anterior, perhaps long anterior, to the fifteenth century. The Queen Mary and Brian Boru Harps are the two most nearly resembling one another. They are small, the Queen Mary Harp being only 31 inches high and 18 inches from back to front. They were played resting upon the left knee and against the left shoulder of the performer, whose left hand touched the upper strings. The comb is from 2½ to 3¼ inches high. It is inserted obliquely in the sound chest, and projects about 14 inches. The sound chest, in shape a truncated triangle hollowed out of the solid, is 5 inches wide at the top and 12 at the bottom, the depth being 4½ inches. The bow or forearm measures in a straight line 27½ inches, the chord of the arc of the inner curve being 23 inches. The front of it is expanded so as to form a convenient hold for the hand; it tapers slightly above and below, and ends both ways in boldly carved heads of animals of a symbolical character. The strings were of brass and twenty-nine in number, and were made to sound by the player's finger-nails, which were allowed to grow long for the purpose. The Queen Mary Harp has had another (the lowest) string attached later. This string measured 24 inches, the highest treble string 2½ inches; what compass the harp had it is now impossible to decide, but, following the tradition of Irish harpers, the accordance was based upon the old diatonic scale with the minor seventh, sometimes replaced by the major seventh. We learn by the lectures of the late Dr. Eugene O'Curry that the ancient Irish had three modes in their music, the "Crying," the "Laughing," and the "Sleeping." Whatever these tunings were, and probably the Highland Scotch had the same, their secret is locked up in the wood of the harps that once responded to them. In this, and frequent instances in these Plates, the instruments are not represented as strung. It is impossible to keep old instruments with that strain continually upon them, and to string them only to have them drawn would have been attended with many disadvantages.
The Queen Mary Harp has a history based upon the family tradition of its former owners, the Robertsons of Lude in Perthshire, but in passing through several mediums it has become unreliable. It was long believed to have been Mary Stuart's, and, according to the Lude tradition, it had golden and jewelled ornaments attached to the right upper circle of the bow including her portrait and the Royal Arms of Scotland, which were stolen about 1745. The historical inquiry containing the information respecting this Harp is by John Gunn, F.S.A.E., and was published in 1807, under the auspices of the Highland Society. A paper read before the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland by Mr. Charles D. Bell, F.S.A. Scot., and published in their Proceedings for 1880-81, from which I have made extracts, thoroughly sifts the facts that can be deduced from it, and which may be thus accepted:—Queen Mary of Lorraine, the mother of Mary Queen of Scots, gave this harp to Beatrix Gardyn of Banchory, Aberdeenshire. Beatrix Gardyn was married to Finla Mór, and from this marriage the family of Farquharson of Invercauld, in Braemar, is descended. Finla Mór was killed at the battle of Pinkie in A.D. 1547. John Robertson, the eleventh in succession to Lude, married Margaret Farquharson, the only daughter of the then Laird of Invercauld. He was fifty-six years in possession of Lude, and died in A.D. 1730. The last performer on this ancient harp was his great-grandson, General Robertson, who lent both the Lude harps for examination by the Highland Society in 1805. It appears to have been General Robertson's belief that this harp was acquired for Lude by the marriage of John, the eleventh Laird, with a direct descendant of Beatrix Gardyn, but, following Burke's genealogy of the family, it would appear that it came to Lude with Beatrix Gardyn herself, on her marriage with John, seventh Laird. The Robertsons of Lude are now, in the direct line, extinct, but the family of Gardyn is represented by Francis Garden-Campbell, Esq., of Troup and Glenlyon.
Queen Mary's and the Lamont Harps are on loan (1887) in the Museum of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh, and it may be mentioned that when exhibited in the Music Loan Collection, South Kensington, the former was insured for £1500 and the latter for £1000.
PLATE III.
THE LAMONT HARP.
THE Highland Harp, known as the Clarsach Lumanach, or Lamont Harp, belongs to the owner of the Queen Mary Harp, C. Durrant Steuart, Esq., of Dalguise, Perthshire. Both harps were sent to Edinburgh in 1805 by General Robertson of Lude, who owned them at that time, at the request of the Highland Society, and a book was published in 1807 under the patronage of the Society, entitled An Historical Enquiry respecting the Performance on the Harp in the Highlands of Scotland from the earliest times until it was discontinued about the year 1734, by John Gunn, F.A.S.E., in which they were described, and a version of the family tradition of Lude given, compiled from letters written by General Robertson, now unfortunately not forthcoming. Although Mr. Gunn's story of the Queen Mary Harp is coloured in order to attach the gift of it to Mary Queen of Scots, that of the Lamont Harp appears to be according to the simple statement of the original narrator, and may be thus epitomised from a paper published in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1880-81, by Mr. C.D. Bell, F.S.A. Scot.: "The family tradition of Lude alleges that for several centuries past the larger of these harps has been known as the Clarsach Lumanach or Lamont Harp, and that it was brought from Argyllshire by a daughter of the Lamont family on her marriage with Robertson of Lude in 1464. It is said to be the older of the two. If the probably quiet place in the house of Lude be considered, and that it was likely to be valued and cared for there, also that the repairs appear to be of very old date, then the Clarsach Lumanach may have already, before 1464, been an old broken and mended instrument with a pre-traditional story we can never hope to hear." From Burke's Landed Gentry, "Lineage of the Robertsons of Lude," we learn that Charles, fifth Laird of Lude, married Lilias, daughter of Sir John Lamont of Lamont, chief of that clan, and that "it was with this lady, Lilias Lamont, there came one of those very curious old harps which have been in the family for several centuries."