You would imagine the Roman poet was speaking of the Irish bards in the night of their decline; but the description by no means applies to the original institution, whose object it was to perpetuate the history and records of the nation, and preserve its history from the intrusions of barbarism. To this end it was that they met for revision at the senatorial synod; and the importance of this trust it was that procured to their body the many dignities before described, giving them precedence above the aggregate of the community at large, and investing them with an authority little short of royalty.
Rhyme was the vehicle in which their lucubrations were presented; verse the medium selected for their thoughts. To gain perfection in this accomplishment their fancies were ever on the stretch; while the varieties of metre which they invented for the purpose, and the facility with which they bent them to each application and use, were not the least astonishing part of their arduous avocations, and leave the catalogue of modern measures far away in the shade.
Music is the sister of poetry, and it is natural to suppose that they went hand in hand here. In all countries, the voice was the original organ of musical sounds. With this they accompanied their extemporaneous hymns; with this they chanted the honours of their heroes. The battle-shout and the solemnity of the hour of sacrifice were the usual scenes for the concerts of our ancestors. Singing the glory of former warriors, the combatant was himself inspired; and while the victim expired on the altar of immolation, the priest sang the praise of the deity he invoked.
The introduction of the Christian truths gave a new and elevated scope to the genius of the bards. A new enthusiasm kindled up their ardour—a new vitality invigorated their frames; and they who, but the moment before, were most conspicuous in upholding the dogmas of the pagan creed, became now the most distinguished in proclaiming the blessings of the Christian dispensation. Fiech, Amergin, Columba, Finan, etc., are glorious examples of this transmuted zeal.
About the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, however, a change burst forth for the destinies of this order. Verse ceased to be used in their historical announcements. Prose succeeded, as a more simple narrative; and from that moment the respectability of the bards progressively evaporated.
The jealousy of the English Government at the martial feeling excited by their effusions, and the intrepid acts of heroism inculcated by their example, if not the actual cause of this national declension, preponderated very largely amongst its component ingredients.
In the height of the battle, when the war-cry was most loud, and the carnage most severe, those poetic enthusiasts would fling themselves amongst the ranks of the enraged contenders, and determine the victory to whatever party they chose to befriend.
When, too, under the pressure of an untoward fate, and the disheartening yoke of—what they deemed—a treacherous subjugation, the nobles would seem dispirited at the aspect of circumstances, and all but subscribe to the thraldom of slavery, the bards would rouse the energies of their slumbering patriotism, and, as Tyrtæus used the Spartans, enkindle in their bosoms a passion for war. We must not be surprised, therefore, to find in the preamble to some of the acts passed in those times for the suppression of this body of men, the following harsh and deprecating allusions, viz.:—“That those rymors do, by their ditties and rymes made to divers lords and gentlemen in Ireland, in the commendacyon and high praise of extortion, rebellyon, rape, raven, and outhere injustice, encourage those lords and gentlemen rather to follow those vices than to leave them.”
For two centuries after the invasion of Henry II., the voice of the Muse was but faintly heard in Ireland. The arms of Cromwell and William III. completely swept away her feudal reminiscences. As it was their country’s lustre that inspired the enthusiasm of the bards, so, on the tarnishing of its honour, did they become mute and spiritless. They fell with its fall; and, like the captive Israelites, hanging their untuned harps on the willows, they may be supposed to exclaim in all the vehemence of the royal psalmist—
“Now while our harps were hanged soe,
The men whose captives there we lay
Did on our griefs insulting goe,
And more to grieve us thus did say:
You that of musique make such show,
Come, sing us now a Zion lay.—
Oh no! we have nor voice nor hand
For such a song in such a land.”