“Sufficiently so,” said I, “to risk my life for it.”
She smiled, and cast a look at the window, as much as to say, “I understand you.”
As I now was engaged in examining her harp, I observed that it resembled less any instrument of that kind I had seen, than the drawing of the Davidic lyre in Montfaucon.
“Then,” said she, with animation, “this is another collateral proof of the antiquity of its origin, which I never before heard adduced, and which sanctions that universally received tradition among us, by which we learn, that we are indebted to the first Milesian colony that settled here for this charming instrument, although some modern historians suppose that we obtained it from Scandinavia.” *
* It is reserved for the national Lyre of Erin only, to
claim a title independent of a Gothic origin. For “Clar-
seach,” is the only Irish epithet for the harp, a name more
in unison with the cithera of the Greeks, and even the
chinor of the Hebrew, than the Anglo-Saxon harp. “I cannot
but think the clarseach, or Irish harp, one of the most
ancient instruments we have among us, and had perhaps its
origin in remote periods of antiquity.”—Dr. Bedford’s Essay
on the construction, &c. of the Irish Harp.
“And is this, Madam,” said I, “the original ancient Irish harp?”
“Not exactly, for I have strung it with gut instead of wire, merely for the gratification of my own ear; but it is, however, precisely the same form as that preserved in the Irish university, which belonged to one of the most celebrated of our heroes, Brian Boni; for the warrior and the bard often united in the character of our kings, and they sung the triumphs of those departed chiefs whose feats they emulated.”
“You see,” she added with a smile, while my eager glance pursued the kindling animation of her countenance as she spoke,—“you see, that in all which concerns my national music, I speak with national enthusiasm; and much indeed do we stand indebted to the most charming of all the sciences for the eminence it has obtained us; for in music only, do you English allow us poor Irish any superiority; and therefore your King, who made the harp the armorial bearing of Ireland, perpetuated our former musical celebrity beyond the power of time or prejudice to destroy it.”
Not for the world would I have annihilated the triumph which this fancied superiority seemed to give to this patriotic little being, by telling her, that we thought as little of the music of her country, as of every thing else that related to it; and that all we knew of the style of its melodies, reached us through the false medium of comic airs, sung by some popular actor, who in coincidence with his author, caricatures those national traits he attempts to delineate.
I therefore simply told her, that though I doubted not the former musical celebrity of her country, yet that I perceived the Bardic order in Wales seemed to have survived the tuneful race of Erin; for that though every little Cambrian village had its harper, I had not yet met with one of the profession in Ireland.