"We have had descents of the Danube, and descents of the Rhine, and the Rhone, and of many other rivers; but we have not in print, as far as I know, any descent of the Blackwater; and yet, with all these descents of foreign rivers in my recollection, I think the descent of the Blackwater not surpassed by any of them. A detail of all that is seen in gliding down the Blackwater from Cappoquin to Youghal would fill a long chapter. There is every combination that can be produced by the elements that enter into the picturesque and the beautiful—deep shades, bold rocks, verdant slopes, with the triumphs of art superadded, and made visible in magnificent houses and beautiful villas with their decorated lawns and pleasure grounds."
And now, reader, if these kaleidoscope glimpses we have given you have made you doubt between a summer in Ireland and one abroad, give your country "the benefit of the doubt," as the lawyers say, and boat on our lake or dive into our glens and ruins, wonder at the basalt coast of Antrim, and soften your heart between the banks of the Blackwater.
IRISH MUSIC AND POETRY.
No enemy speaks slightingly of Irish Music, and no friend need fear to boast of it. It is without a rival.
Its antique war-tunes, such as those of O'Byrne, O'Donnell, Alestrom, and Brian Boru, stream and crash upon the ear like the warriors of a hundred glens meeting; and you are borne with them to battle, and they and you charge and struggle amid cries and battle-axes and stinging arrows. Did ever a wail make man's marrow quiver, and fill his nostrils with the breath of the grave, like the ululu of the north or the wirrasthrue of Munster? Stately are their slow, and recklessly splendid their quick marches, their "Boyne Water," and "Sios agus sios liom," their "Michael Hoy," and "Gallant Tipperary." The Irish jigs and planxties are not only the best dancing tunes, but the finest quick marches in the world. Some of them would cure a paralytic and make the marble-legged prince in the Arabian Nights charge like a Fag-an-Bealach boy. The hunter joins in every leap and yelp of the "Fox Chase"; the historian hears the moan of the penal days in "Drimindhu," and sees the embarkation of the Wild Geese in "Limerick's Lamentation"; and ask the lover if his breath do not come and go with "Savourneen Deelish" and "Lough Sheelin."
Varied and noble as our music is, the English-speaking people in Ireland have been gradually losing their knowledge of it, and a number of foreign tunes—paltry scented things from Italy, lively trifles from Scotland, and German opera cries—are heard in our concerts, and what is worse, from our Temperance bands. Yet we never doubted that "The Sight Entrancing," or "The Memory of the Dead," would satisfy even the most spoiled of our fashionables better than anything Balfe or Rossini ever wrote; and, as it is, "Tow-row-row" is better than poteen to the teetotalers, wearied with overtures and insulted by "British Grenadiers" and "Rule Brittannia."
A reprint of Moore's Melodies on lower keys, and at much lower prices, would probably restore the sentimental music of Ireland to its natural supremacy. There are in Bunting but two good sets of words—"The Bonny Cuckoo," and poor Campbell's "Exile's of Erin." These and a few of Lover's and Mahony's songs can alone compete with Moore. But, save one or two by Lysaght and Drennan, almost all the Irish political songs are too desponding or weak to content a people marching to independence as proudly as if they had never been slaves.
The popularity and immense circulation of the Spirit of the Nation proved that it represented the hopes and passions of the Irish people. This looks like vanity; but as a corporation so numerous as the contributors to that volume cannot blush, we shall say our say. For instance, who did not admire "The Memory of the Dead"? The very Stamp officers were galvanised by it, and the Attorney-General was repeatedly urged to sing it for the jury. He refused—he had no music to sing it to. We pitied and forgave him; but we vowed to leave him no such excuse next time. If these songs were half so good as people called them, they deserved to flow from a million throats to as noble music as ever O'Neill or O'Connor heard.
Some of them were written to, and some freely combined with, old and suitable airs. These we resolved to have printed with the music, certain that, thus, the music would be given back to a people who had been ungratefully neglecting it, and the words carried into circles where they were still unknown.