340 



According to Bacon, " no harp hath the sound so melting and so 

 prolonged as the Irish harp."* Handel, who styled Carolan the Irish 

 Orpheus, -f- declared that he would rather have been author of Ellen- 

 a-roon, than of all the music he had ever composed ;";|. and Gemi- 

 niani was so struck with the harmony of the Irish music, as to declare 

 he found none so original " on this side of the Alps." Even in this 

 age when music, like the gilded statue of Lysippus, has lost all its 

 simplicity in foreign embelUshments, he, who has an ear left for the 

 untutored songs of nature, may yet in the " terras incognitas " of 

 Errus and Connamara, catch strains, whose flowing melody and thrill- 

 ing pathos will strike at his heart, and excite an interest — a sympathy 

 that flippant science and heartless execution never can effectuate. 



While music was thus flourishing in Ireland, its professors were 

 naturally respected with the highest honours. This more particularly 

 appears to have been the case, from a passage in "L'Histoire et Cro- 

 nique de Froissart." As the passage is extremely curious, we will 

 give it unabridged, and in the historian's own simple diction. He 

 says that Richard Seury, an ancient knight, who had accompanied 

 Richard the Second to Ireland, and was deputed by that prince to 

 study the customs and manners of the four Irish kings who had sub- 

 mitted to him, informed him that " Quand ces roys estoyent asis a 

 la table, et servis du premier mets, ils faisoyent seoir devant eux leurs 

 menestriers et leurs prochains varlets, et manger a leur escuelle, et 

 boire a leurs hanaps : et me disoyent que bel estoit I'usage du pais, et 

 qu' en toutes choses, reserve le lict, ils estoyent tous communs. Je 

 leur souffiri tout ce faire trois jours ; et au quatrieme ie fei ordonner 

 tables, et courrir en la salle ainsi comme il appartenoit: et fei les qua- 



« Walker's Irish Bards, p. 166. f Campbell's Strictures, p. 26. 



X O'Conor's Dissertation, p. 58. 



