174 Mr. Alfred Perceval Graves [Jan. 2G, 



nearly extinct, and now gone for ever, were present — Hempson, 

 O'Neill, Fanning, and seven others, the least able of whom has not 

 left his equal behind. Hempson realised the antique pictures drawn 

 by Cambrensis and Galilei, for lie played with long crooked nails, 

 and in his performance the tinkling of the small wires under the 

 deep notes of the bass were particularly thrilling. He was the only 

 one who jjlayed the very old music of the country, and this in a 

 style of such finished excellence as persuaded me that the praises of 

 the old Irish harp in Cambrensis, Fuller, and others, were no more 

 than just to that admirable instrument and its then professors. But 

 more than anything else the conversation of Arthur O'Neill — who, 

 although not so absolute a harper as Hempson, was of gentle blood, 

 and a man of the world, who had travelled over all parts of Ireland 

 — won and delighted me. All that the genius of later poets and 

 romance writers has feigned of the wandering minstrel was realised 

 in this man. There was no house of any note in the north of Ireland, 

 as far as Meath on the one hand, and Sligo on the other, in which he 

 was not well-known and eagerly sought after." 



What are our grounds for believing that many of the airs played 

 at the harp meetings are very ancient ? 



First, the testimony of the harpers, most of them very old men, 

 at the Belfast meetings one hundred years ago, who smiled on being 

 interrogated by Bunting as to the antiquity of the so-called ancient 

 airs, and answered — " They are more ancient than any to which our 

 popular tradition extends." Moreover, Bunting informs us that 

 " though coming from different parts of Ireland, and the pupils of 

 different masters, the harpers played these ancient tunes in the same 

 key, with the same kind of expression, and without a single variation 

 in any essential passage, or even in any note." He adds, " This 

 circumstance seemed the more extraordinary when it was discovered 

 that the most ancient tunes were in this respect the most perfect, 

 admitting of the addition of a bass with more facility than such as 

 were less ancient. Hence we may conclude that their authors must 

 necessarily have been excellent performers, versed in the scientific 

 part of their profession, and that they had originally a view to the 

 addition of harmony in the composition of their pieces. 



" It is remarkable that the performers all tuned their instruments 

 upon the same principle, totally ignorant of the principle itself, and 

 without being able to assign any reason either for their mode of 

 tuning, or of their playing the bass." And here it may be mentioned 

 that the ancient Irish harps had commonly thirty strings, and were 

 tuned in the key of G, and that the Irish airs supposed to be the 

 oldest are in the ordinary major scale of G, and were played in this 

 key. But, for the sake of variety, the harpers played tunes in other 

 scales, and melodies were composed in the scale of A, but with the 

 tuning of the harp unchanged. 



But the strongest proof of the skill of- the Irish harpers of the 

 thirteenth century is the testimony of Gerald Barry, best known as 



