176 Mr. Alfred Perceval Graves [Jan. 26 



being, whether the Irish got them from the Danes or the Danes from 

 the Irish, though the musical reputation of our ancestors, amongst 

 whom the Danes formed maritime settlements at Dublin, Waterford, 

 Limerick, and elsewhere, points to the latter conclusion. Then there 

 is the strong internal evidence of extreme antiquity from the old- 

 world characters of such airs as the * March from Fingal.' 



To what poetical measures were these old airs sung ? We have, 

 fortunately, some clue to this, not only in the modern Irish words to 

 them published by Dr. Joyce, but in the important fact that we have 

 Irish poems, as early as the ninth century, which will sing to some 

 of the ancient airs ; for example, an invocation for God's protection 

 upon his coracle, by Cormac Mac Cullinane, King and Bishop of 

 Cashel, who died in 903. This measure is identical with that of 

 Shenstone's lines : — 



" My banks they arc furnished with bees, 

 Whose murmurs invite us to sleep, 

 My grottoes are shaded with trees 

 And my hills are white oyer with sheep.'* 



Professor 0' Curry puts the case very strongly, but not, I think, 

 too strongly, when he says, " Those verses of King Cormac McCul- 

 linane, now almost one thousand years old, which sing to the air of 

 ' For Ireland I would not tell who she is/ is adduced as an inter- 

 esting fact, proving that a fragment of a lyric poem, ascribed to a 

 writer of the ninth century, and actually preserved in a MS. book 

 so old as the year 1150, presents a peculiar structure of rhythm, 

 exactly corresponding with that of certain ancient musical composi- 

 tions still popular and well known, and, according to tradition, of 

 the highest antiquity. 



" I believe such a fact is unknown in the musical history of any 

 other nation of Europe ; and yet in ours very many such instances 

 could be adduced of ancient lyric music still in existence, in minutely 

 exact agreement with forms of lyric poetry used not only in but 

 peculiar to the most ancient periods of our native literature." 



A large proportion of the Irish airs are in eight-line measures, 

 consisting of two quatrains ; though originally it would appear that the 

 verses consisted of four lines only, in which event the range of the 

 air was very limited. But, as time went on, the strain appears to have 

 been repeated, with a variation, and then added to by means of a 

 strain of different character, the final musical measure being a repeti- 

 tion of the first strain. 



Stanzas built up to suit such airs largely consist of sixteen lines, 

 which are quaintly called " curving eight-lined verses " — the meaning 

 of the word curved referring to the second part of eight lines, which 

 are added to the first eight to fill up the curve turn, or second part 

 of the tune. 



Finally, it may be worth while to state the case of the Scotch 

 claim to Irish airs, and the Irish claim to Scotch melodies. A 



