xxxvi MEMOIR OF SIR J. G. DALYELL. 



taiuing to war, to the same extent, as in Scotland. Nowhere else has 

 such complicated music as the pibroch been attempted. Sir John, how- 

 ever, does not find any record of its use in remote times. No mention is 

 made of it hy Ossian, nor yet, more recently, by Wyntoun ; and he is 

 doubtful if any other instrument than the horn was used at Bannockburn. 

 But ample notices of it occur from the fourteenth century downwards. 



Instruction in music does not seem to have been practised in the 

 Highlands by notation, though it may have been by language. This the 

 author was the more inclined to believe from the fact of " John Campbell, 

 a competitor in performance on the bagpipe," at Edinburgh, in 1818, 

 having brought with him '' a folio volume in manuscript, said to contain 

 numerous compositions ; but the contents merely resembling a written 

 narrative, in an unknown language, nor bearing any resemblance to Gaelic, 

 they proved utterly unintelligible." A Murdoch Maclean from Glasgow, 

 " otTered to decypher the mysterious manuscript," but the proposal met 

 with no encouragement at the time, and Sir John regrets that his sub- 

 sequent endeavours to regain it proved fruitless. Campbell said there 

 were other two volumes of the same kind belonging to his father. In 

 tracing these he was alike unsuccessful. " If ever recovered," he says, 

 " it is extremely desirable that they should be deposited as a curiosity in 

 some public library." Captain Macleod of Guesto had the merit, it ap- 

 pears, of illustrating " so remarkable a fashion," and Su- John gives a 

 specimen from the Gathering of the Clans — 



Ilodroho, hoJroho, lianinin hiechin, 

 Hodrolio, hodroho, hodroho hachin." 



From this specimen, we are convinced that it. must have been one of the 

 volumes mentioned, or a similar one, which we saw, about twelve years 

 ago, in the possession of Captain Donald Campbell, then residing in Ayr 

 — and if so, their recovery is not hopeless. 



The bagpipe is perhaps regarded with more flivour by the author, 

 because of its being the origin of the organ — the progress in the construc- 

 tion of which he traces, with great precision, from the rudest attempts 

 to the master-pieces of that magnificent instrument. 



