MEMOIR OF SIR J. G. DALYELL. xxx\ii 



The harp furnishes an interesting chapter. It seems to have been a 

 very simple instrument in early times. Several engravings are given 

 from sculptured crosses in the north of Scotland ; and one of the Cale- 

 donian Harp preserved in the family of Robertson of Lude since 1460, 

 when it came into their possession by marriage. It is a superior instru- 

 ment, having thirty- two strings. The dairsha — a species of harp — was 

 also much in use at one time in Scotland. 



The violin, as sculptured on Melrose Abbey, as well as in an illumi- 

 nated MS. once belonging to Dunfermline Abbey — both of the fourteenth 

 century — appears first with two strings. It is not till the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth centuries that we find it in its present form. The viol, thou"-h 

 differing in shape, was played in a similar manner, and violer and violin 

 player are frequently used as synonymous in old documents. According 

 to the song of '' Logie o' Buchan," written by George Halket, who died 

 in 1756, the viol was still in use in his time : 



" Logie o' Buchan, Logie the Laird, 

 They ha'e ta'en awa' Jamie, that delved i' the yai-d, 

 Wha play'd ou the pipe and the viol sae sina', 

 They ha'e ta'en awa' Jamie, the flower o' them a'." 



In the begining of last century Hew M'Quyre, Ayr, is styled '• violer" in 

 the pai'ish records ; but locally he was known to be a violin player. 



Sir John finds that most of our reputed Highland airs — save those 

 adapted for the bagpipe — which are peculiar — have been composed for 

 the violin — so that they cannot be quite so ancient as some writers assert. 

 When the harp was the prevailing instrument, considerable intercourse 

 was kept up between the njinstrels of the three countries. In the house- 

 hold accounts, both of the Scotish crown and nobility, numerous pay- 

 ments appear to English and Irish musicians — as, for example in 1502, 

 " the Inglis harpar," " the Irland clarschar." The Highland harpers were 

 styled Earsch, not Irish, as the two terms are sometimes confounded. From 

 the intercourse thus maintained — especially between the Irish and High- 

 land harpers — the national music of Ireland and Scotland became to some 

 extent intermixed. 



