WELSH BARDS AND MUSIC. ^35 



The glaring improbabilities in this account, as ap- 

 plying to the prefent laws of mufic, tend to prove that 

 Giraldus could know very little of the fubjeft of 

 which he treats. Any one acquainted with the firft 

 difficulties attending the practice of finging in parts, 

 can have no very exalted idea of the harmony of an 

 2mtaught crowd, or fuppofe it little better than, the 

 diflbnant pagans of a good humoured mob ; in which 

 the parts would be as various as the pitch of voices of 

 which their chorus was compofed. How all thefe 

 could however have united at lall in the confonance 

 oi orga7iic fwcetnefs can never be explained without 

 fuppofmg their tafte for mufic of a more barbarous 

 call: than ours. As to children naturally fmging iii 

 harmony as foon as they were out of the cradle, the 

 idea is too ridiculous to require a moment's hefitation 

 in pronouncing it altogether abfurd. If howevejc, 

 incredulity can be vanquiflied v/ith refpecl to this ac- 

 count of the earlv perfeclion of Welfh mufic, it 

 would be by a manufcript lodged in the library of 

 the WeKh fchool, near London, that was formerly 

 - the property of Mr. Lewis Morris. It contains feve- 

 ral pieces for the harp, that are in full harmony or 

 counterpoint : they are written in a peculiar nota- 

 tion, and fuppofed to be as old as the year iico; 

 at leaft fuch is the known antiquity of many of the 

 fongs here mentioned. But whether the tunes, and 

 their notation are coeval with the words, cannot 

 eafily be proved. The title is 



MUSIC .\ 



