342 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 



poems, as well as of thofe of ancient Greece and 

 Rome, were originally Jung and accompanied with 

 inflrumcnts, is very natural and reafonable to be- 

 lieve j but that a rude and uncivilized people, driven 

 into a mountainous and barren country, without 

 commerce, or communication with the reft of Eu- 

 rope, fliould invent counterpoint^ and cultivate har- 

 mony, at a period when it was unknown to the mod 

 polifhed and refined inhabitants of the earth, flill 

 remains a problem difficult of folution." 



With the foregoing fpecimens and remarks, it is 

 no very eafy tafk to reconcile the accounts which the 

 Welfh writers give of their own mufic, and of their 

 prefent melodies, many of which are referred to a 

 period confiderably anterior to that of the above 

 manufcript. We mud either fuppofe that the ac- 

 counts which the bards have left us of their own 

 proceedings, are much enveloped in fiction, or that 

 this manufcript contains mufic compofed many cen- 

 turies previous to its date, and when the fcience was 

 yet in its infancy. In this cafe we are fuprized at 

 the counterpoint : by the former fuppofition we fhall 

 be led to conjecture, that nioft of the mufic at pre- 

 fent in ufe, is that of modern times, of which, in- 

 deed, its regularity, and the artfulnefs of its contex- 

 ture, feem to afford, fufiicient proof. 



The prefent Welfli mufic, in its characteriflic 



wildnefs and irregularity, bears a confiderable re- 



fcmblance to that of Ireland, but in the fweetnefs of 



"^ its 



