II 



Certain Delusions of the North Britons 3 1 7 



produce sounds of a scrannel and midrifif-rending 

 nature ; the meaning of which they understand not 

 themselves, nor the gesticulations, puffings, and 

 prancings which the player maketh, and which 

 remind one mightily of the vainglories of a High- 

 land piper in full blast. This is an early and, I 

 think, very ancient form of bagpipe ; but a still 

 earlier one may be sometimes seen in the city 

 of Rome, where one man shrieketh on a clarinet 

 whilst the other droneth and rowteth out of a 

 bag. 



I would fain believe that our pipes arose from 

 one of these rogues being spirited away, and so the 

 other forced to play both parts himself; and may 

 the foul fiend soon return for him also ! In Greece 

 and in Spain, in the mountains of furthest Ind, and 

 among the Celts of Brittany, do we find the bag- 

 pipe. Nay, even in Germania is it known, where 

 they call it for shortness, after their manner, Constan- 

 tinopolitanische Dudetsackpfeife, feigning to have de- 

 rived it from the Turk, who, indeed, is far too sober 

 and sedate to tolerate such skirling. When the 

 bagpipes reached the Northern Irish I know not ; it 

 is certainly not ancient among them, their earliest 

 instrument being the ' clairshaw,' or metal-stringed 

 harp. Men, indeed, who are learned in these things 

 have assured me that there exist to this day tunes 

 which cannot in any way be rendered by the pipes, 

 but only by the Jews' or jaws harp, which Pennant, 

 indeed, believes to be very ancient in the North, 



