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rhyming, that their partiality led them to imagine that he was 

 the author, though it does not appear that Reynolds himself 

 ever made any such assertion. Some of his particular friends and 

 near relatives, in lack of more conclusive evidence, swore before 

 a justice of the peace in Dublin, that it was their belief that 

 Reynolds was the real author ; that the song was well known 

 in their circle in the year 1799 ; that one of them, a lady, had 

 given away a hundred copies of it among her friends, and that 

 it had been noticed as the composition of Reynolds in the 

 newspapers of the day. None of these newspapers, however, 

 had been produced or named ; and as to the belief or convic- 

 tion of any individual, however respectable and trustworthy, it 

 availed nothing in the determination of a question of this kind. 

 It was stated in favour of Reynolds, that a wandering harper, 

 called M'Cluskey, had said that he had learned the song in 

 the Irish Harp Society of Belfast in 1799, and that G. N. 

 Reynolds was the author. This statement was treated as a 

 fabrication, for the following reasons. The principal founders 

 and supporters of the Irish Harp Society were Henry Joy, 

 Esq., of Belfast, and Edward Bunting, the well-known col- 

 lector of ancient Irish melodies, of which he published a 

 volume or " General Collection," in 1809. Mr. Joy wrote 

 the learned and elaborate History of Irish Music which is 

 prefixed to that volume. English songs appropriate to the 

 airs were collected from various sources. Among them were 

 three from Thomas Campbell, one of which is "the Exile of 

 Erin." Had that song been ascribed to any claimant but 

 Campbell, who gave it to Bunting as his own, Messrs. Joy 

 and Bunting must have known it ; and it is not for a moment 

 to be imagined that either of those honourable men would 

 have published the song as Campbell's, had there been but a 

 breath of suspicion that he was not hondfide the real author; 

 and as little is it to be imagined that Campbell, with the con- 

 sciousness of its not being his own, would have suffered it 

 to be sent forth with his name, in a volume to which public 



