"So sweetly sings the nightingale, "All the moane that I make, says the gudeman, My gudame for ever and ay-a, "The beggar sett his daughter well." "The fryare had on a coule of redd ; He spied a pretty wench kaming her head." "Be soft and sober, I you pray." "I and my cummer, my cummer and I, II. ANCIENT SCOTISH MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. As a great many musical instruments were anciently made use of in Scotland, especially in the Lowlands, much of the Scotish music must have been adapted to suit their particular genius, structure, and compass. We feel it to be necessary, therefore, to enter shortly upon the consideration of their nature and history, as one of the most important elements in the present enquiry. Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote in the reign of Henry II. of England, and William the Lion of Scotland, (towards the end of the twelfth century,) in his Topographia Hiberniæ,a observes, that "the Irish use only two musical instruments, the harp and the tabour;-the Scots use three, the harp, the tabour, and the bagpipe;-the Welsh also use three, the harp, the pipe, and the bagpipe." Whether, within the purely Celtic and Highland districts, the people at this time actually confined themselves to the use of the three instruments here specified-the harp, the tabour, and the bagpipe--we know not: Giraldus had never been in Scotland, and possessed no personal knowledge of the fact. But to the Scandinavian and Scoto-Saxon part of the nation we cannot conceive how this observation could be applied. The Norwegians, Danes, Saxons, and Normans, of whom it was composed, had each, in their several countries, cultivated many musical instruments ; and these, along with their national music, they must of course be presumed to have carried into Scotland along with them. In the ornamental bas-relief still to be seen at Melrose Abbey, (founded by David I. in 1136,) there are representations of various instruments, among which are a flute with six holes, a bagpipe, a violin with four strings, and another of a form somewhat similar, supposed by Mr Barrington to have been a cruth. Not that these remains, of themselves, would entitle us to conclude that such instruments prevailed in Scotland at that time, especially as the Abbey itself was the work of a Parisian architect, who was more likely to have borrowed the instruments of his own country for any purpose of mere ornament, than to have seized that opportunity of perpetuating those of a people so rude and uncivilized as the Scots then were. But the intercourse between this country and France, which afterwards became so frequent and intimate, had already commenced in the reign of William the Lion, while the importation and adoption of foreign manners and customs had begun a full century prior to that, under Malcolm Canmore, there can be no ground of rational doubt, therefore, that at the time when Giraldus wrote, (1187,) most, if not all, of the instruments represented in the Gothic tracery of Melrose Abbey, and many others, were known and cultivated in Scotland-on the south of the Grampians at least. Of these instruments, by far the most important, both in itself, and with a view to our present enquiry, was the harp. It is supposed, with - some appearance of truth, that it was known to the ancient Gauls and Britons, that it was the instrument with which they accompanied the hymns which they addressed to their pagan deities, -with which, at their nuptials and funeral obsequies, their games and other public solemnities, they celebrated the praises of those who had signalized themselves by virtuous and heroic deeds, and with which, at the head of armies prepared for battle, they at one time excited the ardour, and at another repressed the fury, of the combatants. But whether this was the identical instrument which has since been recognized under the appellation of harp, it is impossible to say. There is so much uncertainty in pronouncing any opinion as to the identity of the ancient lyres and Cythare with those of modern times, that Montfaucon, who examined six hundred of them, could not venture to affix particular names to any of them, or to ascertain their specific differences. We cannot, therefore, be too cautious in points of this nature, but more especially in this instance, as our sole authority is Diodorus Siculus, who flourished in the time of Julius Cæsar and Augustus, and who says, "The Gauls have amongst them composers of melodies, whom they call Bards; these sing to instruments like lyres, songs of praise and satire." Ammianus Marcellinus, a writer of the fourth century, also relates that "the Bards of the Celts celebrated the actions of illustrious men in heroic poems, which they sung to the sweet sounds of the lyre." And yet, vague as is the expression" instruments like lyres," when, in conjunction with it, a few hundred years afterwards, we find the harp in the hands of their Celtic successors, the bards of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, we see what we should conceive to be enough to satisfy any reasonable mind, that the harp, though probably of a ruder construction, and with fewer strings, was the instrument spoken of by Diodorus. But holding that the harp was truly the instrument of the Druidical bards, we are not to assume that the Celtic race to which they belonged • Ταῖς λυραις όμοιων, lib. v. pag. 308. See also Vossius de Poem. Cantu et Viribus Rythmi, were the original inventors of that instrument. If Mr Pinkerton's views are well founded, that Druidism had not existed long before the Christian era, and it certainly did not continue for many years after that period; and if the Celts, whom that writer admits to have been the aborigines of Britain, and of the greater part of Europe, were, as he represents, in a state of absolute barbarism, until the arrival amongst them of the Scythians or Goths, an event which he supposes to have taken place about three hundred years before the birth of our Saviour,-we should rather conclude that the Celts must have derived their knowledge of that instrument from them, to whom, according to Mr Pinkerton's theory, they were indebted for all the arts of civilized life. This is also the opinion of that writer, who expressly says that the " harp was a Gothic instrument, first invented in Asia, and passing with the Goths to the extremities of Europe, and into the Celtic countries. The ancient Irish harp was small like the Gothic." Mr Gunn, the author of a Dissertation on the Harp, intimates the same opinion, that it was of Asiatic extraction; and it is mentioned by Martianus Capella as having been in use among the Gothic nations who overran Italy during the fifth century. a Whether the harp was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, is a question which we shall not pretend to determine; probably it was,— but no exact delineation of it, that we are aware of, has ever been found on any of their coins, sculpture, or paintings, nor any description of it in their writings. Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poictiers, who wrote in the sixth century, is the first author by whom the harp under its modern name is mentioned, and he pointedly distinguishes it from the Greek and Roman lyres, and assigns it to the Goths or Barbari in the following passage: Harp. Romanusque Lyrâ, plaudet tibi, Barbarus Harpû, Pinkerton's Enquiry, vol. i. p. 390. Lib. vii. Carm. 8. See Prospectus at the end of Mr Gunn's Historical Enquiry into the Performance on the See Du Cange, v. Harp. |