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The obvious occasion, therefore, of the passing of such statutes as those we have mentioned, both in England and in Scotland, was the favour with which these persons were received,—a favour so great, that vagrants of every description were at all times ready to assume the character of the minstrel as a passport to the hospitality and attention which the latter never failed to receive. Thus, an Act of Edward I.a (1315,) sets out with this preamble-" Forasmuch as.... many idle persons, under colour of mynstrelsie, and going in messages, and other faigned business, have ben, and yet be receaved in other men's houses to meate and drynke, and be not therwith contented yf they be not largely consydered with gyftes of the lordes of the houses." It then goes on to restrain more than three or four minstrels in one day from resorting (uninvited) to the houses of prelates, earls, and barons,—and that none come to the houses of "meaner men" unless desired. A letter of Edward IV.b (1489) also complains that a number of persons falsely assuming the privileges of minstrels, had, in that capacity, levied heavy pecuniary exactions in different parts of the kingdom. This was exactly the situation of matters in Scotland. The same liberties were here taken on the same pretext; so that, instead of being derogatory to the profession, the statutes which we have cited were plainly intended to put an end to such abuses, and thereby to protect from encroachment the privileges and respectability of the higher class of artists; for which reason the individuals denounced are merely minstrels, songsters, and taletellers, "not avowed in speciall service be some of the lords of parliament, or great burrowes, or be the head burrowes, for their common minstralles."

We believe, therefore, that it was more on account of the irregularities and abuses which we have endeavoured to point out, than the misconduct of the general body, that "unlicenced minstrels" (for the degradation seems to have extended no farther) fell under the ban of those penal enactments. By a British statute, passed in the course of the

Percy's Reliques, vol. i. Introduction, pp. 69, 70.

Percy, ibid.

• See contemporary English statutes of Queen Elizabeth, st. 39, c. 4, § 2; st. 43, c. 16.

last century, strolling players are classed under the same odious denomination, and the old bards and minstrels have even the advantage of them, in being associated, under the Act of James VI., with a respectable literary class of culprits, viz. " all vagabound schollers of the Universities of St Andrewes, Glasgow, and Aberdene, not licenced by the Rector and Deane of Facultie of the Universitie to ask almes!"

It is not improbable, however, that these marks of public opprobrium had had a baneful effect on the character of the profession in both countries. Percy, their great advocate, seems to have considered the Acts which were passed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth as a deathblow to the art, and says, that, towards the end of the sixteenth century, they had lost all credit, and were sinking into contempt and neglect. It has been remarked, that Blind Harry the minstrel, the author of "The actes and deides of the illuster and vailzeand Campion, Schir William Wallace," came nearer to the character of an ancient minstrel than any one in the age in which he lived. He chanted his heroic strains before the princes and nobles of the land, and is described by Majora as one" qui historiarum recitatione coram principibus, victum et vestitum, quo dignus erat, nactus est." The period during which he flourished (especially the reigns of James III. and IV) was one which afforded all the encouragement to minstrels and artists which could be derived from royal munificence and example. In the Lord High Treasurer's accounts, during the early part of this last mentioned prince's reign, there are payments occasionally set down to "Blind Harry," who must at this time have been a very old man. Another entry, a few years afterwards, offers additional proof of James IV.'s partiality for this species of entertainment-" April 10th, 1496.-Item, to the tua fithelaris" that sang Gray Steil' to the king, ix"."e

b

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Lib. iv. c. 15.

M. Fauchet (De l'Origine de la Langue Francaise, p. 72) defines jongleurs ou jugleurs, c'est a dire menestriers chantans avec la viole.

"This " Gray Steil" was a highly popular romance,

Mr Laing, in whose "Early Metrical

Tales" it has been published, says, that it" would seem, along with the poems of Sir David

We find the bards alluded to, in no very respectful terms, in the "Cockelbie Sow," the "Houlate," (a production of the reign of James II.,) Dunbar's "Flyting," the works of Sir David Lyndsay, and other poems of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and the last occasions in which they appear to have figured in their ancient capacity at the courts of our monarchs, were not nearer our own times than the reigns of Malcolm III. and Alexander III. At the coronation of each of these sovereigns, a bard or sennachie stepped forward and chanted a Gaelic poem containing a recital of the king's ancestors from the reign of Fergus I. After this, they were chiefly, if not altogether, confined to the establishments of our Celtic chiefs. Rhoderick Morison or Dall, a blind man, was perhaps the last of any note or respectability. He was bard and harper to the Laird of Macleod at Dunvegan Castle about the middle and towards the end of the seventeenth century,a and Mr Macdonald observes, that he was born a gentleman, and lived on that footing in the family. Mr Gunn says, that some of his compositions are still extant. After this, we hear of another of the name of Murdoch Macdonald, a pupil of this Rhoderick or Rory Dall, who was bard or harper in the family of Maclean of Coll, where he remained till 1734. The author whom we have last quoted rather thinks that there were no professional harpers bred in the Highlands, except in connexion with such establishments as these, and that if there were any, they had probably gone to the Lowlands to exercise their profession there. We have no doubt, that before the beginning of the last century there were many of these wandering bards and minstrels; and the

Lyndsay, and the histories of Robert the Bruce and of Sir William Wallace, to have formed the standard production of the vernacular literature of the country." It is noticed also by the same gentleman, that "in a curious manuscript volume formerly in the possession of Dr Burney, entitled, “An Playing Booke for the Lute-noted and collected" at Aberdeen by Robert Gordon, in the year 1627, is the air of "Gray Steel ;" and there is a satirical poem on the Marquis of Argyle, printed in 1686, which is said " to be composed in Scotish rhyme," and " is appointed to be sung according to the tune of Old Gray Steel.'" See also Ellis' Metrical Romances, vol. iii. p.

308.

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Macdonald's Essay on the Highland Music, p. 11. Gunn's Enquiry, pp. 95, 97.

closing scene of their career is well depicted by Martine, (who is supposed to have been secretary to Archbishop Sharpe,) in his Reliquiæ Divi Andreæ." The bards (says he) at length degenerated by degrees into common ballad makers; for they gave themselves up to the making of mystical rhymes, and to magic and necromancy. To our father's time and ours something remained, and still does, of this ancient order; and they are called by others and by themselves, Jockies, who go about begging, and use still to recite the sluggornes of most of the true ancient surnames of Scotland from old experience and observation. Some of them I have discoursed, and found to have reason and discretion. One of them told me that there were not now twelve of them in the whole of the isle; but he remembered the time when they abounded, so as, at one time, he was one of five that usuallie met at St Andrews."b

In the course of our examination of the musical instruments anciently in use in this country, we have been led into an apparent digression respecting the personal history of those for whose taste and genius it was reserved, to evolve their hidden harmonies, and to elicit from them those "sounds and sweet airs" in which our ancestors took delight,-we say apparent, because, in reality, the two subjects are necessarily and insepar

b

P. 3.

In " Bishop Percy's Letters to George Paton" the antiquary, we observe the following memorandum of the latter, written about the year 1776:-" A set of beggars travelled up and down the south and western parts of Scotland, and were never denied alms by any one: they always carried alongst with them a horn, and were styled Jocky with the Horn, or Jocky who travels broad Scotland. The rhyme used by them to be enquired after." The rhyme was of some consequence; but we fear it has perished along with its reciters. Being perfectly free, therefore, to form all manner of conjectures, the answer which we would propound to Mr Paton's conundrum is, that these beings in "questionable shape," whose mysterious appearance seems to have so startled the imagination of the venerable gentleman, were no other than the lastof the bards! Their description completely corresponds with Martine's "Jockies who went about begging." Jockie, it may be observed, is most likely a corruption of "Joculator." They appear also to have been rhymers. The horn, though not so easily explained, is still another link of connexion with the olden time; and we can scarcely look upon the circumstance of their never being denied alms any where, in any other light than as the last lingering remnant of that hospitality which our ancestors never withheld from those whose exertions contributed so much to their enjoyment; and, as Percy says," supplied the want of more refined entertainment."

ably connected with each other; and it would be as vain to attempt to furnish a complete account of the history of our music without reviewing that of our bards and minstrels, as it would be to trace the rise and progress of our poetry-our romances-our popular songs. It is very doubtful whether materials are extant sufficient to render such an object at all attainable; but if they were, we need hardly say, that they would demand a degree of analysis and research far beyond our present limits. We shall be satisfied, therefore, should the few hints which we have thrown out conduce, however slightly, to advance the main object of our inquiries.

a

As the harp was so favourite an instrument of the Scoto-Saxon minstrels during the middle ages, its use in Scotland could never have been confined to the Highlands, as Mr Ritson supposes, although it certainly continued to subsist there for a much greater length of time than in the Lowland part of the country. In England, it was a common instrument in the time of Chaucer, that is to say, during the fourteenth century, and Mr Ritson says,b" it continued in use till after the reign of Queen Elizabeth, possibly till the civil wars, but was long held in the lowest estimation; since that time it has been entirely laid aside, or at least very rarely used as an English instrument." As to its having been held in the lowest estimation, we would caution our readers against too hastily adopting this notion. It might have been, as the learned author observes, "an ordinary retainer in taverns and such like places"—so is the violin, one of the most eminent of modern instruments. It was also frequently professed by the blind, because it offered perhaps the only means of support to persons who laboured under that misfortune; "blind harper," accordingly, might have become a term of ridicule-so is “blind fiddler” in the present day; nay, the harp might have been a less courtly or fashionable instrument than the lute or the virginals, the secret of this, however, may have lain in the circumstance that a competent knowledge of the latter was more easily acquired by those who pos

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