sessed only a slight acquaintance with the art. An instrument so noble, so susceptible of expression, and variety of effect, as the harp, could never have sunk into the lowest estimation; and at the very time to which Mr Ritson points, as the period of its degradation, the fourteenth century,we find a French poet, (Machau,) in a poem entitled "Le Dict de la Harpe," praising it, as an instrument too good "to be profaned in taverns or places of debauchery;" (and) saying that "it should be used by knights, esquires, clerkes, persons of rank, and ladies with plump and beautiful hands; and that its courteous and gentle sounds should be heard only by the elegant and the good."

In Scotland, during the first part of the fifteenth century, if monarchical example could have contributed to render this instrument fashionable, something might have been expected from our James I., who, although he played upon many other instruments, is reported to have chiefly excelled on this. Fordunb says he touched it like another Orpheus; and Major describes his performance on it as surpassing that of the most skilful Irish and Highland harpers of his day. In this remark, it is implied, that the latter were at this time the most successful cultivators of the harp, a fact of which we have no doubt; not so much from what we gather from Major, as from other historical testimonies; for the truth is, that this author is somewhat loose in his assertions on this head; but greatly as these Highland harpers excelled their Lowland brethren, the harp might still have continued in use among the latter for nearly as long as it did on the other side of the Tweed.

Sir Walter Scott in his Border Minstrelsye tells us that the ballad of the Lochmaben harper is "the most modern ballad in which the harp as a Border instrument of music is found to occur;" but not having any clue

As an example, he writes, "in former times, the harp, covered with leather, and strung with wire, was the favourite instrument, (in the Highlands ;) but at present it is quite lost”—a statement which, at the time to which it refers the beginning of the sixteenth century-we know to have been inconsistent with the fact.

• Vol. i. p. 70.

to the age of the ballad, we can gather nothing more from this statement than what may be collected from other productions of the same kind, such as "Thomas the Rhymer and the Queen of Elfland," and "Binnorie, or the Cruel Sister," viz. that the harp at one time was a common instrument in this part of the country; and many passages in our Lowland poetry might be cited to the same effect. Douglas, for example, in his "Palice of Honour," alludes to it.

"In modulation hard I play and sing,

Taburdoun, pricksang discant, countering;

Cant organe figuration and gemmell,

On croud, lute, harpe, with monie gudlie spring."

The harp, also, figures among the instruments with which Queen Anne was greeted on her public entry into Edinburgh in 1590, celebrated by Burel.

We likewise see from the Lord High Treasurer's accounts,a that besides the occasional engagement of eminent harp performers from a distance, harpers were constantly retained as part of the royal household.

Leyden thought it probable that the Irish harp or clarseach, strung with wire, (and generally covered with leather,) rather than the Welsh harp strung with hair, (or gut,) was that with which the Scotish Lowlanders were acquainted. For this opinion no authority is given; and

• See Appendix.

b 66

July 11th, 1512, Item, to Odonelis Ireland man harpar, quhilk past away with him at the king's command, vii. lib." Lord High Treasurer's accounts.

• Introduction to Complaynt, p. 152.

we confess that the result of our own inquiries into this matter would tend to an opposite conclusion. There is an old MS. romance quoted by this author, "Clariodus and Meliades," where, in enumerating the instruments of a concert, it is mentioned that

a

"Out of Irland there was ane clersche."

We should think, therefore, that the clersche, clarseach or clarscha, imported into this country by the Scoto-Irish ancestors of our Highland countrymen, had formed their proper national instrument; indeed, the word "clair-schochar" seems always to have been used to signify either an Irish or a Highland harper. Thus, in the treasurer's accounts for 3d January 1533-34, there is entered a payment as follows:-" Item, deliverit to the kingis grace, quhilk his hienes gaue to ane Ireland clairschochar, x lb." We observe, also, that there is a distinction sometimes drawn between the harpers and the clarschochars. In the above accounts for 14th April 1505, there is a payment to "Alexander harper, Pate harper clarscha, his son the Ersch clarscha, &c. ilk man, ix. s. iii. lb. xii. s. ;" and in the enumeration of performers, on 1st January 1507, "clarscharis," as well as "harpers," are particularised. From these data we should infer, that the instrument chiefly employed in the Lowlands was the harp strung with horse hair or gut, and that the Irish and the Highlanders had been nearly the exclusive cultivators of the clarsach. It is clear, however, that both of these instruments were made use of by the latter. In "certeyne matters concerning the realme of Scotland," &c., "as they were anno Domini 1597," (London, 1603,) it is said “They (meaning the Highlanders) delight much in musicke, but chiefly in harps and clairschoes of their own fashion. The strings of the clairschoes are made of brasse wire, and the strings of the harps of sinews, which strings they strike, either with their nayles growing long, or else with an instrument appointed for that use." We may observe in passing, that what we have here quoted is merely a new version by

• Introduction to Complaynt, p. 157.

M

this author of what Buchanan has stated on the same subject in his History of Scotland, Book I.

As to the ancient compass of the harp, Jones would represent it as having possessed a scale of twenty-six diatonic notes, even as far back as the sixth century. This he deduces from certain Welsh melodies still extant, and which he says were played in the year 520, although upon this statement we can place no great reliance. Mr Gunn's observations. on this head are worthy of more attention. This eminent professional gentleman, in the year 1805, at the request of the Highland Society of Scotland, examined two old Caledonian harps belonging to the family of Robertson of Lude, one of which had been presented by Queen Mary to lady who had married into that family; and the other, an instrument of great antiquity, quite as old, "if not older," than the celebrated harp of Brian Boiromh, the monarch of Ireland, who was slain in 1014, and which is preserved in the Museum of the University of Dublin. The Caledonian harp is very similar to the latter, although its proportions are somewhat larger, being thirty-eight and a half inches in height, with thirty string holes, while the Irish harp is thirty-two inches high, and seems to have carried twenty-eight strings. In describing the Caledonian harp, Mr Gunnd mentions that the front arm is not perpendicular to the sounding board, but that its upper part, together with the top arm, is turned considerably towards the left, in order to leave a greater opening for the voice of the performer. This peculiarity, and a fact which is well known, viz. that the Caledonian, Irish, and Welsh harpers held their harps at the left side, and struck the upper strings with their left hand, render it probable that the accompaniment of the voice formed the chief province of the instrument. Mr Gunne remarks, that there is no reason to suppose that the old harpers did not tune their harps to the diatonic scale, "as all the music still extant in Ireland and the Highlands (he might have

a

added Wales) is reducible to that scale." O'Kane, the last Irish harper of any great eminence heard in Scotland, (about 1770,) tuned his harp on that system; and from Mr Bunting's account of the meeting of Irish harpers at Belfast, in 1792, it appears that all the harpers who attended upon that occasion, though from parts of the country distant from each other, and taught by different masters, tuned their instruments upon the same principle. As the diatonic scale only gives two intervals of a semitone within the compass of each octave, some contrivance, of course, was necessary, in order to produce such accidental sharps and flats as might occasionally occur. This was, first of all, effected by the performer running his hand up close to the comb, and dexterously stopping the note with the thumb, while he played it with the finger; and afterwards, by the invention of double and triple harps, by which the number of strings were multiplied, so as to embrace the whole series of the chromatic, as well as the diatonic system. But these improvements are not supposed to have been introduced earlier than the fourteenth or fifteenth century; and it was only about a hundred years ago that M. Simon of Brussels superseded their necessity by inventing the method, which has since been practised, of producing the half tones by pedals, and thus brought back the instrument to nearly its ancient simplicity of construction and number of strings.c

If we have dwelt at great length on the history of this instrument, it is because it formed the leading feature of the minstrelsy of the middle ages-not only diffusing its charms at the courts of princes, and in the houses of the nobility upon all festive occasions, but constituting a source of delightful and innocent recreation to all classes of the people, in the tranquillity of domestic life. Giraldus pictures such a scene, when speaking of the primitive manners of the Welsh, about the year 1188, and their hospitality to strangers, he tells us, that "those who ar

Bunting's "Ancient Irish Music." Introduction.

b Jones's Welsh Bards, p. 103, et seq.

c

p. 59.

Burney's Present State of Music in Germany, Netherlands, and United Provinces, vol. i.