Soon as the ftudent had finished his course, an honorary cap, called barred, and the degree of Ollamh or Doctor, were conferred on him. Then he was fuppofed fufficiently qualified to fill any office of his order. When the young bard had received the degree of Ollamh, the choice of his profeffion was determined by that of the family to which he belonged he was either a Filea, a Breitheamh, or a Seanacha, by birth; offices which had long met in the fame perfon, but were about this time difunited, being found too com plex for one man.

The Ollamhain Re-dan, or Filidhe, were (as the name literally implies) poets. They turned the te nets of religion into verfe; they animated the troops before and during an engagement with martial odes, and raised the war-fong: They celebrated the valorous deeds, and wrote the birth-day odes and epithalamiums of the chieftains and princes who entertained them; and, at the feaft of the hill,' amufed them with the tales of other times, which they modulated to the harp; an inftrument which every member of the Bardic order could touch with a mafter-hand, But the Filidhe had other offices affigned them. They, were the heralds, and conftant atten dants in the field of battle of the chiefs whom they ferved, marching at the head of their armies, arrayed in white flowing robes, harps glit tering in their hands, and their perfons furrounded with orfidigh, or in ftrumental musicians, While the battle raged, they food apart, and watched in fecurity (for their perfons were held facred)-every action of the chief, in order to glean fubjects for their lays.

The Breitheamhain (Brehons), or legislative Bards, promulgated the laws in a kind of recitative, or monotonous chant, feated on an em

The Seanachaidhe were antiquaries, genealogifts, and hiftorians. They recorded remarkable events, and preferved the genealogies of their patrons in a kind of unpoetical ftanza. Each province, prince, and chief, had a feanacha.

3

In refpect to the drefs of the ancient Irish Bards, the fubject, is very obfcure.. According to M'Cur tin, the Irish Bards in the fixth century wore long flowing garments, fringed and ornamented with needlework; and from the Brehon laws, the Bards in feveral inftances were of the order of the nableffe; from whence we may prefume their drefs was in moft refpects conformable thereto, which principally confifted in the truife, long cota cannathas, and barrad (or bairead). But from a baffo relievo found in the ruins of New Abbey, near Kilcullen, it appears, that the drefs of the Bards confifted of the truife or long cotaigh, and cochal. The truife, or ftrait bracca, was made of weft, covering the feet, legs, and thighs, as far as the loins, fitting fo clofe to the limb as to dif cover every muscle and motion of the parts covered; and was ftriped with feveral colours, according to the order or rank of the wearer. The long cota, or cotaigh, (the camifiam of the Latin writers) was a kind of a fhirt made of plaided ftuff, or linnen dyed yellow, and ornamented with needlework, according alfo to the rank of the wearer. This fhirt was open before, and came as low as the midthigh; the trunk being thus open,

was

was folded round the body, and made faft by a girdle round the loins: the fleeves of fome were fhort, but in the figure beforementioned they were long, coming down to the wrift, and turned up with a kind of military cuff. The bofom was cut round, leaving the neck and upper part of the fhoulders bare.-The cochal was the upper garment, a kind of a long cloak, reaching as low as the ankles, and fringed at the borders like fhagged hair. From the neck pendent on the back and fhoulders was a large cap or hood, ornamented with curious needle-work, after the man ner of thofe on the British coins. His beard was long, and his hair flowed on his neck and fhoulders; his head was covered with the barrad, or conical cap; and his harp in good grace was pendent before him.

As the feveral claffes of the bards were concerned in the Caoine, it will be neceffary to give fome account of that folemn ceremony. When a prince or a chief fell in battle, or died by the courfe of nature, the ftones of his fame' were raised amidst the voices of Bards. On this occafion-the Druid having performed the rites prefcribed by religion, and the pedigree of the deceafed being recited aloud by his Seanacha-the Caoine, (or funeral fong), which was compofed by the Filea of the departed, and fet to mufic by one of his Oirfidigh, was fung in recitativo over his grave by a Racaraide (or Rhapfodift), who occafionally fuftained his voice with arpeggios fwept over the ftrings of his harp: the fymphonic parts being perform ed by minstrels, who chaunted a chorus at intervals, in which they were joined refponfively by attending Bards and Oirfidigh; the relations and friends of the deceased mingling their fighs and tears.

The melting fweetnefs of the female voice was deemed neceffary in

53.

the chorus of the funeral fong. Women, therefore, whofe voices recommended them, were inftructed in mufic and the cur fios (or elegiac meafure), that they might affift in heightening the melancholy which that folemn ceremony was calculated to infpire.

On the abolition of the order of the Bards, the bufinefs of lamenting over the dead was entirely performed by mercenary female mourners. This is ftill the cafe in almoft every part of Ireland; but particularly in Munfter and Connaught; where, when a perfon of diftinction dies, a certain number of female mourners attend the funeral, dressed sometimes in white and fometimes in black,' finging, as they flowly proceed after the hearfe, extempore odes; in which they extol, in fulfome panegyric, e=' very private and every public virtue of the deceased, and earnestly expoftulate with the cold corfe, for relinquishing the many bleffings this world affords.

Invested with honours, wealth, and power; endowed with extraordinary privileges, which no other fubjects prefumed to claim; poffeffed of an art, which, by foothing the mind, acquires an afcendency over it; refpected by the great for their learn ing, and reverenced almost to adoration by the vulgar for their knowledge of the fecret compofition and hidden harmony of the universe;the Bards became, in the reign of Hugh, intolerably infolent and corrupted, and their order a national grievance. They arrogantly, de-. manded the golden buckle and pin which faftened the royal robes upon the monarch's breaft, and had been for many generations the affociate of the crown; they lampooned the nobility, and were guilty of feveral immoralities; and not only grew burdenfome to the ftate, which munificently fupported the different

founda.

foundations to which they belonged, but increased fo prodigiously (the order at that time confifting of onethird of the men of Ireland!), that the mechanic arts languished from want of artificers, and agriculture from want of husbandmen. Hence the monarch convened an affembly of the States at Drom Chille, in the county of Donegal, (A. D. 580.) principally to expel the Bards from the kingdom, and to abolish totally the whole order. But at the interceffion of St Columba, who was fummoned from Scotland to attend this affembly, he fpared the Order; but reduced its numbers, allowing only to each provincial prince, and to each lord of a Cantred, one regi, ftered Ollaimh, who was fworn to employ his talents to no other purpofe but the glory of the Deity, the honour of his country-of its heroes of its females-and of his own patron. On thefe Olliamh, he ordained, that their patrons fhould fettle an hereditary revenue. He alfo, by the advice of the Saint, erected new Filean feminaries, in the nature of univerfities, liberally endowing them, but limiting the number of ftudents in each. Of these feminaries, the reigning monarch's chief Bard was always in future to be principal or prefident, and to be authorised to appoint infpectors, to examine into their ftate at certain periods, and to make what reforms in them he judged neceffary: he alfo had the right of nominating the Ollaimh entertained by the princes and lords. These ordinances were religi. oufly obferved till the diffolution of the monarchy.

A mufical taste (fo early do we difcover it) seems to have been innate in the original inhabitants of this ifland, and to have gradually trengthened, and refined with the progrefs of fociety. This we can only attribute to the early introduc

tion of the Bardie order amongst them. But the ftudy of the fcience of mufic was not long confined to that order; every hero, every virgin, could touch the harp, long ere the ufeful arts got foot in this country. At the feaft of fhells' this inftrument was handed round, and each of the company fung to it in turn: not to be capable of sweeping it in a mafterly manner, was deemed a difgrace even to royalty.

The bagpipe is also an inftrument of high antiquity in Ireland, and mentioned by feveral of our hiftorians under different names. Mr O'Conor, in his Differtations on the Hiftory of Ireland, informs us, that one of the infruments in ufe amongst the Scots or ancient Irifh was the adharcaidh cuil, that is, a collection of pipes with a bag, or rather a mufical bag. He alfo informs us, that the rinkey or field dance of the an-, cient Irifh, was governed by the cuifley ciuil, perhaps a more fimple kind of bagpipe than the former; which he confiders as having been moft fit for the purpose, as it was a loud inftrument, and confined to a bare octave. In the defcription of the Hall of Tamar, (translated from an ancient MS. and published in the 12th N° of Collect. de Rebus Hib.) we find a place allotted for the Cui flinnaigh, a word, which etymologically confidered, evidently implies bagpipers. At this day the pipers call their bellows bolog na cuifli, the bellows of the cuifli, or veins of the arm on the infide at the first joint į and as this joint on the outfide is denominated ullan or uilean (i. e. cl bow), Vallancey concludes, that ullan pipes and cuifli pipes are one and the fame. In ullan pipes we have, perhaps, the woollen bagpipe of Shakespeare, to which he attributes an extraordinary effect.

But let us endeavour to inveftigate the antiquity of the bagpipe a

mongst the Irish-The invention of this inftrument has been by Pennant given to the Danes. This opinion we cannot implicitly affent to, nor can we fafely controvert it; for the bagpipe has been lately found amongft an uncivilized people, who never had any connection with the Europeans, confequently with them it must be an original inftrumentand why not with the Danes? But there appears on a fine baffo relievo of Grecian sculpture now in Rome, a man playing on an inftrument exactly refembling the ancient Highland bagpipe, which feems to evince its Grecian origin. Now Mr Pennant has determined, by means of an antique found at Richborough in Kent, the introduction of the bagpipe by the Romans (who owed every thing to the Grecians) into Britain, at a very early, but at an uncertain period. It is therefore very probable, as the ingenious traveller observes, that the Danes borrowed the bagpipe from the Caledonians, with whom they had fuch frequent intercourfe. The ancient writers indeed prove, that the nor thern nations were animated by the Clangor tubarum, but are profoundly filent with respect to the inftru ment in queftion.

We cannot find that the bagpipe was indigenous to the Irish. To the Caledonians, we believe, they must be content to owe to it. We got it, as it were, in exchange for the harp. The early hiftory of this inftrument in Scotland, is inveloped in the mist that hangs over the dark ages. According to Aristides Quintilianus, it prevailed in the very first times in the Highlands of Scotland. The genius of the Highlanders feems to favour this opinion. Ever a warlike people, ardent in the field of battle, and impatient of control in times of peace, the found of the bagpipe muft have

55

been peculiarly grateful to their ear. Hence their hafty adoption of it, on its introduction amongst them by the Romans. Mr Robertfon, in his Inquiry into the Fine Arts, fpeaking of this inftrument, fays, it is the voice of uproar and mifrule; and the mufic calculated for it feems to be that of real nature and of rude paffion. Even in very late times, the Scots used the bagpipe to rouse their courage to battle, to alarm them when fecure, and to collect them when fcattered; purposes, to which they taught the Irish to apply it. The mufic of the Irish kerns in the reign of Edward III. was the bagpipe, which, as Aulus Gellius informs us, was alfo that of the Lacedemonians.

Though the bagpipe was the folace of the Scotch chieftain, and though the Scotch piper received his mufical education in a college of pipers, yet this inftrument never received any confiderable improvements from the Scots. It was referved for the Irish to take it from the mouth, and to give it its prefent complicated form; that is, two fhort drones and a long one, with a chanter; all of which are filled by a pair of fmall bellows, inflated by a compreffive motion of the arm: the chanter has eight holes, beginning with the lower D in the treble; the short drones found in unifon to the fundamental E, and the large drone an octave below it. The bagpipe did not long retain its original form amongst the Irish; for the chord of drones which they gave is is fuppofed to have been the chorus of Cambrenfis. Being conftructed in the chromatic fyftem, it is the only inftrument, fince the difufe of the harp, on which the native Irish mufic (all of which is in that fyftem) can be played to advantage.

The bagpipe has been always obliged to yield, in point of confe

quence,