“Theirs were the hands free from violence, Theirs the mouths free from calumny, Theirs the learning without pride, And theirs the love free from venery.” In later times I admit there was a lamentable degeneracy in the bardic class,--or rather the innumerable pretenders to the assumption of the name; and the “fescennine licentiousness” with which they violated the sanctity of domestic seclusion, in exposing the objects of their private spleen, tended not a little to bring their body into disrepute, and subject them additionally to the salutary restrictions of legislative severity. They were not less extravagant in the lavishment of their fulsome commendations; so that one can hardly avoid drawing a parallel between them and those poetasters, formerly, of Italy, whom Horace so happily describes in those remarkable hexameters, viz.:-- “Fescinnina per hunc invecta licentia morem, Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit, ... quin etiam lex Pœnaque lata malo quæ mallet carmine quenquam, Describi.”[52] You would imagine the Roman poet was speaking of the Irish bards in the _night_ of their decline; but the description by no means applies to the original institution, whose object it was to perpetuate the history and records of the nation, and preserve its history from the intrusions of barbarism. To this end it was that they met for revision at the senatorial synod; and the importance of this trust it was that procured to their body the many dignities before described, giving them precedence above the aggregate of the community at large, and investing them with an authority little short of royalty. Rhyme was the vehicle in which their lucubrations were presented; verse the medium selected for their thoughts. To gain perfection in this accomplishment their fancies were ever on the stretch; while the varieties of metre which they invented for the purpose, and the facility with which they bent them to each application and use, were not the least astonishing part of their arduous avocations, and leave the catalogue of modern measures far away in the shade. Music is the sister of poetry, and it is natural to suppose that they went hand in hand _here_. In all countries, the voice was the original organ of musical sounds. With this they accompanied their extemporaneous hymns; with this they chanted the honours of their heroes. The battle-shout and the solemnity of the hour of sacrifice were the usual scenes for the concerts of our ancestors. Singing the glory of former warriors, the combatant was _himself_ inspired; and while the victim expired on the altar of immolation, the priest sang the praise of the deity he invoked.