She waved her head with a melancholy air, and replied--“the rapid decline of the Sons of Song, once the pride of our country, is indeed very evident; and the tones of that tender and expressive instrument which gave birth to those which now survive them in happier countries, no longer vibrates in our own; for of course you are not ignorant that the importation of Irish bards and Irish instruments into Wales, * by _Griffith ap Conan_, formed an epocha in Welch music, and awakened there a genius of style in composition, which still breathes a kindred spirit to that from whence it derived its being, and that even the invention of Scottish music is given to Ireland.”! ** “Indeed,” said I, “I must plead ignorance to this singular fact, and almost to every other connected with this _now_ to me most interesting country.” “Then suffer me,” said she, with a most insinuating smile, “to indulge another little national triumph over you, by informing you, that we learn from musical record, that the first piece of music ever seen in _score_, in Great Britain, is an air sung time immemmorial in this country on the opening of summer--an air, which though animated in its measure, yet still, like all the Irish melodies, breathes the very soul of melancholy.” *** * Cardoc (of Lhancarvan) without any of that illiberal partiality so common with national writers, assures us that the Irish devised all the instruments, tunes, and measures, in use among the Welsh. Cambrensis is even more copious in its praise, when he peremptorily declares that the Irish, above any other nation, is incomparably skilled in symphonal music.--Walker’s Hist. Mem. of the Irish Bards ** See Doctor Campbell’s Phil Surv. L. 44; and Walker’s Hist. Irish Bards, p. 131,32. *** Called in Irish, “Ta an Samradth teacht,” or, “We brought Summer along with us.” “And do your melodies then, Madam, breathe the soul of melancholy?” said I. “Our national music,” she returned, “like our national character, admits of no medium in sentiment: it either sinks our spirit to despondency, by its heartbreaking pathos, or elevates it to wildness by its exhilarating animation. “For my own part, I confess myself the victim of its magic--an Irish planxty cheers me into maddening vivacity; an Irish lamentation depresses me into a sadness of melancholy emotion, to which the energy of despair might be deemed comparative felicity.” Imagine how I felt while she spoke--but you cannot conceive the feelings unless you beheld and heard the object who inspired them--unless you watched the kindling lumination of her countenance, and the varying hue of that mutable complexion, which seemed to ebb and flow to the impulse of every sentiment she expressed; while her round and sighing voice modulated in unison with each expression it harmonized. After a moment’s pause she continued: