the royal hands were heirlooms of the houses. It was a keen pleasure to
the grandfather in his old age to hear the songs and the music which
had illumined the unhappy cause, and it is no wonder that the earliest
inspiration of the young poetess was from such themes, and her keenest
reward to see the blood warming more freely the old man's worn cheeks as
she sang the new and stirring words to the old airs, and found the token
of her success in his appreciation. The greater portion of her Jacobite
songs were composed under this inspiration, and so long as she wrote at
all they were her favorite themes. They are among the finest in what may
be termed the modern Jacobite songs, unsurpassed by anything of the kind
by Burns, Hogg, or Cunningham, and only so by that consummate flower of
all Scotch Jacobite poetry by William Glen:--
A wee bird cam' to our ha' door,
while in the pure singing quality, the lilt and the
verse, there is nothing to exceed the power of--
The news from Moidart cam' yestreen.
The story of The Hundred Pipers an' A' is historically correct in that
there were so many musicians of the class attached to the little army of
the Prince, and that the Highland lads did dance themselves dry to the
pibroch's sound after fording the Esk, but it was not on the advance to
Carlisle, but on the retreat from England, and the scene had doubtless
been often described by the old laird of Strowan.
THE HUNDRED PIPERS.
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a';
We 'll up an' gie them a blaw, a blaw,
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
Oh, it's owre the Border awa', awa';
It's owre the Border awa', awa';
We 'll on and we 'll march to Carlisle ha;
Wi' its yetts, its castle an' a', an' a',
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', etc.
Our young sodger lads looked braw, looked braw,
With their tartans, kilts an' a', an' a',
With their bonnets and feathers and glittering gear,
An' pibrochs sounding sweet an' clear.
Will they a' return to their ain dear glen?
Will they a' return, our Hieland men?
Second-sighted Sandy looked fu wae,
An' mothers grat, when they marched away,
Wi' a hundred pipers, etc.
O, wha' is foremost o' a', o' a';
O, wha' does follow the blaw, the blaw,
Bonnie Charlie, the King o' us a', hurra!
Wi' his hundred pipers an' a', an' a';
His bonnet an' feather he's wavin' high,
His prancin' steed maist seems to fly,
The nor' wind plays wi' his curlin' hair,
While the pipers blew up an' unco flare,
Wi' a hundred pipers, etc.
The Esk was swollen sae red and sae deep,
But shouther to shouther the brave lads keep,
Two thousand swam o'er to fell English ground,
An' danced themselves dry to the pibroch's sound.
Dumfoundered the English saw--they saw,
Dumfoundered they heard the blaw, the blaw;
Dumfoundered they a' ran awa', awa',
From the hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'.
We 'll up an gie them a blaw, a blaw,
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'.
Burns, Hogg, and Lady Nairne all wrote songs to the beautiful air of
Charlie is my Darling, embodying in each case the first verse of the
unknown poet who originated the song. They are all beautiful, but the
words of Lady Nairne have conquered in the popular ear, and taken final
possession of the air.
CHARLIE IS MY DARLING.
'T was on a Monday morning,
Right early in the year,
When Charlie cam' to our town,
The young Chevalier.
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
My darling, my darling,
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
The young Chevalier.
As he cam' marching up the street
The pipes played loud an' clear,
An' a' the folks cam' running out
To meet the Chevalier.
Wi' Hieland bonnets on their heads,
An' claymores bright an' clear,
They cam' to fight for Scotland's right
An' the young Chevalier.
They 'ye left their bonnie Highland hills,
Their wives and bairnies dear,
To draw the sword for Scotland's lord,
The young Chevalier.
Oh, there were mony beating hearts
An' mony a hope an' fear,
An' mony were the prayers sent up
For the young Chevalier.
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
My darling, my darling,
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
The young Chevalier.
There is one of Lady Nairne's songs not quite perfect, for one forced
and faulty line in the refrain, which has a higher touch of the
imagination than any of the others. The influence of the magic of nature
in the interpretation of human sorrow or gladness, and the wild mystery
of the birds' melody upon the heart, which is characteristic of the
highest order of the folk-song, and which, in its irregularity and
simplicity, not less than the melody, which is nature's own voice,
rather than the rhythm of art, is beyond the reach of any deliberate
skill. It would be hard to find anything more perfect at once in its
picture and its interpretation of the voice of nature in human words
than--
And then the burnie's like the sea,
Roarin' an' reamin';
Nae wee bit sangster's on the tree,
But wild birds screamin'.
While the sadness of human despair that follows and emphasizes the
passion of the flood strikes the ear like a veritable wail in the
loneliness and darkness.
Bonnie ran the burnie down,
Wandrin' an' windin'.
Sweetly sang the birds above,
Care never mindin'.
The gentle summer wind
Was their music saft an' kind,
And it rockit them an' rockit them
All in their bowers sae hie.
Bonnie ran, etc.
The mossy rock was there,
An' the water lily fair,
An' the little trout would sport about
All in the sunny beam.
Bonnie ran, etc.
Tho' summer days be lang,
An' sweet the birdies sang,
The wintry night and chilly light
Keep aye their eerie roun'.
Bonnie ran, etc.
An' then the burnie's like a sea,
Roarin' an' reamin';
Nae wee bit sangster's on the tree,
But wild birds screamin'.
Oh, that the past I might forget,
Wandrin' an' weepin';
Oh, that aneath the hillock green
Sound I were sleepin'.
In one other famous song, heard wherever Scotch music is sung, Lady
Nairne interpreted the pathos, hardship, and suffering behind the
strong, clear voices of the Newhaven fishwives, which may still be heard
in the wynds and closes of Edinburgh as they march on their sturdy limbs
with the heavy creels laden with the silvery fishes on their backs, and
fill the air with their deep, melodious cry.
CALLER HERRIN'.
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin'?
They 're bonnie fish and halesome farin',
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin',
New drawn frae the Forth.
When ye were sleepin' on your pillows,
Dream'd ye aught o' our fine fellows,
Darkling as they faced the billows
A' to fill the woven willows.
Buy my caller herrin',
New drawn frae the Forth.
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin'?
They 're no bought without brave darin';
Buy my caller herrin',
Haled thro' wind and rain.
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin'? etc.
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin'?
Oh, ye may call them vulgar farm';
Wives and mithers maist despairin'
Ca' them the lives o' men.
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin'?
They 're bonnie fish and halesome farin',
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin',
New drawn frae the Forth.
There are other verses to Caller Herrin', but they were merely
occasional, intended to serve as a benefit to Nathaniel Gow, the son of
the famous fiddler, Niel Gow, the composer of the air, who was seeking
patronage in Edinburgh, and they only injure the effect of the first and
perfect stanzas.
The poetical work of Lady Nairne was smaller in bulk than that of
her chief contemporaries, even than that of Allan Cunningham. She was
without any personal literary ambition whatever, and her inspiration was
smothered by domestic grief and an absorbing and narrow piety. A portion
of what there is is also imperfect, ephemeral, and careless, but she has
written one of the most perfect lyrics in the English language, and a
number of others, which, in their melody, their interpretation of simple
emotion, their vividness and strength, and their power upon the heart
as well as the ear, have a place which few have equaled and none have
surpassed in the lyric treasures of a land more rich than all others in
the voice of poetry speaking to the heart in song.
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON AND CELTIC POETRY.
|The great controversy over the genuineness of
the Ossianic poems of James Macpherson, which existed during his
lifetime and was carried on for a considerable period after his death,
has died away without being settled. Opinions of eminent Celtic scholars
still differ as to whether the so-called Gaelic originals of his poems,
published after his death, were genuine transcripts from ancient
poems, or were translations into the Gaelic from Macpherson's English
composition made by his friends to conceal the fraud and maintain
provincial pride. He himself never produced the originals of his poems,
and took refuge in a silence which went far to confirm the impression of
fraud and forgery. But whether he had any direct originals or not,
and the weight of probability is that he had not, his poems were
unquestionably founded on the vast mass of Celtic poetry and legend
existing in Ireland and Scotland in tradition and manuscript. The names
of his heroes, their characters and their exploits, are to be found in
this poetry, and many of his most admired episodes and descriptions,
like that of Ossian's address to the sun, and the description of
Cuchullin's chariot, were taken directly from it. Whatever the amount
of transformation and interpolation, and whatever the change in the
literary style, from the plain and simple expressions of primitive
poetry to the vague and rhetorical imagery of inflated artifice, were
made by Macpherson, he unquestionably preserved the pervading spirit of
Celtic poetry, its melancholy, its sensitiveness to the impressions of
nature, and its lofty and humane spirit, and was the first to make it
known to the world. Critics like Hazlitt and Matthew Arnold, who were
impressed simply by its spirit of pure poetry, and the most accomplished
Celtic scholars of a later day, have alike agreed upon internal and
external evidence as to the faithfulness of the reproduction of the
spirit of Celtic poetry by Macpherson, and have regarded the faults of
his literary style as those of the age, and his interpretation of the
poems of Ossian by the spirit of the eighteenth century as not more
faulty or less natural than Chapman's transfusion of Homer into the
style of the Elizabethan era, or Pope's into that of Queen Anne. His
great drawback was the suspicion of absolute fraud and forgery which
attached to him, and which he was unable to dispel, from his mistake
in not acknowledging in the beginning that his poems were derived from
general tradition instead of being absolute translations from originals.
But in spite of this discredit, which was more of a personal literary
quarrel than a critical attack upon the quality of the poetry itself,
its value was at once instinctively recognized as a new and original
revelation, as an appeal to sensibilities in human nature which had
been stifled by the narrow and dry reasoning of English and Continental
poetry at the time, and as a breath from the wide air of nature itself.
It touched the European spirit, then struggling to emancipate itself
from the swaddling bands of authority and artificial society, with
electric power, and was a powerful influence in the emancipation both of
literature and human action. Ossian profoundly affected the intellectual
awakening of Goethe and was a favorite with Napoleon, and throughout
the whole of Europe its spirit was an inspiring and governing force.
In English literature its effect was not less powerful, although less
openly acknowledged owing to the discredit created by the charges of
forgery, and both Byron's melancholy and Wordsworth's appreciation of
the soul of nature were derived from this pervading spirit of ancient
Celtic poetry.
So far as the direct study of Celtic poetry was concerned the Ossianic
controversy was unquestionably a misfortune. It threw a cloud of
suspicion and discredit upon the genuine fragments which remained, and
discouraged the study which might otherwise have been given to them, so
that, unquestionably, some traditional Celtic poetry has been lost by
the decay of the language as a living speech, and it is only in later
years that enlightened scholarship and patriotic feeling have led to
the careful and appreciative study of the manuscript volumes which have
survived time and neglect, for their inherent literary and historical
value, and to a consideration of the influence of the Celtic spirit
upon English literature. They have been found to be of great value and
interest, to possess elements of pure poetry of marked and original
quality, and a spirit which has had a strong effect upon English
literature. Nevertheless there has not been found in the remains of
Celtic literature any single poem which in itself would compare with
the Nibelungen Lied or with the Song of Roland, in epic form and
constructiveness, in clearness of diction and dramatic strength; nor
even any prose legend or narrative history, which would compare with
the clear and vigorous character drawing and lucid narration of the
Icelandic and Scandinavian Sagas. What would have been the case had the
original poems and histories of the sixth century been preserved can
only be conjectured. Those which now exist are only in the transcripts
of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, greatly transformed,
altered, and confused in dates and characters, and bearing the marks of
a great deterioration in style, like the degradation of Latin prose
in its later era. The passages which competent Celtic scholars have
pronounced from philological evidence to be of an earlier construction,
are a good deal stronger as well as simpler in expression than those by
which they are surrounded, and indicate that, if the earlier poetry had
been preserved in its purity without being amplified and weakened by
scholastic and artificial phraseology, it might have rivaled the early
Teutonic poetry in force, directness and simplicity, and strength of
construction. As it is, the Celtic poems and histories are not only
confused and prolix with interminable genealogies and proverbial
reflections, but are written in a style, with a redundance and
complication of epithets, at once weakening and tiresome. Thus in
an Irish history of the Triumphs of Turlogh O'Brien, written in the
thirteenth century, there is the following description of the dress and
arms of a hero:--"His noble garment was first brought to him, viz.,
a strong, well-formed, close-ridged, defensively-furrowed, terrific,
neat-bordered, new-made, and scarlet-red cassock of fidelity; he
expertly put on that gold-bordered garment, which covered him as far as
from the lower part of his soft, fine, redwhite neck, to the upper part
of his expert, snowwhite, round-knotted knee. Over that mantle he put on
a full, strong, white-topped, wide-round, gold-bordered, straight,
and parti-colored coat of mail, well-fitted, and ornamented with many
curious devices of exquisite workmanship. He put on a beautiful, thick,
and saffron-colored belt of war, embellished with clasps and buckles
set with precious stones, and hung with golden tassels; to this belt was
hung his active and trusty lance, regularly cased in a tubic sheath, but
that it was somewhat greater in height than the height of the sheath;
he squeezed the brilliant, gilt, and starry belt about the coat of
mail; and a long, blue-edged, bright-steeled, sharp-pointed, broad-sided,
active, whitebacked, half-polished, monstrous, smooth-bladed,
small-thick, and well-fashioned dagger was fixed to the tie of that
embroidered and parti-colored belt; a white, embroidered, full-wide,
strong, and well-wove hood was put on him over his golden mail;
he himself laid on his head a strong-cased, spherical, towering,
polished-shining, branch-engraved, long-enduring helmet; he took
his edged, smooth-bladed, letter-graved, destructive, sharp-pointed,
fight-taming, sheathed, gold-guarded, and girded sword, which he tied
fast in haste to his side."
The confusion which exists in the transcripts of the ancient
poems between the pagan mythology and the Christian faith, and the
superposition of
Latin learning and mediaeval thought, is also a great injury to the
consecutiveness and vraisemblance of the story, and the effect is as if
the tale of the Nibelungen Lied had been told by a monkish chronicler
with all the embellishments of a later faith and the ornaments of an
artificial style. The poetry has not all perished from the earlier
originals, and in many instances there is a vigor of narrative, a
poetical power of description, and an elevation of sentiment, which
shines through the amplification and verbiage, and redeems the prolixity
and tediousness of the story; but, as has been said, the prevailing
impression is one of a corrupted and weakened, instead of a strong and
original primitive poetry, and a literal translation of an Irish or
Scotch Celtic poem or history is not likely to attract the general
reader from its purely literary quality. The poetry lies in a heap of
dross, and must be painfully smelted out.
The only way in which ancient Celtic poetry can be known and appreciated
by the English reader, and have its effect in English literature, is by
the presentation of its spirit and atmosphere, its essential elements in
local form and color, its characteristic phraseology and tone of thought
in English poetry of original power as well as essential faithfulness.
The poet who is to do this successfully must have, what Macpherson had
not, a thorough knowledge of the language and an appreciation of its
method as the expression of thought, be completely saturated with the
knowledge of the time, and possess the literary conscience and taste
to be completely faithful to the original spirit. The most conspicuous
example in our time of an attempt to reproduce the spirit of legendary
romance in original poetry is, of course, The Idylls of the King, and
the impress of a very thorough study and saturation of the spirit of the
ancient chronicles is as visible as the exquisite substance of original
poetry. But the stories of The Idylls of the King are based upon, rather
than' closely reproduce, the legends of Arthurian romance, and the
spirit has been elevated and refined by that of modern poetry and the
nature of Tennyson's own genius to essential unreality. They are like
the pictures of Madonnas and mediaeval saints done by a modern painter
of genius with all the skill and technique of art, but without the sense
of devotion which shows through the ruder sketches of the earlier and
greatly inferior painters, who were inspired by something more than
merely artistic enthusiasm. It is needless to say that for a poet to
possess the self-restraint to be entirely faithful to his originals, and
aim mainly at reproducing their form as well as spirit, is more rare,
and may be said to have less power, than one who creates an original
structure of poetry upon the basis of ancient romance; but he has his
function also, and may be something more than a mere translator, as he
gives his material shape in modern form and with the embellishments of
his own genius, while he yet preserves the ancient characteristics.
He is like the skillful architect who restores a ruined castle to a
habitable dwelling, clearing away the rubbish which has choked its
portals and surrounded its walls, while preserving its ancient shape and
structure, and blending his new materials with the old so that it seems
a harmonious building. This is the work to which Sir Samuel Ferguson has
devoted himself in his reproduction of Irish Celtic poetry, both ballad
and epic, and particularly in his poem of Congal, which is a recreation
of the bardic romance of the Battle of Moyra, and its introductory
Pre-Tale of the Banquet of Dunangay, prose versions which have been
given by the eminent Celtic scholar, Dr. John O'Donovan, in the
publications of the Irish Archaeological Society.
The battle of Moyra was an authentic historic event, and took place
A. D. 637 between the forces of Domnal, king of Ireland, and those
of Congal, sub-king of Ulster, and his allies, from Scotland, Wales,
England, Brittany, and Scandinavia. It is regarded by Celtic historians
as the last struggle of the bardic and pagan party in Ireland against
the newly established power of Christianity, for which a pretext rather
than a cause was found in an alleged slight of Domnal to Congal. The
history, which is in prose interspersed with speeches and exhortations
in verse in the usual manner of the bardic chronicles, was apparently
written in its present form in the latter part of the eleventh century,
and from earlier traditionary chronicles, which are now lost. Its style
has a good deal of vigor and force, but is marked with the faults of
confusion, and the redundance of 'descriptive epithets characteristic of
the writers of the time. Its story is that Congal, having been invited
by Domnal to a banquet at the royal house at Dunangay, was served with
a hen's egg upon a wooden platter, instead of with a goose egg upon a
silver dish, as were the remainder of the company, and, denouncing it as
an unforgivable insult, departed to seek assistance from his relatives
and 'allies in Great Britain and the Continent. Returning with these
a great battle was fought on the plains of Moyra, which lasted for
six days, and in which the foreign invaders were routed and Congal
was killed. The principal heroes of the chronicle were historical
personages, but there were others of which there is no definite
knowledge, and who probably owed their origin to the imagination of the
bards, as in the Iliad and the Nibelungen Lied. Sir Samuel Ferguson's
poem of Congal follows the main narrative of events in the original
chronicle, but with an addition in the shape of a love episode
between Lafinda, a sister of Sweeny, an Irish prince, and Congal,
the introduction of several new characters, and of some supernatural
episodes derived from the pagan mythology of Ireland. The narrative is
made intelligible where it is obscure in the original, and incredible
events, such as the chaining together of the warriors lest they should
run away from each other, are omitted, while the tautology and verbiage
of the language is eliminated. Its faithfulness as the reproduction
of an ancient Celtic poem consists in the skill with which the
characteristic style of language, its multiplied and doubled epithets,
is renewed in English without the effect of archaism, and the
reproduction of its heroic and primitive tone and spirit. Its original
merits are the force and vigor of the narrative, the vivid descriptions
of scenery, the strength and impressiveness of the supernatural figures,
the genuine inspiration of battle in the combats, and the easy mastery
of the "long, resounding line" in the verse. There is no modern poem
which so thoroughly reproduces the ancient form and spirit of a bygone
age, and in which so complete and accurate an idea can be obtained of
the element of a vanished poetry as in Congal, and, as has been said,
it is like a restoration in shape and substance of a ruined castle. The
opening lines give a specimen of the style of the verse and the vigorous
spirit of the measure:--
The Hosting here of Congal Claen. 'T was loud lark-car
oling May
When Congal, as the lark elate and radiant as the day,
Rode forth from steep Rath-Keltar gate.
Of the felicity with which these double descriptive epithets are used
there are a thousand specimens, such as
The white-maned, proud-neck-arching tide;
and they give the dominant characteristic of the
style as in the original, with a grace and appropriateness which make
them a natural part of the English language. In order to show how the
Celtic narrative has been transformed into English poetry without losing
its characteristic features, the two accounts of the episode in
the battle in which Sweeny becomes smitten with a frenzy of fear by
supernatural visitation may be compared. This is the original:--