best part of the kingdom for Irish music and for harpers.’
At eighteen years of age he began to play for himself, and
was taken into the house of Counseller Canning, at Garvah,
for half a year; his host, with Squire Gage and Doctor
Bacon, bought him a harp. He travelled nine or ten years
through Ireland and Scotland, and tells facetious stories of
gentlemen in both countries: among others, that in passing
near the place of Sir J. Campbell, at Aghanbrack, he learn-
ed that this gentleman had spent a great deal, and was
living on so much per week of allowance. Hampson through
delicacy would not call, but some of the domestics were sent
after him; on coming into the castle, Sir J. asked him why
he had not called, adding, ‘Sir, there was never a harper
but yourself that passed the door of my father’s house to
which Hampson answered that ‘he had heard in the
_nighbourhood_ that his honor was not often at home.’ with
which delicate evasion Sir J. was satisfied. He adds, ‘that
this was the highest bred and stateliest man he ever knew;
if he were putting on a new pair of gloves, and one of them
dropped on the floor, (though ever so clean) he would order
the servant to bring him another pair.’ He says that in that
time he never met with but one laird that had a harp, and
that was a very small one, played on formerly by the laird’s
father; that when he had tuned it with new strings, the
laird and his lady both were so pleased with his music that
they invited him back in these words: ‘Hampson, as soon as
you think this child of ours (a boy of three years of age)
is fit to learn on his grandfather’s harp, come back to
teach him, and you shall not repent it:’--but this he never
accomplished.
“He told me a story of the laird of Strone with a great deal
of comic relish. When he was playing at the house, a message
came that a large party of gentlemen were coming to grouse,
and would spend some days with _him_ (the laird;) the lady
being in great distress turned to her husband, saying ‘what
shall we do, my dear, for so many in the way of beds?’ ‘Give
yourself no vexation,’ replied the laird, ‘give us enough to
eat, and I will supply the rest; and as to beds, believe
me, _every man shall find one for himself_;’ (meaning that
his guests would fall under the table.) In his second trip
to Scotland, in the year 1745, being at Edinburgh when
_Charley_ the Pretender, was there, he was called into the
great hall to play; at first he was alone, afterwards four
fiddlers joined: the tune called for was, ‘The king shall
enjoy his own again;’--he sung here part of the words
following:--
‘I hope to see the day
When the whigs shall run away,
And the king shall enjoy his own again.’
“I asked him if he heard the Pretender speak; he replied--
‘I only heard him ask, Is Sylvan there? on which some one
answered, he is not here, please your royal highness, but he
shall be sent for.’ ‘He meant to say _Sullivan_,’ continued
Hampson, ‘but that was the way he called the name.’ He says
that Captain Mac Donnell, when in Ireland, came to see him,
and that he told the captain that Charley’s cockade was in
his father’s house.
“Hampson was brought into the Pretender’s presence by
Colonel Kelly, of Roscommon, and Sir Thomas Sheridan, and
that he, (Hampson) was then about fifty years old. He played
in many Irish houses, among others, those of Lord de
Courcey, Mr. Fortesque, Sir P. Belew, Squire Roche, and in
the great towns, Dublin, Cork, &c., &c. Respecting all which
he interspersed pleasant anecdotes with surprising gaiety
and correctness; he mentioned many anecdotes of my
grandfather and grand-aunt, at whose houses he used to be
frequently. In fact, in this identical harper, whom you sent
me to _survey_, I recognized an acquaintance, who, as soon
as he found me out, seemed exhilarated at having an old
friend of (what he called) ‘the old stock,’ in his poor
cabin. He even mentioned many anecdotes of my own boyhood,
which, though by me long forgotten, were accurately true.
These things show the surprising power of his recollection
at the age of one hundred and eight years. Since I saw him
last, which was in 1787, the wen on the back of his head is
greatly increased; it is now hanging over his neck and
shoulders, nearly as large as his head, from which
circumstance he derives his appellative, ‘the man with two
heads.’ General Hart, who is an admirer of music, sent a
limner lately to take a drawing of him, which cannot fail to
be interesting, if it were only for the venerable expression
of his meagre, blind countenance, and the symmetry of his
tall, thin, but not debilitated person. I found him lying on
his back in bed near the fire of his cabin; his family
employed in the usual way; his harp under the bed-clothes,
by which his face was covered also. When he heard my name he
started up (being already dressed) and seemed rejoiced to
hear the sound of my voice, which, he said, he began to
recollect. He asked for my children, whom I brought to see
him, and he felt them over and over;--then, with tones of
great affection, he blessed _God_ that he had _seen_ four
generations of the name, and ended by giving the children
his blessing. He then tuned his old time-beaten harp, his
solace and bed-fellow, and played with astonishing justness
and good taste.
“The tunes which he played were his favourites; and he,
with an elegance of manner, said at the same time, ‘I
remember you have a fondness for music, and the tunes you
used to ask for I have not forgotten, which were Cualin, The
Dawning of the Day, Elleen-a-roon, Ceandubhdilis, &c.
These, except the third, were the first tunes, which,
according to regulation, he played at the famous meeting of
harpers at Belfast, under the patronage of some amateurs of
Irish music. Mr. Bunton, the celebrated musician of that
town, was here the year before, at Hampson’s, noting his
tunes and his manner of playing, which is in the best old
style. He said with the hottest feeling of self-love, ‘When
I played the old tunes not another of the harpers would play
after me.’ He came to Magilligan many years ago, and at the
age of eighty-six, married a woman of Innishowen, whom he
found living in the house of a friend. ‘I can’t tell,’ quoth
Hampson, ‘if it was not the devil buckled us together; she
being lame and I blind.’ By this wife he has one daughter,
married to a cooper, who has several children, and maintains
them all, though Hampson (in this alone seeming to doat)
says that his son-in-law is a spendthrift and that he
maintains them; the family humour his whim, and the old man
is quieted. He is pleased when they tell him, as he thinks
is the case, that several people of character, for musical
taste, send letters to invite him; and he, though incapable
now of leaving the house, is planning expeditions never to
be attempted, much less realized; these are the only traces
of mental debility; as to his body, he has no inconvenience
but that arising from a chronic disorder: his habits have
ever been sober; his favourite drink, once beer, now milk
and water; his diet chiefly potatoes. I asked him to teach
my daughter, but he declined: adding, however, that it was
too hard for a young girl, but that nothing would give him
greater pleasure if he thought it could be done.
“Lord Bristol, while lodging at the bathing house of Mount
Salut, near Magilligan, gave three guineas and ground rent
free, to build the house where Hampson now lives. At the
house-warming, his lordship with his lady and family came,
and the children danced to his harp; the bishop gave three
crowns to the family, and in the _dear_ year, his lordship
called in his coach and six, stopped at the door, and gave a
guinea to buy meal.
“Would it not be well to get up a subscription for poor old
Hampson? It might be sent to various towns where he is
known.
“Ever yours,
“C. V. SAMPSON.”
ADDENDA.
“In the time of Noah I was green,
After his flood I have not been seen,
Until seventeen hundred and two. I was found
By Cormac Kelly, under ground;
Who raised me up to that degree;
Queen of music they call me.”
“The above lines were sculptured on the old harp, which is
made, the sides and front of white sally, the back of fir,
patched with copper and iron plates, his daughter now
attending him is only thirty-three years old.
“I have now given you an account of my visit, and even thank
you (though my fingers are tired) for the pleasure you
procured to me by this interesting commission.
Once more ever yours,
C. Y. S.
In February, 1806, the author, being then but eighteen miles
distant from the residence of the bard, received a message
from him, intimating that as he heard she wished to purchase
his harp, he would dispose of it on very moderate terms. He
was then in good health and spirits though in his hundred
and ninth year.
Whenever there was a revel of the feelings, a joy of the imagination,
or a delicate fruition of a refined and touching sentiment, how my
soul misses her! I find it impossible to make even the amiable and
intelligent priest enter into the nature of my feelings; but how
naturally, in the overflowing of my heart, do I turn towards her, yet
turn in vain, or find her image only in my enamoured soul, which is full
of her. Oh! how much do I owe her. What a vigorous spring has she opened
in the wintry waste of a desolated mind. It seems as though a seal
had been fixed upon every bliss of the senses and the heart, which her
breath alone could dissolve; that all was gloom and chaos until she said
“let there be light.”
As we rode back to our auberge by the light of a cloudless but declining
moon, after some conversation on the subject of the bard whom we had
visited, the priest exclaimed, “Who would suppose that that wretched hut
was the residence of one of that order once so revered among the Irish;
whose persons and properties were held sacred and inviolable by the
common consent of all parties, as well as by the laws of the nation,
even in all the vicissitudes of warfare, and all the anarchy of
intestine commotion; an order which held the second rank in the state;
and whose members, in addition to the interesting duties of their
profession, were the heralds of peace, and the donors of immortality?
Clothed in white and flowing robes, the bards marched to battle at the
head of the troops, and by the side of the chief; and while by their
martial strains they awakened courage even to desperation in the heart
of the warrior, borne away by the furor of their own enthusiasm, they
not unfrequently rushed into the thick of the fight themselves, and by
their maddening inspirations decided the fate of the battle; or when
victory descended on the ensanguined plain, they hung over the warrior’s
funeral pile, and chaunted to the strains of the national lyre the
deeds of the valiant, and the prowess of the hero; while the brave and
listening survivors envied and emulated the glory of the deceased, and
believed that this tribute of inspired genius at the funeral rites was
necessary to the repose of the departed soul.”
* The genuine history and records of Ireland abound with
incidents singularly romantic, and of details exquisitely
interesting. In the account of the death of the celebrated
hero Conrigh, as given by Demetrius O’Connor, the following
instance of fidelity and affection of a family bard is
given. “When the beautiful but faithless Blanaid, whose hand
Conrigh had obtained as the reward of his valour, armed a
favourite lover against the life of her husband, and fled
with the murderer; Fierchiertne, the poet and bard of
Conrigh, in the anguish of his heart for the loss of a
generous master, resolved upon sacrificing the criminal
Blanaid to the manes of his murdered lord. He therefore
secretly pursued her from the palace in Kerry to the court
of Ulster, whither she had fled with her homicide paramour.
On his arrival there, the first object that saluted his eyes
was the king of that province, walking on the the edge of
the steep rocks of Rinchin Beara, surrounded by the
principal nobility of his court; and in the splendid train
he soon perceived the lovely, but guilty Blanaid and her
treacherous lover. The bard concealed himself until he
observed his mistress withdraw from the brilliant crowd, and
stand at the edge of a steep cliff; then courteously and
flatteringly addressing her, and clasping her firmly to his
breast, threw himself headlong with his prey down the
precipice. They were both dashed to pieces.”
“And from what period,” said I, “may the decline of these once potent
and revered members of the state be dated?”
“I would almost venture to say,” returned the priest, “so early as in the
latter end of the sixth century; for we read in an Irish record, that
about _that_ period the _Irish monarch_ convened the princes, nobles,
and clergy of the kingdom, to the parliament of _Drumceat_; and the
chief motive alleged for summoning this vast assembly was to banish the
Fileas or bards.”
“Which might be deemed then,” interrupted I, “a league of the _Dunces_
against _Wit_ and _Genius_.”
“Not altogether,” returned the priest. “It was in some respects a
necessary policy. For, strange to say, nearly the third part of Ireland
had adopted a profession at once so revered, and privileged, so honoured
and so caressed by all ranks of the state. Indeed, about this period,
such was the influence they had obtained in the kingdom, that the
inhabitants without distinction were obliged to receive and maintain
them from November till May, if it were the pleasure of the bard to
become their guest; nor were there any object on which their daring
wishes rested that was not instantly put into their possession. And such
was the ambition of one of their order, that he made a demand on the
golden broach or clasp that braced the regal robe on the breast of
royalty itself, which was unalienable with the crown, and descended with
the empire from generation to generation.”
“Good God!” said I, “what an idea does this give of the omnipotence of
music and poetry among those refined enthusiasts, who have ever
borne with such impatience the oppressive chain of power, yet suffer
themselves to be soothed into slavery by the melting strains of the
national lyre.”
“It is certain,” replied the priest, “that no nation, not even the
Greeks, were ever attached with more passionate enthusiasm to the divine
arts of poesy and song, than the ancient Irish, until their fatal and
boundless indulgence to their professors became a source of inquietude
and oppression to the whole state. The celebrated St. Columkill, who was
himself a poet, became a mediator between the monarch, already mentioned
and the ‘_tuneful throng_;’ and by his intercession, the king changed
his first intention of banishing the whole college of bards, to
limiting their numbers; for it was an argument of the liberal saint that
it became a great monarch to patronize the arts; to retain about his
person an eminent bard and antiquary; and to allow to his tributary
princes or chieftains, a poet capable of singing their exploits, and of
registering the genealogy of their illustrious families. This liberal
and necessary plan of reformation, suggested by the saint, was adopted
by the monarch; and these salutary regulations became the prominent
standard for many succeeding ages: and though the severity of those
regulations against the bards, enforced in the tyrannic reign of Henry
VIII, as proposed by Baron Finglas, considerably lessened their power;
* yet until the reign of Elizabeth their characters were not stripped of
that sacred _stole_, which the reverential love of their countrymen had
flung over them. The high estimation in which the bard was held in the
commencement of the empire of Ireland’s archenemy is thus attested by
Sir Philip Sidney:
* Item.--That no Irish minstrels, rhymers, thanaghs
nebards, be messengers to desire any goods of any man
dwelling within the English pale, upon pain of forfeiture of
all their goods, and their bodies to be imprisoned at the
king’s will.--Harris’s Hibernica, p. 98.
“‘In our neighbouring country,’ says he, ‘where truly learning grows
very bare, yet are their poets held in devout reverence.’ But Elizabeth,
jealous of that influence which the bardic order of Ireland held over
the most puissant of her chiefs, not only enacted laws against them,
but against such as received or entertained them: for Spenser informs us
that, even _then_, ‘their verses were taken up with a general applause,
and usually sung at all feasts and meetings.’ Of the spirited, yet
pathetic manner in which the genius of Irish minstrelsy addressed itself
to the soul of the Irish chief, many instances are still preserved in
the records of traditional lore. A poem of Fearflatha, family bard to
the O’Nials of Clanboy, and beginning thus:--‘O the condition of our
dear countrymen, how languid their joys, how acute their sorrows, &c.,
&c.,’ the Prince of Inismore takes peculiar delight in repeating. But
in the lapse of time, and vicissitude of revolution, this order, once so
revered, has finally sunk into the casual retention of a harper, piper,
or fiddler, which are generally, but not universally to be found in the
houses of the Irish country gentlemen; as you have yourself witnessed in
the castle of Inismore and the hospitable mansion of the O’D--------s.
One circumstance, however, I must mention to you. Although Ulster was
never deemed poetic ground, yet when destruction threatened the bardic
order in the southern and western provinces, where their insolence,
nurtured by false indulgence, often rendered them an object of popular
antipathy, hither they fled for protection, and at different periods
found it from the northern princes: and Ulster, you perceive, is now the
last resort of the most ancient of the survivors of the ancient Irish
bards, who, after having imbibed inspiration in the classic regions of
Connaught, and effused his national strains through every province of
his country, draws forth the last feeble tones of his almost silenced
harp amidst the chilling regions of the north; almost unknown and
undistinguished, except by the few strangers who are led by chance or
curiosity to this hut, and from whose casual bounties he chiefly derives
his subsistence.”
We had now reached the door of our auberge; and the dog of the house
jumping on me as I alighted, our hostess exclaimed, “Ah sir! our wee
doggie kens ye uncoo weel” Is not this the language of the Isle of
Sky? The priest left me early this morning on his evidently unpleasant
embassy. On his return we visit the Giant’s Causeway, which I understand
is but sixteen miles distant. Of this pilgrimage to the shrine of Nature
in her grandest aspect, I shall tell you nothing; but when we meet will
put into your hands a work written on the subject, from which you will
derive equal pleasure and instruction. At this moment the excellent
priest appears on his little nag; the rain no longer beats against
my casement; the large drops suspended from the foliage of the trees
sparkle with the beams of the meridian sun, which bursting forth in
cloudless radiancy, dispels the misty shower, and brilliantly lights up
the arch of heaven’s promise. Would you know the images now most buoyant
in my cheered bosom; they are Ossian and Glorvina: it is for _him_ to
describe, for _her_ to feel the renovating charms of this interesting
moment.
Adieu! I shall grant you a reprieve till we once more reach the dear
ruins of Inismore.
H. M.
LETTER XXVIII.
TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.
Plato compares the soul to a small republic, of which the reasoning and
judging powers are stationed in the head as in a citadel, and of which
the senses are the guards or servants.
Alas! my dear friend, this republic is with me all anarchy and
confusion, and its guards, disordered and overwhelmed, can no longer
afford it protection. I would be calm, and give a succinct account of my
return to Inismore; but impetuous feelings rush over the recollection
of trivial circumstances, and all concentrate on that fatal point which
transfixes every thought, every motion of my soul.
Suffice it to say, that our second reception at the mansion of the O’D’s
had lost nothing of that cordiality which distinguished our first; but
neither the cheerful kindness of the parents, nor the blandishments of
the charming daughters could allay that burning impatience which fired
my bosom to return to Glorvina, after the tedious absence of five long
days. All night I tossed on my pillow in the restless agitation of
expected bliss, and with the dawn of that day on which I hoped once more
to taste “_the life of life_,” I arose and flew to the priests room to
chide his tardiness. Early as it was I found he had already left his
apartment, and as I turned from the door to seek him, I perceived a
written paper lying on the floor. I took it up, and, carelessly glancing
my eye over it, discovered that it was a receipt from the Prince’s
inexorable creditor, who (as Father John informed me) refused to take
the farm off his hands: but what was my amazement to find that this
receipt was an acknowledgment for those jewels which I had so often
seen stealing their lustre from Glorvina’s charms; and which were now
individually mentioned, and given in lieu of the rent for this very
farm, by which the Prince was so materially injured. The blood boiled in
my veins, I could have annihilated this rascally cold-hearted landlord;
I could have wept on the neck of the unfortunate Prince; I could have
fallen at the feet of Glor-vina and worshipped her as the first of the
Almighty’s works. Never in the midst of all my artificial wants, my
boundless and craving extravagance, did I ever feel the want of riches
as at this moment, when a small part of what I had so worthlessly flung
away, would have saved the pride of a noble, an indignant spirit from
a deep and deadly wound and spared the heart of filial solicitude and
tender sensibility, many a pang or tortured feelings. The rent of the
farm was a hundred pounds per annum. The Prince, I understood, was
three years in arrear; yet, though there were no diamonds, and not many
pearls, I should suppose the jewels were worth more than the sum for
which they were given. *
While I stood burning with indignation, the paper still trembling in
my hand, I heard the footstep of the priest; I let fall the paper; he
advanced, snatched it up, and put it in his pocket-book, with an air
of self-reprehension that determined me to conceal the knowledge so
accidentally acquired. Having left our adieux for our courteous hosts
with one of the young men, we at last set out for Inismore. The idea of
so soon meeting my soul’s precious Glorvina, banished every idea less
delightful.
* I have been informed that a descendant of the provincial
kings of Connaught parted not many years back with his
golden crown which for so many ages encircled the royal
brows of his ancestors.
“Our meeting (said I) will be attended with a new and touching interest,
the sweet result of that _perfect_ intelligence which now for the first
time subsisted between us, and which stole its birth from that tender
and delicious glance which love first bestowed on me beneath the cypress
tree of the rustic cemetery.”
Already I beheld the “air-lifted” figure of Glorvina floating towards
me. Already I felt the soft hands tremble in mine, and gazed on the deep
suffusion of her kindling blushes, the ardent welcome of her bashful
eyes, and all that dissolving and impassioned langour, with which she
would resign herself to the sweet abandonment of her soul’s chastened
tenderness, and the fullest confidence in that adoring heart which
had now unequivocally assured her of its homage and eternal fealty. In
short, I had resolved to confess my name and rank to Glorvina, to offer
her my hand, and to trust to the affection of our fond and indulgent
fathers for forgiveness.
Thus warmed by the visions of my heated fan cy I could no longer stifle
my impatience; and when we were within seven miles of the castle I
told the priest, who was ambling slowly on, that I would be his
_avant-courier_, and clapping spurs to my horse soon lost sight of my
tardy companion.