astic or dreamy clerk in the Aberdeen Register, we find that nearly fifty of the popular melodies of Scotland, noted in the same tablature as those of the Skene Manuscript, were discovered in the midst of a little volume of very closely written notes of sermons, preached by the well-known James Guthrie, the covenanting minister, who was executed in 1661, for declining the ju'risdiction of the king and council.' Considering the miscellaneous, and indeed rather equivocal titles of some of the airs in this collection, it is difficult to account for their juxtaposition with the religious discourses in connexion with which they were found. In fact, we cannot help thinking that the pious collector, endeavouring to reconcile his private musical tastes with the strictness of his public profession, had, like Lydia Languish in 'The Rivals,' been taken in the manner' by the intrusion of unexpected visitors; and, in the hurry of the moment, had placed in close approximation these very discordant and uncongenial compositions. Fling "Peregrine Pickle," says the lady, 'under 'the toilet, throw "Roderick Ramdom" into the closet, put the "Innocent Adultery" into the "Whole Duty of Man," cram "Ovid" behind the bolster, put the "Man of Feeling" into 'your pocket, lay "Mrs Chapone" in sight, and leave "For6.66 dyce's Sermons " on the table.'

The second division of Mr Dauney's dissertation is devoted to an examination of Scotish musical instruments; and contains a great deal of matter highly interesting to musical readers. We cannot, however, enter upon the history of mandours, hurdie-gurdies, monochords, which (like lucus a non lucendo), seems to mean many chords ;-of flutes, cornets, harps, shawms, or even of the ' brisk awakening viol,' and the twa fithelaires' (Anglice, two fiddlers) who performed thereon the ancient romance of GraySteil before James IV. But, on the subject of the bagpipe, which Mr Dauney discusses at considerable length, he propounds some opinions, which though, as we believe, perfectly well founded, will probably appear highly heterodox to those who always connect the idea of the bagpipe with the national music of Scotland, and seem to look upon it as pre-eminently the national instrument, Strip a Highlander, according to the common notion, of his bagpipe and kilt, and what do you leave him? 'A naked Pict,'' meagre and pale, the ghost of what he was.' Accordingly, the contest as to the antiquity of the one, and the merits of the other, has always been viewed as one pro aris et focis; and we ourselves have felt, as to the bagpipe, that it was one of those musical instruments with regard to which it was prudent to confine our opinions to our own breast. It is matter

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of surprise to us, therefore, that Mr Dauney has so far screwed his courage to the sticking place, as to publish, in Scotland, opinions highly unfavourable to the bagpipe, either musically or nationally considered. Under the shelter of his authority we may as well confess, that we are are by no means sorry to see the bagpipe degraded from its conventional supremacy as the national musical instrument of Scotland; especially as the tendency of his remarks is to set up the claims of the harp in its stead. We can easily conceive, that with its windy suspiration of forced breath,' it may have a kind of factitious charm for those who associate it with Highland genealogies, and think of it as played by the descendants of time-honoured minstrels, striding before the castles of the chief, or pacing the floor of the hall with the dignity of an Ossian. But really to ourselves, it is matter of alender regret to learn, that it was only within the last two or three centuries that it was introduced into the Highlands, and became the martial instrument of a few Highland regiments. We see from Boccaccio, that while the instrument was well known in Italy, during the fourteenth century, it was not held in the best repute; for, while the high-born gentlemen and ladies who fuum the story-telling group in the Decameron accompany hein Cansoni and Ballate with the lute and the viol, the task of herming on the bagpipe is committed to Tyndarus, a servant. Chaucer, in like manner, puts it into the hand of his Drunken Miller and the terms in which Shakspeare speaks of the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe,' show that he entertained no great admiration for the instrument.

The bagpipe,' says Mr Dauney, has never been a very popular instrument in Scotland, except in the Highland districts; and we may state this with some counidence, as to one part of the country,—a royal burgh, which we have already had occasion to name, and where the magistrates actually prohibited the common piper from going his rounds, in terms by no means complimentary of the instrument. Our readers will be the less surprised at the superior refinement here exhibited, when they are informed that these were the musical magistrates' of the city of Aberdeen, whose praises have been so loudly trumpeted by Forbes, the publisher of the Cautus, in his dedication of that work. 26th May, 1630.The Magistrates discharge the common piper of all going through the town at night, or in the morning, in tyuie coming, with his pype,— it being an uncivill forme to be usit within sic a famous burghe, and being often fund fault with, als weill be sundrie neighbouris of the towne as be

strangeris.

Our author advocates with much zeal the cause of the harp, an instrument fit, according to the description of the French poet Machau, to be used by knights, esquires, clerkes, persons of ' rank, and ladies with plump and beautiful hands, and whose 'courteous and gentle sounds should be heard only by the elegant ' and the good.' There is something extremely interesting in the history of this instrument; not only diffusing its charms at the courts of princes, and in the houses of nobles, but constituting a source of delightful and innocent recreation to all classes of people in the tranquillity of domestic life. We fear the merit of the original introduction of the instrument into this country must be ascribed to Ireland; but it seems very early to have become a favourite instrument, and one on which the Highland harpers appear to have attained a proficiency little if at all inferior to that of the Irish and the Welsh. During the fifteenth century, it appears to have been extremely fashionable, James I. having touched it, as Fordun says, like another Orpheus: it figures among the musical instruments mentioned in Douglas Palace of 'Honour' (about the commencement of the sixteenth century), and again among those with which Queen Anne was greeted, on her public entry into Edinburgh, in 1590..

It was in the Highland districts of Scotland, however, that the instrument appears to have been most successfully cultivated, and to have longest maintained its ground;-the performers generally uniting, like the more ancient minstrels, the character of harper and poet. The last of this race, representing the more respectable class of harpers, is said to have been Roderick, or as he is generally called Rory Dall (Blind Rory), a Highland Demodocus, who if tradition is to be trusted, was born a gentleman, and lived on that footing at Dunvegan Castle, in Skye, in the family of the laird of Macleod. His name will be familiar to most of our readers, as the supposed instructor of Flora M.Ivor.

The proficiency of the Highlanders in harp music is sufficiently proved by the ports' as they are called, or airs composed for the harp, of which the Skene MS. contains only one; viz. ' Port Ballangoune,' which turns out to be the same with one entitled Rory Dall's Port' in the Straloch MS. (probably a predecessor of the Rory Dall above alluded to), but greatly inferior to the Straloch version in musical merit. Besides Rory Dall's, the StraJoch MS. contains four other ports, which have been translated by Mr Graham, all of them interesting and remarkable from their elevated character;-the wild romantic style of their modulation often reminding us of the wilder and more gloomy conceptions of

Beethoven's Adagios; and that tone of melancholy which pervades them, so much in harmony with the character of the Celtic muse. We hope our readers will not be startled if we so far break the usual symmetry of our pages, by a musical quotation, as to insert one of these old airs from the Gordon MS., entitled 'Port Jean Lindsay,' which, though not so rich and strange' as some of the others, is beautiful and characteristic, and would do honour to any composer, ancient or modern :

It serves not a little to pique our curiosity with respect to these relics of the old Highland bards, that the melody should possess a peculiar national character, to all appearance essentially dissimilar from the Welsh; and even distinct from the Irish harp music, to which, however, it is more nearly allied.

But it is to be regretted that, owing to the harp having been so long disused in this country, we can scarcely expect to make many additions to our stock. MSS. such as this of Sir Robert Gordon are so rare, that it may be doubted whether another

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is extant; and what reliance can be placed on such harp airs as have been noted in the course of the last century,-altered as they must have been, from their having passed through the medium of other instruments ? Even the ports' to which we have alluded are objectionable, from their not having been noted for the harp; and any old specimens of this music written down. as expressly composed for that instrument, might be different from those here given, though to a much slighter extent than if they had been adapted either to a bowed or wind instrument-the lute, as well as the harp, being what the French call an instrumentà pincer.

Having thus given a hasty sketch of the contents of Mr Dauney's Dissertation, let us indulge our feelings by saying something generally of that body of national music which gives interest and importance to any publication of this nature.

In estimating the merit of Scotish melody, it is not easy for us who are natives, and to the manner born,' to put off those prejudices which tend to bias the judgment; so as to enable us precisely to determine how much was to be ascribed to the effect of local or accidental suggestions, and what to the genuine and intrinsic excellence of the music itself. Scotchmen have been often taunted for allowing the love of Scotland to warp their perception of truth; and it is not to be wondered at if it should have still more influence on their perception of beauty. We should scarcely think the better of our countryman who could scan the beauties of a long-remembered air as a pure abstraction, without reference to its name or object,-who could dissect the structure of the 'Flowers of the Forest,' as if he had no share or sympathy in the living recollections which it represents. Such a one, thus fit to peep and botanize upon his mother's grave,' must be in a great measure destitute of those general feelings on which a more large and liberal criticism depends. The sensibilities of local and personal preference cannot be wholly eradicated from our frame, without also plucking up the fine fibres by which the sense of beauty in the abstract is best appreciated. All that we can do, is to watch and make allowance for the operation of our own partialities, and, if not wholly to correct the error, at least to approximate to the truth.

But the tendency we now refer to, is often corrected or compensated by one of an opposite kind, almost equally natural, and now more common. Nationality, in the present day, though we are far from thinking it extinguished, is, at least among many classes of society, much less prominent and prevailing. If we are not yet ashamed of our country, many of us are at