LETTER VII.

TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.

This is the sixth day of my convalescence, and the first of my descent from my western tower; for I find it is literally in a tower, or turret, which terminates a wing of these ruins, I have been lodged. These good people, however, would have persuaded me into the possession of a slow fever, and confined me to my room another day, had not the harp of Glorvina, with “supernatural solicitings,” spoken more irresistibly to my heart than all their eloquence.

I have just made my _toilette_, for the first time since my arrival at the castle; and with a black ribbon of the nurse’s across my forehead, and a silk handkerchief of the priest’s supporting my arm, with my own “customary suit of solemn black,” tintless cheek, languid eye, and pensive air, I looked indeed as though “melancholy had marked me for her own or an excellent personification of pining atrophy” in its last stage of decline.

While I contemplated my _memento mori_ of a figure in the glass, I heard a harp tuning in an underneath apartment. The Prince I knew had not yet left his bed, for his infirmities seldom permit him to rise early; the priest had rode out; and the venerable figure of the old harper at that moment gave a fine effect to a ruined arch under which he was passing, led by a boy, just opposite my window. “It is Glorwna then,” said I, “and alone!” and down I sallied; but not with half the intrepidity that Sir Bertram followed the mysterious blue flame along the corridors of the enchanted castle.

A thousand times since my arrival in this transmundane region, I have had reason to feel how much we are the creatures of situation; how insensibly our minds and our feelings take their tone from the influence of existing circumstances. You have seen me frequently the very prototype of _nonchalence_, in the midst of a circle of birthday beauties, that might have put the fabled charms of the _Mount Ida triumviri_ to the blush of inferiority. Yet here I am, groping my way down the dismantled stone stairs of a ruined castle in the wilds of Connaught, with my heart fluttering like the pulse of green eighteen, in the presence of its first love, merely because on the point of appearing before a simple rusticated girl, whose father calls himself _a prince_, with a _potatoe ridge for his dominions!_ O! with what indifference I should have met her in the drawingroom, or at the opera!--there she would have been merely a woman!--here she is the fairy vision of my heated fancy.

Well, having finished the same circuitous journey that a squirrel diurnally performs in his cage, I found myself landed in a stone passage, which was terminated by the identical chamber of fatal memory already mentioned, and through the vista of a huge folding door, partly thrown back, beheld the form of Glorvina! She was alone, and bending over her harp; one arm was gracefully thrown over the instrument, which she was tuning; with the other she was lightly modulating on its chords.

Too timid to proceed, yet unwilling to retreat, I was still hovering near the door, when turning round, she observed me, and I advanced. She blushed to the eyes, and returned my profound bow with a slight inclination of the head, as if I were unworthy a more marked obeisance.

Nothing in the theory of sentiment could be more diametrically opposite, than the bashful indication of that crimson blush, and the haughty spirit of that graceful bow. What a logical analysis would it have afforded to Father John on innate and acquired ideas! Her blush was the effusion of nature; her bow the result of inculcation--the one spoke the native woman; the other the _ideal_ princess.

I endeavoured to apologize for my intrusion; and she, in a manner that amazed me, congratulated me on my recovery; then drawing her harp towards her, she seated herself on the great Gothic couch, with a motion of the hand, and a look, that seemed to say, “there is room for you too.” I bowed my acceptance of the silent welcome invitation.

Behold me then seated _tete-a-tete_ with this Irish Princess!--my right arm thrown over her harp, and her eyes riveted on my left.

“Do you still feel any pain from it?” said she, so naturally, as though we had actually been discussing the accident it had sustained.

Would you believe it! I never thought of making her an answer; but fastened my eyes on her face. For a moment she raised her glance to mine, and we both coloured, as if she read there--I know not what!

“I beg your pardon,” said I, recovering from the spell of this magic glance--“you made some observation, Madam?”

“Not that I recollect,” she replied, with a slight confusion of manner, and running her finger carelessly over the chords of the harp, till it came in contact with my own, which hung over it. The touch circulated like electricity through every vein. I impulsively arose, and walked to the window from whence I had first heard the tones of that instrument which had been the innocent accessory to my present unaccountable emotion. As if I were measuring the altitude of my fall, I hung half my body out of the window, thinking, Heaven knows, of nothing less than _that_ fall, of nothing more than its fair cause, until abruptly drawing in my dizzy head, I perceived her’s (such a cherub head you never beheld!) leaning against her harp, and her eye directed towards me. I know not why, yet I felt at once confused and gratified by this observation.

“My fall,” said I, glad of something to say, to relieve my school-boy bashfulness, “was greater than I suspected.”

“It was dreadful!” she replied shuddering “What could have led you to so perilous a situation?”------

“That,” I returned, “which has led to more certain destruction, senses more strongly fortified than mine--the voice of a syren!”

I then briefly related to her the rise, decline, and fall of my physical empire; obliged, however, to qualify the gallantry of my _debut_ by the subsequent plainness of my narration, for the delicate reserve of her air made me tremble, lest I had gone too far.

By heavens I cannot divest myself of a feeling of inferiority in her presence, as though I were actually that poor, wandering, unconnected being I have feigned myself.

My compliment was received with a smile and a blush; and to the eulogium which rounded my detail on the benevolence and hospitality of the family of Inismore, she replied, that “had the accident been of less material consequence to myself, the family of Inismore must have rejoiced at the event which enriched its social circle with so desirable an acquisition.”

The _matter_ of this little _politesse_ was nothing; but the _manner_, the air, with which it was delivered! Where can she have acquired this elegance of manner?--reared amidst rocks, and woods, and mountains! deprived of all those graceful advantages which society confers--a manner too that is at perpetual variance with her looks, which are so _naif_---I had almost said so wildly simple--that while she speaks in the language of a court, she looks like the artless inhabitant of a cottage:--a smile, and a blush, rushing to her cheek, and her lip, as the impulse of fancy or feeling directs, even when smiles and blushes are irrevalent to the etiquette of the moment.

This elegance of manner, then, must be the pure result of elegance of soul; and if there is a charm in woman, I have hitherto vainly sought, and prized beyond all I have discovered, it is this refined, celestial, native elegance of soul, which effusing its spell through every thought, word, and motion, of its enviable possessor, resembles the peculiar property of gold, which subtilely insinuates itself through the most minute and various particles, without losing any thing of its own intrinsic nature by the amalgamation.

In answer to the flattering observation which had elicited this digression I replied:

That far from regretting the consequences, I was emamoured of an accident that had procured me such happiness as I now enjoyed (even with the risk of life itself;) and that I believed there were few who, like me, would not prefer peril to security, were the former always the purchase of such felicity as the latter, at least on me, had never bestowed.

Whether this reply savoured too much of the world’s commonplace gallantry, or that she thought there was more of the head than the heart in it, I know not; but, by my soul, in spite of a certain haughty motion of the head not unfrequent with her, I thought she looked wonderfully inclined to laugh in my face, though she primed up her mouth, and fancied she looked like a nun, when her lip pouted with the smiling archness of a Hebe.

In short, I never felt more in all its luxury the comfort of looking like a fool; and to do away the no very agreeable sensation which the conviction of being laughed at awakens, as a _pis-aller_, I began to examine the harp, and expressed the surprise I felt at its singular construction.

“Are you fond of music?” she asked with _naivette_.

“Sufficiently so,” said I, “to risk my life for it.”

She smiled, and cast a look at the window, as much as to say, “I understand you.”

As I now was engaged in examining her harp, I observed that it resembled less any instrument of that kind I had seen, than the drawing of the Davidic lyre in Montfaucon.

“Then,” said she, with animation, “this is another collateral proof of the antiquity of its origin, which I never before heard adduced, and which sanctions that universally received tradition among us, by which we learn, that we are indebted to the first Milesian colony that settled here for this charming instrument, although some modern historians suppose that we obtained it from Scandinavia.” *

* It is reserved for the national Lyre of Erin only, to claim a title independent of a Gothic origin. For “Clar- seach,” is the only Irish epithet for the harp, a name more in unison with the cithera of the Greeks, and even the chinor of the Hebrew, than the Anglo-Saxon harp. “I cannot but think the clarseach, or Irish harp, one of the most ancient instruments we have among us, and had perhaps its origin in remote periods of antiquity.”--Dr. Bedford’s Essay on the construction, &c. of the Irish Harp.

“And is this, Madam,” said I, “the original ancient Irish harp?”

“Not exactly, for I have strung it with gut instead of wire, merely for the gratification of my own ear; but it is, however, precisely the same form as that preserved in the Irish university, which belonged to one of the most celebrated of our heroes, Brian Boni; for the warrior and the bard often united in the character of our kings, and they sung the triumphs of those departed chiefs whose feats they emulated.”

“You see,” she added with a smile, while my eager glance pursued the kindling animation of her countenance as she spoke,--“you see, that in all which concerns my national music, I speak with national enthusiasm; and much indeed do we stand indebted to the most charming of all the sciences for the eminence it has obtained us; for in _music only_, do _you_ English allow us poor Irish any superiority; and therefore your King, who made the _harp_ the armorial bearing of Ireland, perpetuated our former musical celebrity beyond the power of time or prejudice to destroy it.”

Not for the world would I have annihilated the triumph which this fancied superiority seemed to give to this patriotic little being, by telling her, that we thought as little of the music of her country, as of every thing else that related to it; and that all we knew of the style of its melodies, reached us through the false medium of comic airs, sung by some popular actor, who in coincidence with his author, caricatures those national traits he attempts to delineate.

I therefore simply told her, that though I doubted not the former musical celebrity of her country, yet that I perceived the _Bardic_ order in Wales seemed to have survived the tuneful race of _Erin_; for that though every little Cambrian village had its harper, I had not yet met with one of the profession in Ireland.

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:

“This susceptibility to the influence of my country’s music, discovered itself in a period of existence when no associating sentiment of the heart could have called it into being; for I have often wept in convulsive emotion at an air, before the sad story it accompanied was understood: but now--now--that feeling is matured, and understanding awakened. Oh! you cannot judge--cannot feel--for you have no national music; and your country is the happiest under heaven!”

Her voice faltered as she spoke--her fingers seemed impulsively to thrill on the chords of the harp--her eyes, her tear swollen, beautiful eyes, were thrown up to heaven, and her voice, “low and mournful as the song of the tomb,” sighed over the chords of her national lyre, as she faintly murmured Campbell’s beautiful poem to the ancient Irish air of _Erin go brack!_

Oh! is there on earth a being so cold, so icy, so insensible, as to have made a comment, even an _encomiastic_ one, when this song of the soul ceased to breathe! God knows how little I was inclined or empowered to make the faintest eulogium, or disturb the sacred silence which succeeded to her music’s dying murmur. On the contrary, I sat silent and motionless, with my head unconsciously leaning on my broken arm, and my handkerchief to my eyes: when at last I withdrew it, I found her hurried glance fixed on me with a smile of such expression! Oh! I could weep my heart’s most vital drop for such another glance--such another smile!--they seemed to say, but who dares to translate the language of the soul, which the eye only can express?

In (I believe) equal emotion, we both arose at the same moment and walked to the window. Beyond the mass of ruins which spread in desolate confusion below, the ocean, calm and unruffled, expanded its awful bosom almost to infinitude; while a body of dark, sullen clouds, tinged with the partial beam of a meridian sun, floated above the summits of those savage cliffs which skirt this bold and rocky coast; and the tall spectral figure of Father John, leaning on a broken pediment, appeared like the embodied spirit of philosophy moralizing amidst the ruins of empires, on the instability of all human greatness.

What a sublime assemblage of images.

“How consonant,” thought I, gazing at Glorvina, “to the sublimated tone of our present feelings.” Glorvina waved her head in accidence to the idea, as though my lips had given it birth.

How think you I felt, on this sweet involuntary acknowledgment of a mutual intelligence?

Be that as it may, my eyes, too faithful I fear to my feelings, covered the face on which they were passionately riveted with blushes.

At that moment Glorvina was summoned to dinner by a servant, for she only is permitted to dine with the Prince, as being of royal descent. The vision dissolved--she was again the proud Milesian Princess, and I the poor wandering _artist_--the eleemosynary guest of her hospitable mansion.

The priest and I dined _tete-a-tete_; and, for the first time, he had all the conversation to himself; and got deep in Locke and Malbranche, in solving quidities, and starting hypothesis, to which I assented with great gravity, and thought only of Glorvina.

I again beheld her gracefully drooping over her harp--I again caught the melody of her song, and the sentiment it conveyed to the soul; and I entered fully into the idea of the Greek painter, who drew _Love_, not with a bow and arrow, but a lyre.

I could not avoid mentioning with admiration her great musical powers.

“Yes,” said he, “she inherits them from her mother, who obtained the appellation of _Glorvina_, from the sweetness of her voice, by which name our little friend was baptized at her mother’s request.”

Adieu! Glorvina has been confined in her father’s room during the whole of the evening--to this circumstance you are indebted for this long letter.

H. M.