Preface:

Preface -- Note 1: "Let Erin remember the days of old."

Preface -- Note 2: "Oh, breathe not his name."

Preface -- Note 3: "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps."

Preface -- Note 4: Miss Curran.

Preface -- Note 5: So thought higher authorities; among the extracts from The Press quoted by the Secret Committee of the House of Commons, to show how formidable had been the designs of the United Irishmen, there are two or three paragraphs cited from this redoubtable Letter.

Preface -- Note 6: Of the depth and extent to which Hudson had involved himself in the conspiracy, none of our family had harboured the least notion; till, on the seizure of the thirteen Leinster delegates at Oliver Bond's, in the month of March, 1798, we found, to our astonishment and sorrow, that he was one of the number. To those unread in the painful history of this period, it is right to mention that almost all the leaders of the United Irish conspiracy were Protestants. Among those companions of my own alluded to in these pages, I scarcely remember a single Catholic.

Preface -- Note 7: In the Report from the Secret Committee of the Irish House of Lords, this extension of the plot to the College is noted as "a desperate project of the same faction to corrupt the youth of the country by introducing their organised system of treason into the University."

Preface -- Note 8: One of these brothers has long been a general in the French army; having taken a part in those great enterprises of Napoleon which have now become matter of history. Should these pages meet the eye of General * * * * * *, they will call to his mind the days we passed together in Normandy, a few summers since; -- more specifically our excursion to Baeux, when, as we talked on the way of old college times and friends, all the eventful and stormy scenes he had passed through seemed forgotten.

Preface -- Note 9: There had been two questions put to all those examined on the first day, -- "Were you ever asked to join any of these societies " -- and "By whom were you asked? " -- which I should have refused to answer, and must, of course, have abided the consequences.

Preface -- Note 10: For the correctness of the above report of this short examination, I can pretty confidently answer. It may amuse, therefore, my readers, -- as showing the manner in which biographers make the most of small facts, -- to see an extract or two from another account of this affair, published not many years since by an old and zealous friend of our family. After stating with tolerable correctness one or two of my answers, the writer thus proceeds: -- "Upon this, Lord Clare repeated the question, and young Moore made such an appeal, as caused his lordship to relax, austere and rigid as he was. The words I cannot exactly remember; the substance was as follows: -- that he entered college to receive the education of a scholar and a gentleman; that he knew not how to compromise these characters by informing against his college companions; that his own speeches in the debating society had been ill construed, when the worst that could be said of them was, if truth had been spoken, that they were patriotic . . . . that he was aware of the high-minded nobleman he had the honour of appealing to, and if his lordship could for a moment condescend to step from his high station, and place himself in his situation, then say how he would act under such circumstances, -- it would be his guidance." Werbert's Irish Varieties. London, 1836.

Preface -- Note 11: "When in consequence of the compact entered into between government and the chief leaders of the conspiracy, the State Prisoners, before proceeding to exile, were allowed to see their friends, I paid a visit to Edward Hudson, in the jail of Kilmainham, where he had then lain immured for four or five months, hearing of friend after friend being led out to death, and expecting every week his own turn to come. I found that to amuse his solitude he had made a large drawing with charcoal on the wall of his prison, representing the fancied origin of the Irish Harp which, some years after, I adopted as teh subject of one of the Melodies.'" -- Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, vol i.

Preface -- Note 12: Quarterly Review, vol. xli., p. 294.

War Song -- Note 1: Brien Boromhe, the great monarch of Ireland, who was killed at the battle of Clontarf in the beginning of the 11th century, after having defeated the Danes in twenty-five engagements.

War Song -- Note 2: Munster.

War Song -- Note 3: The palace of Brien.

War Song -- Note 4: This alludes to an intersting circumstance related to the Dalgais, the favourite troops of Brien, when they were interrupted in their return from the battle of Clontarf, by Fitzpatrick, prince of Ossory. The wounded men entreated that they might be allowed to fight with the rest. -- "Let stakes (they said) be stuck in the ground, and suffer each of us, tied to and supported by one of these stakes, to be placed in his rank by the side of a sound man. "Between seven and eight hundred wounded men (adds O'Halloran), pale, emaciated, and supported in this manner, appeared mixed with the foremost of the troops; -- never was such another sight exhibited." -- History of Ireland, book xii., chap i.

Fly Not Yet -- Note 1: Solis Fons, near the Temple of Ammon.

Though the Last Glimpse of Erin With Sorrow I See -- Note 1: "In the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII, an Act was made respecting the habits, and dress in general, of the Irish, whereby all persons were constrained from being shorn or shaven above the ears, or from wearing Glibbes, or Coulins (long locks), on their heads, or hair on their upper lip, called Crommeal. On this occasion, a song was written by one of our bards, in which an Irish virgin is made to give the preference to her dear Coulin (or the youth with the flowing locks) to all strangers (by which the English were meant), or those who wore their habits. Of this song, the air alone has reached us,and is universally admired." -- Walker's Historical Memoirs of Irish Bards. p. 134. About this period, harsh measures were taken against the Irish Mistrels.

Rich and Rare Were the Gems She Wore -- Note 1: This ballad is founded upon the following anecdote: -- "The people were inspired with such a spirit of honour, virtue, and religion by the great example of Brien, and by his excellent administration, that, as a proof of it, we are informed that a young lady of great beauty, adorned with jewels and a costly dress, undertook a journey alone, from one end of the kingdom to the other, with a wand only in her hand, at the top of which was a ring of exceeding great value; and such an impression had the laws and government of this Monarch made on the minds of all the people, that no attempt was made upon her honour, nor was she robbed of her clothes or jewels." -- Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i., book x.

The Meeting of the Waters -- Note 1: "The Meeting of the Waters" forms a part of that beautiful scenery which lies between Rathdrum and Arklow, in the country of Wicklow, and these lines were suggested by a visit to this romantic spot, in the summer of the year 1807.

The Meeting of the Waters -- Note 2: The rivers Avon and Avoca.

St. Senanus and the Lady -- Note 1: In a metrical life of St. Senanus, taken from an old Kilkenny MS., and which may be found among the Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ, we are told of his flight to the island of Scattery, and his resolution not to admit any women of the party; he refused to receive even a sister saint, St. Cannera, whom an angel had taken to the island for the express purpose of introducing her to him. The following was the ungraciuos answer of Senanus, according to his poetical biographer --

   Cui Præsul, quid foeminus
   Commune est cum monachis?
   Nec te nec uliam aliam
   Admittemus in insulam.

According to Dr. Loedwich, St Senanus was no less a personage than the River Shannon; but O'Connor and other antiquarians, deny this metamorphisis indignantly.

The Legacy -- Note 1: "In every house was one or two harps, free to all travellers, who were the more caressed, the more they excelled in music." -- O'Halloran.

How Oft Has the Benshee Cried -- Note 1: I have endeavoured here, without losing that Irish character which it is my object to preserve throughout the Irish Melodies, to allude to the sad and ominous fatality, by which England has been deprived of so many great and good men, at a moment when she most requires all the aids of talent and integrity.

How Oft Has the Benshee Cried -- Note 2: This designation, which has been before applied to Lord Nelson, is the title given to a celebrated Irish hero, in a Poem by O'Guive, the bard of O'Niel, which is quoted in the Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland, page 433. "Con, of the hundred Fights, sleep in thy grass-grown tomb, and upbraid not our defeats with thy victories."

How Oft Has the Benshee Cried -- Note 3: Fox, "Romanorum ultimus."

Let Erin Remember the Days of Old -- Note 1: "This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the Monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively, hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory." -- Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i., book ix.

Let Erin Remember the Days of Old -- Note 2: "Military orders of knights were very early established in Ireland: long before the birth of Christ we find an hereditary order of Chivalry in Ulster, called Curaidhe na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called Teagh na Craoiobhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Red Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bronbhearg, or the House of the Sorrowful Soldier." -- O'Halloran's Introduction, etc. part i., chap. 5.

Let Erin Remember the Days of Old -- Note 3: It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden overflowing the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclestiastical towers under the water. Piscatores aquæ illius turres ecclesiasticas, quæ more patriæ arctæ sunt et aliæ, necnon et rotundæ, sub transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus, frequenter ostendunt. -- Topogr. Hib., dist. 2, c. 9.

The Song of Fionnuala -- Note 1: To make this story intelligible in a song would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorised to inflict upon an audience at once; the reader must therefore be content to learn, in a note, that Fionnuala, the daughter of Lir, was, by some supernatural power, transformed into a swan and condemned to wander, for many hundred years, over certain lakes and rivers in Ireland, till the coming of Christianity, when the first sound of the mass-bell was to be the signal of her release. -- I found this fanciful fiction among some manuscript translations from the Irish, which were begun under the direction of that enlightened friend of Ireland, the Countess of Moira.

Erin, Oh Erin -- Note 1: The inextinguishable fire of St Bridget, at Kildare, which Giraldus mentions: "Apud Kildariam occurrit Ignis Sanctæ Brigidæ, quem inextinguibilem vocant: non quod extingui non possit, sed quod tam solicite moniales et sanctiæ mulieres ignem, suppetente materia, fovent et nutriunt, ut a tempore virginis per tot annorum curricula semper mansit inextinetus." -- Girald. Camb. de Mirabil. Hibern., dist 2, c.34.

Erin, Oh Erin -- Note 2: Mrs. H. Tighe, in her exquisite lines on the lily, has applied this image to a still more important object.

Oh! Blame Not the Bard -- Note1: We may suppose this apology to have been uttered by one of those wandering bards, whom Spenser so severely, and perhaps truly, describes in his State of Ireland, and whose poems, he tells us, "were sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness unto them, the which it is great pity to see abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which, with good usage, would serve to adorn and beautify virtue."

Oh! Blame Not the Bard -- Note 2: It is conjectured by Wormius, that the name of Ireland is derived from Yr, the Runic for a bow, in the use of which weapon the Irish were once very expert. This derivation is certainly more creditable to us than the following: "So that Ireland, called the land of Ire, from the constant broils therein for 400 years, was now become the land of concord." -- Lloyd's State Worthies, art. The Lord Grundison.

Oh! Blame Not the Bard -- Note 3: See the Hymn, attributed to Alcæus, -- "I will carry my sword, hidden in myrtles, like Harmodius and Aristogiton," etc.

While Gazing on the Moon's Light -- Note 1: "Of such celestial bodies as are visible, the sun excepted, the single moon, as despicable as it is in comparison to most of the others, is much more beneficial than they all put together." -- Whiston's Theory etc.

In the Entretiens d'Ariste, among other ingenious emblems, we find a starry sky without a moon, with these words, Non mille, quod absens.

Whle Gazing on the Moon's Light -- Note 2: This image was suggested by the following thought, which occurs somewhere in Sir William Jones's works: "The moon looks upon many night-flowers; the night-flower sees but one moon."

Ill Omens -- Note 1: An emblem of the soul.

Before the Battle -- Note 1: "The Irish Corna was not entirely devoted to martial purposes. In the heroic ages, our ancestors quaffed Meadh out of them, as the Danish hunters do their beverage at this day." -- Walker

'Tis Sweet to Think -- Note1: I believe it is Marmontel who says "Quand an n'a pas ce que l'on alme, il faut oimer ce que l on a." -- There are so many matter-of-fact people, who take such jeux d'esprit as this defence of inconstancy to be the actual and genuine sentiments of him who writes them, that they courted one, in self-defence, to be as matter-of-fact as themselves, and to remind them, that Democritus was not the worse physiologist for having playfully contended that snow was black: nor Erasmus in any degree the less wise, for having written an engenious encomium of folly.

It Is Not the Tear At This Moment Shed -- Note 1: These lines were occasioned by the loss of a very near and dear relative, who had died lately at Madeira.

The Irish Peasant to his Mistress -- Note 1: Meaning, allegorically, the ancient Church of Ireland.

The Irish Peasant to his Mistress -- Note 2: "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." -- St. Paul. 2 Corinthians, iii., 17.

The Origin of the Harp -- Note 1: This thought was suggested by an ingenious design, prefixed to an ode upon St. Cecilia, published some years since, by Mr. Hudson of Dublin. -- P.E.

The Prince's Day -- Note 1: This song was written for a féte in honour of the Prince of Wales's Birthday, given by my friend, Major Bryan, at his seat in the county of Kilkenny.

I Saw Thy Form in Youthful Prime -- Note 1: I have here made a feeble effort to imitate that exquisite inscription of Shenstone's, "Heu! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminesse!".

By That Lake, Whose Gloomy Shore -- Note 1: This ballad is founded upon one of the many stories related of St. Kevin, whose bed in the rock is to be seen at Glendalough, a most gloomy and romantic spot in the county of Wicklow.

By That Lake, Whose Gloomy Shore -- Note 2: There are many other curious traditions concerning this Lake, which may be found in Giraldus, Colgan, etc.

Avenging and Bright -- Note 1: The words of this song were suggested by the very ancient Irish story called "Deirdri, or the Lamentable Fate of the Sons of Usnach," which has been translated literally from the Gaelic, by Mr. O'Flanagan (see vol. i. of Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin), and upon which it appears that the "Darthula of Macpherson" is founded. The treachery of Conor, King of Ulster, in putting to death the three sons of Usna, was the cause of a desolating war against Ulster, which terminated in the destruction of Eman. "The story (says Mr. O'Flanagan) has been, from time immemorial, held in high repute as one of the three tragic stories of the Irish. These are, 'The death of the children of Touran;' 'The death of the children of Lear' (both regarding Tuatha de Danane) and this, 'The death of the children of Usnach,' which is a Milesian story." It will be recollected that among these Melodies, there is a ballad upon the story of the children of Lear or Lir: "Silent, oh Moyle!" etc.

Avenging and Bright -- Note 2: "Oh Nasi, view that cloud that I here see in the sky! I see over Eman-green a chilling cloud of blood-tinged red." -- Deirdri's Song.

Avenging and Bright -- Note 3: Ulster.

Oh, the Shamrock -- Note 1: It is said that St. Patrick, when preaching the Trinity to the Pagan Irish, used to illustrate his subject by reference to that species of trefoil called in Ireland by the name of the Shamrock; and thence, perhaps, the island of Saints adopted this plant as her national emblem. Hope, among the ancients, was sometimes represented as a beautiful child, standing on tip-toes, and a trefoil or three-coloured grass in her hand.

At the Mid Hour of Night -- Note 1: "There are countries," says Montaigne, "where they believe the souls of the happy live in all manner of liberty, in delightful fields; and that it those souls, repeating the words we utter, which we call Echo."

The Young May Moon -- Note 1: "Steals silently to Morna's grove." -- See, in Mr Bunting's collection, a poem translated from the Irish, by the late John Brown, one of my earliest college companions and friends, whose death was as singularly melancholy and unfortunate as his life had been amiable, honourable, and exemplary.

The Song of O'Ruark -- Note 1: These stanzas are founded upon an event of most melancholy importance for Ireland, if, as we are told by our Irish historians, it gave England the first opportunity of profiting by our divisions and subduing us. The following are the circumstances, as related by O'Halloran: -- "The king of Leinster had long conceived a violent affection for Bearbhorgil, daughter to the king of Meath, and though she had been for some time married to O'Ruark, prince of Breffni, yet it could not restrain his passion. They carried on a private correspondence, and she informed him that O'Ruark intended soon to go on a pilgrimage (an act of piety frequent in those days), and conjured him to embrace that opportunity of conveying her from her husband she detested to a lover she adored. Mac Murchad too puntually obeyed the summons, and had the lady conveyed to his capital of Ferns." -- The monarch Roderick espoused the cause of O'Ruark, while Mac Murchad fled to England, and obtained the assistance of Henry II.

"Such," adds Giraldus Cambrensis (as I find him in an old translation), "is the variable and fickle nature of woman, by whom all mischief in the world (for the most part) do happen and come, as may appear by Marcus Antonius, and by the destruction of Troy."

You Remember Ellen -- Note 1: This ballad was suggested by a well-known and interesting story told of a certain noble family in England.

Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded -- Note 1: Our Wicklow Gold Mines, to which this verse alludes, deserve, I fear, but too well the character given of them.

Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded -- Note 2: "The bird, having got its prize, settled not far off, with the talisman in his mouth. The prince drew near it, hoping it would drop it; but, as he approached, the bird took wing, and settled again," etc. -- Arabian Nights.

The Time I've Lost in Wooing -- Note 1: This alludes to a kind of Irish fairy, which is to be met with, they say, in the fields at dusk. As long as you keep your eyes upon him, he is fixed, and in your power; -- but the moment you look away (and he is ingenious in furnishing some inducement) he vanishes. I had thought this was the sprite which we call the Leprechaun; but a high authority upon such subjects, Lady Morgan, in a note upon her national and interesting novel, O'Donnel, has given a very different account of that goblin.

'Tis Gone, and For Ever -- Note 1: "The Sun-burst" was the fanciful name given by the ancient Irish to the Royal Banner.

Dear Harp of My Country -- Note 1: In that rebellious but beautiful song, "When Erin first rose," there is, if I recollect right, the following line, --

  "Now in the glimmering dying light she grows
   Less and less earthly."