A HISTORICAL ESSAY ON THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF NATIONAL SONG. § I. S ONG, in its most general acceptation, is defined to be the expreffion of a fentiment, sensation or image, the description of an action, or the narrative of an event, by words differently measured, and attached to certain founds, which we call melody or tune (1). All writers agree that Song is the most ancient fpecies of poetry. Its origin is even thought to be coeval with mankind (2): to fing and dance feeming almoft as natural to men as the ufe of fpeech and walking. Hence we find the dance and the fong whereever we find fociety; in the leaft polished, or most favage nations (3). It is affumed as a fact by a very learned and ingenious writer of our own country, that the manners of a rude (1) The inhabitants of moft countries have different claffes or orders of Songs, to which they generally adapt particular names. With us, fongs of fentiment, expreflion, or even defcription, are properly termed SONGS, in contradiftinction to mere narrative compofitions, which we now denominate BALLADS. A fimilar idea is adopted by the Spaniards and, in France, every division almoft of which the fubject is capable has an appellation peculiar to it. (2) Burneys Hiftory of Music, I. 311. (3) M. M. de Querlon, Memoire fur la Chanson. (Antho. Fran.) VOL. II. b and and uncultivated people, muft in all ages have beer the fame (4). We are, therefor, to look for the fimplicity of the remoteft periods among the favage tribes of America, at prefent; or at least before they were civilifed-perhaps corrupted-by their commerce with Europeans. We find that these nations have their war-song, their death-fong (5), fongs for the chace, (4) Brown, Hiftory of Poetry and Mufic. paffim. (5) It is a cuftom with the American favages to put to death the prifoners they take in war by the most lingering and exquifite torments. These it is the height of heroifm for the victim to bear with apparent infenfibility. During a feries of excruciating tortures, of which a European can scarcely form the idea, he fings aloud a fong, wherein he ftrives to aggravate the wrath of his enemies, by recounting the injuries and difgraces they have fuffered from him and his nation; derides their tortures, as only adapted to the frame and refo. lution of children; and expreffes his joy in paffing with fo much honour to the land of fpirits. Of one of thefe fongs the following ftanzas, which are handed about in manufcript, and have not, it is believed, already appeared in print, are faid to be a tranflation. This may, perhaps, turn out not to be the cafe; but, whatever becomes of the authenticity of the compofition, it cannot well be denied that the writer has treated the real fubject in a manner equally spirited and beautiful. THE DEATH-SONG OF A CHEROKEE INDIAN. The fun fets in night, and the ftars fhun the day, Remember the arrows he shot from his bow; Remember the wood where in ambush we lay, I go to the land where my father is gone; to 66 to their mistresses, and, above all, those in which they extol the gallant actions of their ancient heroes. When the island of Hifpaniola was first discovered by the Spahiards, the employment of the natives, as we learn from an almost contemporary writer, confifted chiefly in acquiring a knowlege of their origin and hiftory, and particularly of the noble acts of their ancestors both in peace and war. "These two thynges," fays he, "they haue of olde tyme compofed in certayne myters and bal"lettes in theyr language. Thefe rymes or ballettes they "call Areitos. And as our mynftrelles are accuftomed to fyng "to the Harpe or Lute, fo do they in lyke maner fyng "these fonges, and daunce to the fame, playing on Tim"brels made of fhels of certaine fishes.....They haue alfo *fonges and ballettes of loue, and other of lamentations "and mournyng, fome alfo to encourage them to the "warres, with euery of them theyr tunes agreeable to the "matter (6)." Here we fee the practice of mankind in the infancy of creation. How curious, how pleafing would it be to be made acquainted with the genuine effufions of the human mind in this state of nature and fimplicity! And how fortunate is it, that Montaigne has preserved an original Caribbean fong, which he does not hesitate to declare worthy of Anacreon! The reader will not be difpleased to see it. "O Snake, stay; ftay, O fnake, that my fifter may draw, from the pattern of thy painted skin, the fashion "and work of a rich ribbon; which I mean to prefent to my miftrefs: fo may thy beauty and thy difpofition be "preferred to all other ferpents. O fnake, stay, &c." (7) (6) Peter Martyr, Hiftory of Travaile in the E. and W. Indies, &c. by R. Eden, 1577. 4to. b. l. Decade 3. fo. 139, b. The practice of the native Americans is much the fame. See Lafitau, Mœurs des Sauvages, tom. ii. Brown, c. 2. The Peruvians were a polifhed peoe, and with them melody and fong were in great perfection. Garcilaffo de la Vega, in his Royal Commentaries of Peru, informs us, that their fabulous and other fongs were innumerable; and profeffes to have compiled great part of his history from the old national ballads. (7) Effays, B. 1. C, 30, M. de Querlon, It is, perhaps, as M. de Querlon ingeniously ob ferves, the first time that the idea of a ferpent gave rise to a piece of gallantry. In the earliest ages of mankind, the chief employment of all ranks was the care of their flocks and herds; hence the firft fongs were, doubtless, on the most natural of subjects, Love, Beauty, Innocence, the furrounding images, and the charms of a paftoral life. And, indeed, as an ingenious writer (8) has juftly remarked, the ideas of sweetness, tendernefs, and fimplicity, are fo ftrongly annexed to the paftoral fong, that, in all countries, whether they have had fhepherds or not, fongs, in imitation of what theirs were at leaft fuppofed to be, have always been moft numerous, popular, and pleafing. In procefs of time, when fuperftition and gratitude had created gods and heroes, their praifes became a favourite topic. Wine too, we may be fure, as foon as it was known, would, while it infpired the fong, have its fhare in the praises of the poet. The moft ancient nations of the world, the Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Arabians, the Affyrians, the Perfians, the Afiatic Indians, are all known to have had the use of fung (9). The firft of thefe, as we have it on the testimony of Herodotus (10), had, in his time, a mournful or elegiac fong, called, from its fubject, Maneros, which they had retained from the most remote antiquity. Lyriç or finging poetry has been, likewife, cultivated among the Chinefe, time immemorial (11). Song, in Greece, is fuppofed to have preceded the ufe of letters. It was, in the earlieft ages, the only method they had to transmit from father to fon what it was the national intereft not to forget (12). The fongs of the most ancient Greek Lyrifts were, perhaps, the principal, if not the only, fources of information to their oldest histe (8) M. de la Nauze. See below. (10) Euterpe. (9) M. de Querlon. (ri) M. de Querlon. (12) M. de la Nauze, Memoire fur les Chanfons de l'ancienne Gréce. (Fift. de l'Acad. ix. 320.). rians. t rians (13). But the origin and use of fong were, doubtless, the fame in Greece as they have been every where else. The Arcadian fhepherds, fo famous among the ancients, were the first fongfters of Greece. This country, fertile in fiction, gave birth to the Mufes in Theffaly, from the amours of Jupiter, in the disguise of a fhepherd, and Mnemofyne. At first there were no more than three : they were afterwards multiplied to nine. Each had her department, and Polyhymnia prefided over fong (14). Linus is fuppofed to have been the firft lyric poet of any confequence in Greece. He was the mafter of Orpheus, Thamyris, and Hercules. The laft was ex tremely dull and obftinate, and his mafter being once provoked to ftrike him, the hero inftantly feifed the muficians lyre, and beat his brains out with his own inftrument (15). Plutarch, from Heraclides of Pontus, mentions certain dirges as compofed by Linus; and his death gave rise to a number of fongs, in honour of his memory, being annually bewailed by a folemn cuftom. To this ceremony Homer is fuppofed to allude by the following lines in his defcription of the fhield of Achilles: To thefe a youth awakes the warbling strings, In meafur'd dance behind him move the train, Tune foft the voice, and anfwer to the strain. POPE (16), Hence the mournful fong or lamentation obtained the names of Linos and Aelinos. Orpheus is, next to Linus, the most ancient and venerable name among the poets and musicians of Greece. He was an adventurer in the expedition of the Argonauts (17), and not only excited them to row, by the found of his lyre, but vanquished and put to filence the Sirens by the fuperiority of his strains.(18). (13) Burney, 1. 357. (15) Burney, I. 319. (17) Near 1300 years before Chrift. b 3 (14) M. de Querlon, The |