By the Kouene, fhe united all founds into one, and made concord between the fun, moon and stars. She had a Seb of fifty strings, whose found was fo affecting, it could not be borne; therefore the reduced them to twenty-five. *

Here are so many old Irish words fignifying mufick, melody, harp, &c. one would be inclined to think, that the Chinese had borrowed thefe terms from the Scythians. The antient Irifh had four names for the Harp, and probably each was of a different construction, viz. 1. Clar-feh or Clarfeach. 2. Cionar, or Cionthar. 3. Crut or Cruit. 4. Crabtine Cruit or Creamtine Cruit. Clar, fignifies a trough, a desk, a table, a board; and feh, fighe and feach, is harmony, melody; Arab. fhook, harmonious; fo that Clarfeach implies the melodious tables. Cionar is evidently the Hebrew and Chaldee Cinura undè va Crut is alfo the Chalκινύρας deep Kithris, undè Cithara, xıdapa & guittara; but the Creamhtine Crut or Cream-Crutin, by the name, imports the harp used at potations or caroufals; whence Creamh-nual a noify drunken company, which exactly correfponds with the defcription given by Midras Rabba in Echo, of the Chaldee Krut or Krutin; it is, fays he, a profane mufical instrument used in drinking houses and mufic houses.

כינורא

Lomna is a cord or ftring of a harp, whence Lomnoir, vulgarly, a Harper. Tead, is alfo a cord or ftring, and tead miotalte, the ftring of a harp;

* Chinese Hiftory by Le Roux des Hautes-Royes, Royal Profeffor.

because

because made of wire, it is literally the Chaldee metallicum netum, or wire; hence Teadidhe a harper, and Teadh-loin a harp; that is, the merry making ftringed inftrument, from loine, merriment, cheerfulness; loin-dubh, a black-bird, i. e. the black harmonist; loineach, a chorus, a highland catch, (Shawe). Arab lan placidus. The Irish Teadhloin, pronounced Tealoin or Telin, is certainly the etymon of the Welsh Teylin, a harp; a word I can find no derivation of, in that language; and I think, proves from whence they borrowed both the inftrument, and its name.

The Irish diftinguifh very plainly between the ftrings of the harp and thofe of the fiddle; the last they name feith or feidh,* that is a finew; whence feidhlin, a fiddle; and perhaps the English fiddle, phiol, violin. Feith is litterally the Phœnician and Chaldean phetha, i. e. nervus; Perfic phei. Feith in Irish is alfo chord, a rope, and there is every reason to think the Eastern people made their first chords of finews, as we find in the Chaldee, gid fignifies a finew, and gidlim & gidal, a rope : iather, a finew and a rope: pheth a finew, and phethil a a rope, &c.

Mr. Barrington in the Archæol. VOL. III. and Mr. Evans in his differt. de Bardis, think that the Crwdd or Crwd was peculiar to the Welsh nation. I believe the only honour they can have, is the invention of playing on this inftrument with the bow: yet this feems to have been known to the Irish alfo,

*Hence the Latin fides, fidium; the ftrings of a musical in ftrument.

for

for in our common Lexicons we find Cruit, a harp, T a fiddle, a crowder. Montfaucon in his fixth Vol. collects upwards of twenty Latin and Greek names for harp and lyre, and obferves that many of them fignified the fame inftrument.

"The fecond kind of British bards," fays Selden, are those that play on the harp or crowd: their mufick for the most part came out of Ireland with Gruffith ap Conan, prince of North Wales, about king Stephen's time. The Britons affected the mind, compofing Dorick; which is fhewed in that part of an old author (Marc. Heracleft.) affirming that ἡμερώσεως χάριν, i. e. to make them gentle natured, the western people of the world conftituted the ufe of mufick in their affemblies, though the Irifh, from whence they learned, were wholly for the fprightly Phrygian.” *

In an antient MSS. in my peffeffion, called the Romance of Cearbhall, is this paffage, " agus ro boi Cearbhall an tan fin ag orphideadh d' Aofar cumtha idir anda codhlai: i. e. and at that time Cearball was playing on his harp to the Almighty Aofar (God) after his first fleep." N. B. this pasfage occurred to me fince the explanation of the Etrufcan Aefar in my laft number.

The Crown here reprefented, is copied from an engraving given by the tranflator of Keating in the

* Remarks on Drayton's Polyolbion, p. 1759.

VOL. IV, No. XIII.

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frontif

frontispiece to his hiftory of Ireland; there nas been (fays the tranflator in the preface) a difpute among learned men, whether the antient kings of Ireland, of the Milefian race, wore crowns of gold, after the manner of other nations. We are informed by Hect. Boetius, in his 2d and 10th books, that the kings of Scotland, from the time of Fergus to the reign of Achaius, used a plain crown of gold, militaris valli forma, in the form of military trench; and it is more than probable, that in this practice, they followed the Irish monarchs from whom they derived their defcent and customs. And this conjecture, is still rendered more reasonable by a golden cap, (or crown) supposed to be a provincial crown, that was found in the year 1692, in the county of Tipperary, at a place called Barn-an-Eli, by the Irish, and by the English, the Devils bit. It was difcovered about ten feet under ground, by fome workmen that were cutting turf for firing. This crown weighs about five ounces; the border and the head is raised in chased work, in the form here represented, and it feems to bear fome refemblance to the close crown of the eastern Empire, which was compofed of the helmet, together with a diadem, as the learned Selden obferves in his titles of honour, chap. viii. page 1. Some of the antiquaries of Ireland, have imagined that this was the crown worn by fome provincial king under Brien Boiromh: others are inclined to believe, it belonged to the Irish monarchs, before the planting of Christianity in this kingdom, and they give this reafon, because it is not adorned with a crofs, which was the common enfign of chriftian princes. However, it is a valuable piece

piece of antiquity, and would unavoidably have been melted down, had it not been preserved by Joseph Comerford Efq; a curious gentleman, defcended from a younger brother of Comerford, of the county of Stafford, who attended king John in his expedition into Ireland.

Another close crown of gold fimilar to this, I am informed, was found fome years ago, on the estate of Mr. Stafford. A cow plunging in a bog, trod on the crown, and piercing it with her hoof, carried the crown on her leg into the gentleman's farm yard. The balls of this crown were not, chafed, but raised almost globular, like thofe reprefented on our Viscounts Coronet's. Mr. Selden remarks, "that testimonies are not clear enough in credit, that tell us Dunvallo Mulmutius, king of the old Britons, and the old kings of Scotland, even from Fergus the firft, wore golden crowns; but it feems from old British monies, that the diadem or fillet perhaps of pearl, alfo was worn by king Cunobelin."

OFlaherty in Ogygia, page 46; fays, the antient kings of Ireland, from whom Fergus defcended, wore golden crowns; that the Irish name of fuch crown was Aifion, and afterwards Coroin; and he particularly mentions a gold crown of king Catir, who reigned A. D. 174. Now Aifion in Etrufcan, is the name of the golden crown placed on the heads of the dead princes. Corona aurea nobiliores defuncti ornabantur, ornabantur, (Gori.) D afun in Hebrew is death, mors, exitium; & aifion, in Irish, is also a relick; as, aifiona na naomh, holy relicks; aifline, a fhroud. I believe O'Flaherty has miftaken the diadem of the dead for that of the living prince,

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