s and horns.

It was Moore's splendid hymn that gave it vogue in England and Ireland,
and sent it across the sea to find itself in the house of its friends
with the psalmody of Billings and Swan. Moore was the man of all men to
take a fancy to it and make language to its string-and-trumpet concert.
He was a musician himself, and equally able to adapt a tune and to
create one. As a festival performance, replete with patriotic noise, let
Avison's old "Sound the Timbrel" live.

Charles Avison was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1710. He studied in Italy,
wrote works on music, and composed sonatas and concertos for stringed
orchestras. For many years he was organist of St. Nicholas' Kirk in his
native town.

The tune to "Sound the Loud Timbrel" is a chorus from one of his longer
compositions. He died in 1770.

"THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS."

This is the only one of Moore's patriotic "Irish Melodies" that lives
wherever sweet tones are loved and poetic feeling finds answering
hearts. The exquisite sadness of its music and its text is strangely
captivating, and its untold story beckons from its lines.

Tara was the ancient home of the Irish kings. King Dermid, who had
apostatized from the faith of St. Patrick and his followers, in A.D.,
554, violated the Christian right of sanctuary by taking an escaped
prisoner from the altar of refuge in Temple Ruadan (Tipperary) and
putting him to death. The patron priest and his clergy marched to Tara
and solemnly pronounced a curse upon the King. Not long afterwards
Dermid was assassinated, and superstition shunned the place "as a castle
under ban." The last human resident of "Tara's Hall" was the King's
bard, who lingered there, forsaken and ostracized, till he starved to
death. Years later one daring visitor found his skeleton and his broken
harp.

Moore utilized this story of tragic pathos as a figure in his song for
"fallen Erin" lamenting her lost royalty--under a curse that had lasted
thirteen hundred years.

The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled.

So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er,
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that pulse no more.

No one can read the words without "thinking" the tune. It is supposed
that Moore composed them both.

THE MARSEILLAISE HYMN.

Ye sons of France, a