A German scholar has written a work, to prove that the pentatonic scale was brought over by the Celts from Asia, and that it was preserved longer in Scotland than elsewhere, on account of the isolated position of that country.[268] The Phoenicians are supposed to have invented the kinnor, trigonon, and several other of the most remarkable instruments of antiquity.  Their skill as harpists, and their love of music, are indicated by the prophetic denunciation in Ezechiel, where the ceasing of songs and the sound of the harp are threatened as a calamity they were likely specially to feel.

We give at least one evidence that the Irish monks practised the choral performance of rhythmical hymns.  Colgan supplies the proof, which we select from one of the Latin hymns of St. Columba:—­

    “Protegat nos altissimus,
    De suis sanctis sedibus,
    Dum ibi hymnos canimus,
    Decem statutis vicibus.”

Mr. O’Curry gives the names of all the ancient Irish musical instruments as follows:—­Cruit, a harp; Timpan, a drum, or tambourine; Corn, a trumpet; Stoc, a clarion; Pipai, the pipes; Fidil, the fiddle.  He adds:  “All those are mentioned in an ancient poem in the Book of Leinster, a MS. of about the year 1150, now in the Library of Trinity College.  The first four are found in various old tales and descriptions of battles.”

We shall find how powerful was the influence of Irish music on the Irish race at a later period of our history, when the subject of political ballads will be mentioned.

The dress of the rich and the poor probably varied as much in the century of which we write as at the present day.  We have fortunately remains of almost every description of texture in which the Irish Celt was clad; so that, as Sir W. Wilde has well observed, we are not left to conjecture, or forced to draw analogies from the habits of half-civilized man in other countries at the present day.

In the year 1821 the body of a male adult was found in a bog on the lands of Gallagh, near Castleblakeney, county Galway, clad in its antique garb of deerskin.  A few fragments of the dress are preserved, and may be seen in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy.  Portions of the seams still remain, and are creditable specimens of early needlework.  The material employed in sewing was fine gut of three strands, and the regularity and closeness of the stitching cannot fail to excite admiration.  It is another of the many proofs that, even in the earliest ages, the Celt was gifted with more than ordinary skill in the execution of whatever works he took in hand.  After all, the skin of animals is one of the most costly and appreciated adornments of the human race, even at the present day; and our ancestors differ less from us in the kind of clothes they wore, than in the refinements by which they are fashioned to modern use.  It is stated in the old bardic tale of the Tain bo Chuailgne, that