The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-12-30
BAGPTPF LORE.

bagpipe is a wind instrument the fixed characteristic of which has always been two or more reed pipes attached to and sounded by a chest, or bag, which has in turn been supplied either bY the lungs of the performer or by a bellows. The original instrument was presumably the simple reed, or shep- herds pipe, which was we'll known to the TrOjans, Egyptians. Greeks and Romans. But the strain of blowing these ancient pipes was so great that some genius conceived the idea of hav- ing a reserve supply of wind in bag attached to the pipes: and hence the lbagpipe. The first real instrument is fbelieved to have been a skin of a goat tor kid. with two pipes, through one 'of which the bag was inflated the lother, emitting the sound. In early times. the bagpipe was common in Great Britain and abroad. At one time there were five different kinds
 known on the Continent, some Inflated by the mouth and others by bellows;
 while in the British Isies three kinds were known-the great Highland bag lpipe, the Lowland bagpIpe of Scotland (which closely resembled the Northum- brian) and the Irish bsgpipe. In the great Highland bagpipe, which origl- nally had but one drone, a waived tube leads from the mouth to an airtlght bag, which has four other oTffiees. three large enough to contain the base of three fixed long tubes termed dron- es, and another smaller, to which Is fitted the chanter. The three are thrown on the shoulder, while the lat ter is held in the hands. Alllfour pipes are fitted with reeds, but of different kinds. The drones are tuned by means lpf sliders, or moveable joints, and this tuning or preparation for playing, which generally occupies few minutes of the piper's time before he begins the tune proper, is heard with impatience by those not accustomed to the tn- strument. Indeed. it gave rise to the saying, applied in Scotland to those who waste time over small matters. You are longer in tuning your pipes I'than in playing your tune"
 The Scottish Lowdand bagpipe, like the Northumbrian pipe. was in two forms, one consisting of smaller and tOIlGu SuiltOl OI luC AltBtltci10 instrument and the other miniature of this and having the same relation to it as the fife has to 8 German band. It's great drawback, from the point of view of the devotees of the Highland bagpipe is that it is unsuited to per- form what they consider the perfection of pipe music-the pibrach. These small pipes were, however, gentleP than the I Highland, having the same tone, but less sonorous. It was to the strains of such a bagpipe that Chaucer tells us the company of pilgrims left London, and it is the same instrument that Is alluded to in Shakespeare as the Lin- colnshire bagpipe. The Irish bagpipe Is the instrument in its most elaborate form and is supplied with wind by. 8 bellows. The drones are all Axed on one stock and have keys which arc played by the wrist of the right hand. The reeds are soft and the tones very sweet and melodfous, and there Is g harmonious bass which is very effec- Itive in the hands of good player. I The Irish instrument Is fast dying out, but there is believed to be at least one player in Glasgow, an old man, bent with years, but devoted to his pipes, who takes his stand near the top of the classic High street and to small but appreciate audience renders Scottish and Irish airs on the bagpipe of Erin.
 The bagpipe, though at one time fairly common. never obtained a firm ihold in England. It lost favor and gradually deteriorafed, until it is now practically extinct. The average ,EngIishman neigher appreciates nor
 understand it. A famous poet irrever- ently once compared Its notes to "the shriIl screech of a lame goose caught in corn," while another heretic writer lIikens its sound to horrible, noisy,
 mad Irishman," or to the cries of the
 "eternally tormented." To the Irish people it appeals more strongly; they still possess in degree the feeling of attachment to the bagpipe which Is so general among Scotsmen. There is evidence of this in the revival of pipe hands in certain Irish regiments. But 1t is undoubtedly more closely assoeiat- led with Scotland, both in the High
 lands and Lowland, than with any other country; the particular tnstr1I- 
 ment in use being the great Highland
 bagpipe, which, as already explained,
 consists of three drones, including the big drone, which was added about the beginning of last century; it is this ltype which has gradually superseded the Lowland pipe. There is no doubt
 that the bagpipe was in use in Scot land from a very early peTiodI and it Lis in Scotland that it has been brought Ito the highest degree of perfection. It's music distinctly connects it with Scot Hand, as is clear in the pibroch, the strathepeN the reel the march and other popular melodies. The are proofs that the instrument was oulti- vated in that country certainly in the
 twelfth century and of its universal popularity as early as the fifteenth cen- i tury; while in the seventeeth century nearly every town in the Highlands and Lowlands boasted of its piper
 It is not sufficiently realized that the