ADVERTISEMENT.

IN presenting the Third Number of this Work to the Public, POWER begs leave to offer his acknowledgments for the very liberal patronage with which it has been honoured; and to express a hope that the unabated zeal of those who have hitherto so admirably conducted it, will enable him to continue it through many future Numbers with equal spirit, variety, and taste. The stock of popular Melodies is far from being exhausted ; and there is still in reserve an abundante of beautiful Airs, which call upon Mr. Moore, in the language he so well understands, to save them from the oblivion to which they are hastening.

POWER respectfully trusts he will not be thought presumptuous in saying, that he feels proud, as an Irishman, in even the very subordinate share which he can claim, in promoting a Work so creditable to the talents of the Country-a Work, which,

from the spirit of nationality it breathes, will do more, he is convinced, towards liberalizing the feelings of society, and producing that brotherhood of sentiment which it is so much our interest to cherish, than could ever be effected by the arguments of wise, but uninteresting, politicians.

LETTER

ΤΟ

THE MARCHIONESS DOWAGER OF DONEGAL.

WHILE the Publisher of these Melodies very properly inscribes them to the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland in general, I have much pleasure in selecting one from that number to whom my share of the Work is particularly dedicated. Though your Ladyship has been so long absent from Ireland, I know that you remember it well and warmly-that you have not allowed the charm of English society, like the taste of the lotus, to produce oblivion of your country, but that even the humble tribute which I offer derives its chief claim upon your interest from the appeal which it makes to your patriotism. Indeed, absence, however fatal to some affections of the heart, rather strengthens our love for the land where we were born; and

Ireland is the country, of all others, which an exile must remember with enthusiasm. Those few darker and less amiable traits, with which bigotry and misrule have stained her character, and which are too apt to disgust us upon a nearer intercourse, become softened at a distance, or altogether invisible; and nothing is remembered but her virtues and her misfortunes-the zeal with which she has always loved liberty, and the barbarous policy which has always withheld it from her—the ease with which her generous spirit might be conciliated, and the cruel ingenuity which has been exerted to "wring her into undutifulness."*

It has often been remarked, and oftener felt, that our music is the truest of all comments upon our history. The tone of defiance, succeeded by the languor of despondency—a burst of turbulence dying away into softness-the sorrows of one moment lost in the levity of the next-and all that romantic mixture of mirth and sadness, which is naturally produced by the efforts of a lively

A phrase which occurs in a letter from the Earl of Desmond to the Earl of Ormond, in Elizabeth's time.-Scrinia Sacra, as quoted by Curry.