Note 3 — Chapter I · — WHO THE PIPER WAS.

This praise of the Irish pipes is by no means exaggerated. The last performer of any note, in Fermoy, was an apothecary, named O'Donnell, who certainly could make them discourse "most eloquent music." He died about fifteen years ago. It was almost impossible to listen with dry eyes and unmoved heart to the exquisite manner in which he played the Irish melodies--the real ones, I mean--not those which Tom Moore and Sir John Stevenson had "adopted" (and emasculated) for polite and fashionable piano-forte players and singers. There is now in New York a gentleman, named Charles Ferguson, whose performance on the Irish pipes may be said to equal--it could not surpass--that of O'Donnell.