The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III | Page 5

few pages. One sings of his coggie, as if he were in the custom of gulping his whisky all alone; many describe the boisterous carousals in which they made fools of themselves; not a few extol the power and properties of whisky, and incite to Bacchanalian pleasures; and we have several good songs suitable for singing at the close of an evening pleasantly spent, but almost none which express the feelings that naturally well-up when one sees his friends around him, becomes exhilarated through pleasant social intercourse, and finds the path of life smoothed and sweetened by the aid of his brothers.
The reason of this peculiar circumstance is not far to seek. It lies in the distinctive character of the two great classes into which the Scotch have been divided since the Reformation, called, at the early period of Scottish song, the Covenanters and the Cavaliers. The one party bowed before religion, most scrupulously abstained from all worldly pleasures, and regarded and denounced as sin, or something akin to it, every approach to levity or frivolity. The other party was a wild rebound from this. Sanctimoniousness was hateful in their eye; and not being able to find a medium, they abjured religion, and rushed into the pleasures of this life with headlong zest. The poets, in accordance with their joy-loving natures, allied themselves to the latter class. There was thus in Scotland a deep, dark gulf between the religious and the poetical or beautiful, which has not yet been completely bridged over. The consequence is, that the elder Scottish songs, of all songs, contain the fewest references to the Divine Being. The name of God is never mentioned unless in the caricatures of the Covenanters; and a foreigner, taking up a book of Scottish songs written since the Reformation, and judging of the religion of the Scotch from them alone, would be prone to suppose that, if Scotland had any religion at all, it consisted in using the name of the devil occasionally with respect or with dread. The Cavaliers, in their most energetic moods, swore by him and by no other; while the Covenanters had no songs at all, scarcely any poetry of any kind, and doubtless would have regarded as impious the tracing of any but the most spiritual pleasures to God. The words, for instance, which Allan Cunningham puts into the mouth of a Covenanter, "I hae sworn by my God, my Jeanie" (p. 17 of this volume), would still be regarded by many people as profane.
The case was the very opposite with the Greeks. Every joy, every sorrow, was traced to the gods. They almost never opened their lips without an allusion to their divinities. They sang their praises in their processions and in all their public ceremonials. Wine was a gift from a kind and beneficent god, to cheer their hearts and soothe the sorrows of life. And they delighted in invoking his presence, in celebrating his adventures, and in using moderately and piously the blessings which he bestowed on them. Then, again, when love seized them, it was a god that had taken possession of their minds. They at once recognised a superior power, and they worshipped him in song with heart and soul. In fact, whatever be the subject of song, the gods are recognised as the rulers of the destinies of men, and the causes of all their joys and sorrows. We cannot expect such a strong infusion of the supernatural in modern lays, but still we have enough of it in German songs to form a remarkable contrast to Scotch. Take any German song-book, and you will immediately come upon a recognition of a higher power as the spring of our joys, and upon an expressed desire to use them, so as to bring us nearer one another, and to make us more honest, upright, happy, and contented men. Let this one verse, taken from a song of Schiller's, in singing which a German's heart is sure to glow, suffice:--
"Joy sparkles to us from the bowl!?Behold the juice, whose golden colour?To meekness melts the savage soul,?And gives despair a hero's valour!
"Up, brothers! Lo, we crown the cup!?Lo, the wine flashes to the brim!?Let the bright foam spring heavenward! 'Up!'?TO THE GOOD SPIRIT--this glass to HIM!
_Chorus._
"Praised by the ever-whirling ring?Of stars and tuneful seraphim--?TO THE GOOD SPIRIT--the Father-king?In heaven!--this glass to Him!"[2]
We meet with the contrast in the Reformers of the respective nations--Knox and Luther. Knox, ever stern, frowning on all the amusements of the palace and the people, and indifferent to every species of poetry; Luther, often drinking his mug of ale in a tavern, making and singing his tunes and songs, and though frequently enough tormented by devils, yet still ready to throw aside the cares of life for a