The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III | Page 3

his greatest rewards, if no poet had sung his fame. Then, in their
banquets, the Greeks amused themselves in stringing together pretty
verses, and joined in merry and jovial drinking-songs. If there
happened to be a marriage, the young people assembled round the
house, and late in the evening and early in the morning sang the praises
of bride and bridegroom, prayed for blessings on the couple, and
sometimes discussed the comparative blessedness of single and married
life. Or if a notable person happened to die, his dirge was sung, and the
poet composed an encomium on him, full of wise reflections on destiny,
and the fate that awaits all. There was, in fact, no public occasion
which the Greeks did not beautify with song.
It is entirely different with us. Our minister now performs the function
of the Greek poet at marriages and funerals. Our funeral sermons and
newspaper paragraphs have taken the place of the Greek encomiums.
Our fiddles or piano do duty instead of the Greek dithyrambs,
hyporchems, and other dancing songs. Our warriors are either left
unsung, or celebrated in verse that reads much better than it sings. The
members of the "Benevolent Pugilistic Association" do not stand so
high in the British opinion as the wrestlers of old stood in the Greek;
and our jockeys have fallen frightfully from the grand position which
the Greek racers occupied in the plains of Olympia. Very few in these
days would think the champion of England, or the winner of the Derby,
worth a noble ode full of old traditions and exalted religious aspirations.
Through various causes, song has thus come to be very circumscribed
in its limits, and to perform duty within a comparatively small sphere in
modern life.
Indeed, song in these days does exactly what the Greeks rarely

attempted: it concerns itself with private life, and especially with that
most characteristic feature of modern private life--love. Love is,
consequently, the main topic of Scottish song. It is a theme of which
neither the song-writer nor the song-singer ever wearies. It is the one
great passion with which the universal modern mind sympathises, and
from the expressions of which it quaffs inexhaustible delight. This
holds true even of the cynical people who profess a distaste for love
and lovers. For love has for them its comic side,--it appears to them
exquisitely humorous in the human weakness it causes and brings to
light; and if they do not enjoy the song in its praise, they seldom fail to
laugh heartily at the description of the plights into which it leads its
devotees.
Perhaps no country contains a richer collection of love-songs than
Scotland. We have a song for every phase of the motley-faced
passion,--from its ludicrous aspect to its highest and most rapturous
form. Every pulsation of the heart, as moved by love, has had its poetic
expression; and we have lovers pouring out the depths of their souls to
all kinds of maids, and in all kinds of situations. And maids are
represented as bodying forth their feelings, also, under the sway of love.
Many of these feminine lyrics are written by women themselves. Some
of them exult in the full return which their love meets; but for the most
part, it is a keen sorrow that forces women to poetic composition. They
thus contribute our most pathetic songs--wails sometimes over blasted
hopes and blighted love, as in "Waly, Waly;" or over the death of a
deeply-loved one, as in Miss Blamire's "Waefu' Heart;" or over the loss
of the brave who have fallen in battle, as in Miss Jane Elliot's "Flowers
of the Forest."
Peculiarly characteristic of Scotland are the songs that describe the
development of love, after the lovers have been married. Here the
comical phase is most predominant. For the most part, the Scottish
songster delights in describing the quarrels between the goodman and
the goodwife--the goodwife in the early poems invariably succeeding in
making John yield to her. Sometimes, however, there is a deeper and
purer current of feeling, to which Burns especially has given expression.
How intensely beautiful is the affection in "John Anderson, my Jo!"

And we have in "Are ye sure the news is true?" the whole character of a
very loving wife brought out by a simple incident in her life,--the
expected return of her husband. Some of these songs also have been
written by poetesses, such as Lady Nairn's exquisite "Land of the Leal;"
and really there is such delicacy, such minute accuracy in the portrayal
of a woman's feelings in "Are ye sure the news is true?" that one cannot
help thinking it must have been written by Jean Adams, or some
woman, rather than by Mickle:--
"His very foot has music in 't,
As he comes up the