The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III

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Title: The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III
The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century
Author: Various
Release Date: September 26, 2006 [EBook #19385]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN
SCOTTISH MINSTREL ***
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[Illustration:
THE
MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL;
BY
CHARLES ROGERS, LL.D.
F.S.A. SCOT.
VOL. III.

ABBOTSFORD
EDINBURGH:
ADAM & CHARLES BLACK, NORTH BRIDGE,

BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS TO THE QUEEN.]

[Illustration:
Allan Cunningham.
Lithographed for the Modern Scottish Minstrel, by Schenck &
McFarlane.]

THE
MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL;
OR,
THE SONGS OF SCOTLAND OF THE
PAST HALF
CENTURY.
WITH
Memoirs of the Poets,
AND
SKETCHES AND SPECIMENS
IN ENGLISH VERSE OF THE
MOST CELEBRATED
MODERN GAELIC BARDS.
BY
CHARLES ROGERS, LL.D.,
F.S.A. SCOT.
IN SIX VOLUMES.

VOL. III
EDINBURGH:
ADAM & CHARLES BLACK, NORTH BRIDGE,

BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS TO HER MAJESTY.

M.DCCC.LVI.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY,

PAUL'S WORK.
TO
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL
SIR JAMES EDWARD
ALEXANDER,
K.L.S., AND K.ST.J.,
A DISTINGUISHED TRAVELLER, A GALLANT OFFICER,
AND
A PATRIOTIC SCOTSMAN,
THIS THIRD VOLUME
OF
The Modern Scottish Minstrel
IS DEDICATED,
WITH SENTIMENTS OF RESPECT AND GRATITUDE,
BY
HIS VERY OBEDIENT, FAITHFUL SERVANT,
CHARLES ROGERS.
SCOTTISH AND HELLENIC MINSTRELSY:
An Essay.

BY JAMES DONALDSON, A.M.
Men who compare themselves with their nearest neighbours are almost
invariably conceited, speak boastingly of themselves, and

disrespectfully of others. But if a man extend his survey, if he mingle
largely with people whose feelings and opinions have been modified by
quite different circumstances, the result is generally beneficial. The
very act of accommodating his mind to foreign modes of thought
expands his nature; and he becomes more liberal in his sentiments,
more charitable in his construction of deeds, and more capable of
perceiving real goodness under whatever shape it may present itself. So
when a Scotsman criticises Scotch poetry viewed by itself alone, he is
apt to be carried away by his patriotism,--he sees only the delightful
side of the subject, and he ventures on assertions which flatter himself
and his country at the expense of all other nations. If, however, we
place the productions of our own country side by side with those of
another, the excellences and the deficiencies of both are seen in
stronger relief; the contrasts strike the mind, and the heart is widened
by sympathising with goodness and beauty diversely conceived and
diversely portrayed. For this reason, we shall attempt a brief
comparison of Hellenic and Scottish songs.
Before we enter on our characterisation of these, we must glance at the
materials which we have to survey. Greek lyric poetry arose about the
beginning of the eighth century before the Christian era, and continued
in full bloom down to the time when it passed into drama on the
Athenian stage. The names of the poets are universally known, and
have become, indeed, almost part of our poetic language. Every one
speaks of an Anacreon, a Sappho, and a Pindar; and the names of
Archilochus, Alcman, Alcæus, Stesichorus, Simonides, Ibycus, and
Bacchylides, if not so often used, are yet familiar to most. Few of these
lyrists belonged to Greece proper. They belonged to Greece only in the
sense in which the Greeks themselves used the word, as including all
the colonies which had gone forth from the motherland. Most of the
early Greek song-writers dwelt in Asia Minor--some were born in the
islands of the Cyclades, and some in Southern Italy; but all of them
were proud of their Greek origin, all of them were thorough Greeks in

their hearts. It is only the later bards who were born and brought up on
the Greek mainland, and most of these lived to see the day when almost
all the lyric poets took their grandest flights in the choral odes of their
dramas. These odes, however, do not fall within the province of our
comparison. The lyrical efforts both of Æschylus and Sophocles were
inwoven with the structure of their plays, the chorus in Æschylus being
generally one of the actors; and they have their modern representatives,
not in the songs of the people, but in the arias of operas. Setting these
aside, we have few genuine efforts of the Greek lyric muse belonging
to the dramatic period--the most important being several songs sung by
the Greeks at their banquets, which have fortunately been preserved.
After this era, we have no lyric poems of the Greeks worth mentioning.
The verse-writers took henceforth to