rejudices; and vibrate in
their memories, quickening the pulses of life, knitting them to the Old
Land, and shedding a poetic glow over all the commonplaces of existence
and occupation. It is the faithful popular memory, more than anything
else, which has been the ark to save the ancient lyrics of Scotland. Not
only so, but there is reason to believe that our national lyrics have,
generally speaking, been creations of the men, and sometimes of the
women, of the people. They are the people's, by the title of origin, no
less than by the feeling of sympathy.

This, of course, is clear, as regards the great masters of the lyre who
have appeared within the period of known authorship--Ramsay, Burns,
Tannahill, Hogg, and Cunningham. The authors of the older lyrics--I mean
both compositions and tunes--are, with few exceptions, absolutely
unknown; but were there room here for discussion, it might be shewn that
all the probabilities lead up, principally, to the ancient order of
Minstrels, who from very early times were nearly as much organised and
privileged and honoured in Scotland, as ever were the troubadours in
Provence and Italy. Ellis, in the Introduction to his "Specimens of
Early English Metrical Romances," alluding to Scott's publication of
"Sir Tristrem," remarks--"He has shewn, by a reference to ancient
charters, that the Scottish minstrels of this early period enjoyed all
the privileges and distinctions possessed by the Norman trouveurs, whom
they nearly rivalled in the arts of narration, and over whom they
possessed one manifest advantage, in their familiar acquaintance with
the usual scenes of chivalry." These minstrels, like the majority of
poetic singers, were no doubt sons of the people--bold, aspiring, and
genius-lit--bursting strong from their mother earth, with all her sap
and force and fruitfulness about them. Amongst the last of the professed
minstrels was one Burn, who wonned on the Borders as late as the
commencement of the eighteenth century, and who, in his pleasant,
chirping ditty of "Leader Haughs and Yarrow," takes to himself this very
title of _Minstrel_.

"But Minstrel Burn cannot assuage
His grief while life endureth,
To see the changes of this age,
That fleeting time procureth.
For many a place stands in hard case,
Where blythe folk kenn'd nae sorrow,
With Homes that dwelt on Leader-side,
And Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow."

Of this minstrel Burn there i