A victor in the Olympic
games would have lost one of 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 t