ete,
both, we think, addressed to some of her female friends, and both
remarkably sweet, touching, and beautiful.

The Scottish songs devoted to other subjects than love are few, and
almost exclusively descriptive. Our sense of the humorous gives us a
delight in queer and odd characters, in which the Greeks probably would
not have participated. Though they had an abundance of wit, and a keen
perception of the ridiculous, no songs have reached us which are
intended to please by their pure absurdity and good-natured foolishness.
Archilochus and Hipponax wrote many a jocular song; but the fun of the
thing would have been lost, had the sting which they contained been
extracted.

Nor do the Greeks seem to have cared much for descriptive songs. They
frequently introduced their heroes into their odes, but these were ever
living, ever present to their minds; and several of the songs written on
particular occasions were probably sung when the singer had no connexion
with the events. But they lived, like boys, too much in the present, to
throw themselves back into the past. They wished to give utterance to
the feelings of the moment in their own persons, and directly; while we
are content to be mere listeners, and are often as much pleased by the
occurrences of another's life as by the sentiments of our own hearts.

We are remarkably deficient in what are called class-songs. The Greeks
had none of these, for there scarcely existed any classes but free and
slave. The people were all one--had the same interests and the same
emotions. There was far less of individuality with them than with us,
and there was still less of that feeling which divides society into
exclusive circles. A Greek turned his hand to anything that came in his
way, while division of labour has reached its utmost limit among us. We
can find, therefore, no contrast here between Greek and Scotch songs;
but we find a very marked one between Scotch and German. We have no
student-songs, very few expressive of the feelings of soldiers
(Lockhart's are almost the only), sailors, or of any other class.

Indeed, we are deficient not only in class-songs, but in social-songs.
The Scotch propensity to indulge in drink is, unfortunately, notorious;
and yet our drinking-songs of a really social nature would be comprised
in a 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 m