ugh most of them be, have a
place in German song-books to this day.

Though Scottish songs seldom refer to a Divine Being, yet they are very
far from being without their noble sentiments and inspirations. On the
contrary, they have frequently sustained the moral life of a man. "Who
dare measure in doubt," says William Thom in his "Recollections," "the
restraining influences of these very songs? To us, they were all instead
of sermons.... Poets were indeed our priests. But for those, the last
relict of our moral existence would have surely passed away!"

Yet there is a marked contrast between the very aims of Scottish and
Greek song-writers. The Scottish wish merely to please, and consequently
never concern themselves with any of the deeper subjects of this life or
the life to come. There is seldom an allusion to death, or to any of the
great realities that sternly meet the gaze of a contemplative man. There
may be a few exceptions in the case of pious song-writers, like Lady
Nairn; but even such poets are shy of making songs the vehicle of what
is serious or profound. The Greeks, on the other hand, regarding their
poets as inspired, expected from them the deepest wisdom, and in fact
delighted in any verse which threw light on the great mysteries of life
and death. Thus it happens that the remains of the Greek lyric poets,
especially the later, such as Simonides and Bacchylides, are principally
of a deeply moral cast. The Greeks do not seem to have had the
extravagant rage which now prevails for merely figurative language. They
sought for truth itself, and the man became a poet who clothed living
truths in the most appropriate and expressive words.

There is a remarkable contrast between the Scotch and Greeks in their
historical songs. The lyric muse sings at great epochs, because then the
deepest emotions of the human heart are roused. But since, in Greece,
the states were small, and every emotion thrilled through all the free
citizens, there was more of determined and unanimous feeling than with
us, and consequently a greater desire to see the heroic deeds of
themselves or their fellows wedded to verse. And then, too, the poet did
not live apart; he was one of the people, a soldier and a citizen as
well as others, and animated by exactly the same feelings, though with
greater rapture. This is the reason why the Greeks abounded in songs in
honour of their brave. At the time of the resistance to the Persian
invasion, t