m native to both; but Ireland has always laboured under the
disadvantage of being far less homogeneous than Scotland, and certainly,
before the time of Moore at least, her native songs did not belong to
all classes as in the sister country. And Scotland has always through
all ages (previous to the present age) preferred her own songs to every
other. During the eighteenth century, when Edinburgh was almost more
completely the centre of society than ever before, the old tunes were
sung by ladies as much as by maid-servants, and the delicate old spinets
performed a soft accompaniment to ballads of the "Ewebuchting" and of
the "Corn Rigs," and prolonged the pathetic notes of "Waly, waly" and
the trembling wail of the "Flowers of the Forest" in the finest houses
as in the humblest. Music, more properly so called, the art which has
gradually made its way from being a modest handmaiden of poetry to full
rivalship, if not a half-implied superiority, was already a scientific
pursuit in England; and though the Italian opera aroused a violent
opposition, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee called forth the gibes of the
wits, there existed a vigorous English school of learned musicians, and
Handel and Haydn found an audience not incapable of appreciating their
best works. But while this development went on in London, Scotland still
sang her ancient simple melodies, and contemned everything else with
that audacious superiority which is born of ignorance. One might almost
imagine that this was the penalty of a national inheritance so ample and
so sweet, and that the comparative absence of traditionary music in
England opened the heart of the country to strains more ambitious and
classical. However it came about, there is no denying that so it was. If
there was any Scottish composer at all, his productions were only
imitations or modifications of the old airs. Music continued to be
represented by the songs of immemorial attraction, the woodnotes wild of
nameless minstrels, pure utterance of the soil. Perhaps the absence of
music, except in the kindred shape of psalm tunes, which was but another
form of popular song, in the Church, was one great prevailing cause of
the national insensibility to all more lavish and elaborate strains. But
this peculiarity and insensibility had at least one advantage--they kept
in constant cultivation a distinct branch of national literature, and
one that is always attractive and delightful. I do not think it is t