re songs in praise
of the narrow waist, and other enormities--

"She 's backet like a peacock;
She 's breasted like a swan;
She 's jimp about the middle,
Her waist you weel may span--
Her waist you weel may span;
And she has a rolling e'e,
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I 'd lay down my head and die."

It is needless to say that we are very far from having exhausted our
subject. Few contrasts could be greater than that which exists between
Greek and Scotch songs, and perhaps mainly for this reason, that
Scotland has felt so very little of the influence of Greek literature.
German poetry had its origin in a revived study of the great Greek
classics; and such a study is the very thing required to give breadth to
our character, and to supplement its most striking deficiencies.

[1] Later writers attributed to Anacreon immoralities in Paiderastia of
which they themselves were guilty, but of which there is not the
slightest trace in him, or indeed in any of the early bards. Welcker
(Sappho von einem herrschenden Vorurtheile befreit) has successfully
defended the character of Sappho from the accusations of a later age,
and it would be easy to do the same both for Alcaeus and Anacreon.

[2] Schiller's Poems and Ballads, by Bulwer, vol. ii., p. 122. The whole
song should be read. Bulwer calls it a "Hymn to Joy," Schiller himself,
simply, "To Joy."

[3] There is a curious instance of this in the song, "The Blithesome
Bridal."--Chambers's "Scottish Songs," p. 71.

[4] Sibbald's "Chronicle of Scottish Poetry," vol. iii., p. 193.

[5] Campbell has translated this fragment, but he has not retained the
simplicity of the original.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, 1
She 's gane to dwall in heaven, 9
The lovely lass of Preston mill, 10
Gane were but the winter cauld, 12
It's hame, and it's hame, 13
The lovely lass of Inverness, 14
A wet sheet and a flowing sea, 15
The bonnie bark, 16
Thou hast sworn by thy God, my Jeanie, 17
Young Eliza,