n--these three great lyrists were each deeply influenced by
that peculiar acquaintance with Scottish feeling which, brilliantly
illustrated by their genius, has deeply impressed their names on the
national heart.

Lady Nairn, highly born and educated, delighted to sympathise with the
people. If among these she found the forthgivings of human nature less
sophisticated, the principles upon which she proceeded impelled her to
write for the humbler classes of society, and the result has been that
she has written for all. In every class human nature is essentially the
same; and though hearts may have wandered far from the primitive truths
which belong to the life and character of mankind in common, they may
yet be brought back by that which tells winningly upon them--by that
which awakens native feeling and early associations. There is much of
this kind of efficiency in song, when song is what it ought to be. If,
when the true standard is adhered to by those who exercise their powers
in producing it, and who have been born and bred in circumstances of
life so different, it can establish a unity of sentiment--it must
necessarily effect, in a greater or less degree, the same thing among
those who learn and sing the lays which they produce. And, indeed, it
would seem a truth that, by the congenial influences of song, the hearts
of a nation are more united--more willing to be subdued into
acquiescence and equality, than by any other merely human
instrumentality.

If, in Scotland till of late years, writing for fortune was rather than
otherwise regarded as disreputable, writing for fame was never so
accounted. But even than for fame Lady Nairn had a higher motive. She
knew that the minstrels of ruder times had composed, and, through the
aid of the national melodies, transmitted to posterity strains ill
fitted to promote the interests of sound morality, yet that the love of
these sweet and wild airs made the people tenacious of the words to
which they were wedded. Her principal, if not her sole object, was to
disjoin these, and to supplant the impurer strains. Doubtless that
capacity of genius, which enabled her to write as she has done, might,
as an inherent stimulus, urge her to seek gratification in the exercise
of it; but, even in this case, the virtue of her main motive underwent
no diminution. She was well aware how deeply the Scottish heart imbibed
the sentiments of song, so that these became a portion of its nature, or
o