Songs are the household literature of the Scottish people; they are
especially so as regards the rural portion of the population. Till of
late years, when collections of song have become numerous, and can be
procured at a limited price, a considerable trade was carried on by
itinerant venders of halfpenny ballads. Children who were distant from
school, learned to read on these; and the aged experienced satisfaction
in listening to words and sentiments familiar to them from boyhood. That
the Scots, a thoughtful and earnest people, should have evinced such a
deep interest in minstrelsy, is explained in the observation of Mr
Carlyle, that "serious nations--all nations that can still listen to the
mandates of Nature--have prized song and music as the highest." Deep
feeling, like powerful thought, seeks and finds relief in expression;
the wisdom of Divine benevolence has so arranged, that what brings
relief to one, generally affords peace or pleasure to another. And,
further, where there is a susceptibility, a capacity of enjoyment, there
will be efforts made in order to its gratification. The human heart
loves the things of romance, and in the exercise of its native
privilege, delights to feel. Scottish song has been written in harmony
with nature, scenery, and circumstances; and fledged in its own
melodies, which seem no less the outpouring of native sensibility, has
borne itself onward from generation to generation.
Respecting these airs or melodies, a few remarks may be offered. The
genius of our mountain land, as if prompted alike by thought and
feeling, has in these wrought a spell of matchless power--a fascination,
which, reaching the hearts both of old and young, maintains an
imperishable sway over them. One has said,--
"'Tis not alone the scenes of glen and hill,
And haunts and homes beside the murmuring rill;
Nor all the varied beauties of the year,
That so can Scotland to our hearts endear--
The merry both and melancholy strain,
Their power assert, and o'er the spirit reign;
Indebted more to nature than to art,
They reach the ear to fascinate the heart;
And waken hope that, animating, cheers,
Or bathe our being in the flow of tears."
Native, as well as foreign writers, assert that King James the First was
the inventor of a new kind of music, which they further characterise as
being sweet and plaintive. These terms certainly indicate the leading
features of Scottish music. There is something not only of wild
sweetness, but touches of pathos even in its merriest measures. Though
termed a new kind of music, however, it was not new. The king took up
the key-note of the human heart--the primitive scale, or what has been
defined the scale of nature, and produced some of those wild and
plaintive strains which we now call Scottish melodies. His poetry was
descriptive of, and adapted to the feelings, customs, and manners of his
countrymen; and he followed, doubtless, the same course in the music
which he composed. By his skill and education, he rendered his
compositions more regular and palpable, than those songs and their airs
which had been framed and sung by the sad-hearted swain on the hill, or
the love-lorn maiden in the green wood.
Not in music only, but in the words of song, some of the Scottish kings
had such a share as to stamp the art and practice of song-writing with
royal sanction. Thus encouraged, the native minstrelsy was fostered by
the whole community, receiving accessions from succeeding generations. A
people who, along with their heroic leader, possessed sufficient courage
to face, with such appalling odds, the foe at Bannockburn--who, at an
after date, fought at Flodden against both their better wit and will,
rather than gainsay their king--and who, in more recent times, protected
him whom they regarded as their rightful prince, at the risk of life and
fortune, were not likely to fail in advancing what royalty had loved,
especially when it was deemed so essential to their happiness. The
poetic spirit entered in and arose out of the heart of the people. The
song and air produced in the court, represented the sentiment of the
cottage. It is still the same. Rights and privileges have been lost,
manners and customs have changed, but song, the forthgiving of the
heart, does not on the heart quit its claim.
Within the modern period, the harp of Caledonia gives forth similar
utterances in the hands of Lady Nairn, the Ettrick Shepherd, and Robert
Tannahill. Different in station and occupations--even in motives to
composition--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
of the principles upon which the individuals acted, however
unconsciously, amid the intercourse of life. Lessons could thus be
taught, which could not, perhaps, be communicated with the same effect
by any other means. This pleasing agency of education in the school of
moral refinement Lady Nairn has exercised with genial tact and great
beauty; and, liberally as she bestowed benefactions on her fellow-kind
in many other respects, it may be said no gifts conferred could bear in
their beneficial effects a comparison to the songs which she has
written. Her strains thrilled along the chords of a common nature,
beguiling ruder thought into a more tender and generous tone, and
lifting up the lower towards the loftier feeling. If feeling constitutes
the nursery of much that is desirable in national character, it is no
less true that well assorted and confirmed nationality will always prove
the most trustworthy and lasting safeguard of freedom. It is the
combination of heart--the universal unity of sentiment--which renders a
people powerful in the preservation of right and privilege, home and
hearth; and few things of merely human origin will serve more thoroughly
to promote such unity, than the songs of a song-loving people. The
continual tendency of these is to imbue all with the same sentiment, and
to awaken, and keep awake, those sympathies which lead mankind to a
knowledge of themselves individually, and of one another in general,
thus preventing the different grades of society from diverging into
undue extremes of distinction. Nor ought the observation to be omitted,
that if a lady of high standing in society, of genius, refined taste and
feeling, and withal of singular purity of heart, could write songs that
the inhabitants of her native land could so warmly appreciate as by
their singing to render them popular, it would evince no inconsiderable
worth in that people that she could so sympathise and so identify
herself with them.
From the position and circumstances of Lady Nairn, those of the Ettrick
Shepherd were entirely different. Hogg was one of the people. To write
songs calculated to be popular, he needed only to embody forth in poetic
shape what he felt and understood from the actual experiences of life
amid the scenes and circumstances in which he had been born and bred;
his compeers, forming that class of society in which it has been thought
the nature of man wears least disguise, were his first patrons. He
required, therefore, less than Lady Nairn the exercise of that sympathy
by which we place ourselves in the circumstances of others, and know how
in these, others think and feel. His poetic effusions were homely and
graphic, both in their sprightful humour and more tender sentiment. They
were sung by the shepherd on the hill, and the maiden at the hay-field,
or when the _kye cam' hame_ at "the farmer's ingle," and in the _bien_
cottage of the _but_ and _ben_, where at eventide the rustics delighted
to meet. As experience gave him increased command over the hill harp,
his ambition to produce strains of greater beauty and refinement also
increased. By and by his minstrel numbers manifested a vigour and
perfection which rendered them the admiration of persons of higher rank,
and more competent powers of judgment.
If, with the very simple and seemingly insignificant weapon of Scottish
song, the Baroness Nairn "stooped," the Shepherd stood up "to conquer."
Both adhered to the dictates of nature, and in both cases the result was
the same; nor could the most marked inconveniences which circumstances
imposed hinder that result. A time comes when false things shew their
futility, and things depending upon truth assert their supremacy. The
difference between the authoress and the author lay in those external
circumstances of station and position which could not long, much less
always, be of avail. Their minds were directed by a power of nature to
do essentially the same thing; the difference only being that each did
it in her and his own way. We may suppose that while Lady Nairn in her
baronial hall wrote--
"Bonnie Charlie 's now awa',
Safely ower the friendly main,
Mony a heart will break in twa
Should he ne'er come back again;"
the Ettrick Shepherd seated on "a moss-gray stane," or a heather-bush,
and substituting his knee for his writing desk, might be furnishing
forth for the world's entertainment the lament, commencing--
"Far over yon hills of the heather sae green,
And down by the corrie that sings to the sea,
The bonnie young Flora sat sighing alane,
Wi' the dew on her plaid and the tear in her e'e."
Or when the lady was producing "The land o' the leal," a lay which has
reached and sunk so deeply into all hearts, the Shepherd might be
singing among the wild mountains the affecting and popular ditty, the
truth of which touched his own heart so powerfully, of "The moon was a'
waning," or saying to the skylark--
"Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea;
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place,
Oh! to abide in the desert with thee!"
Tannahill has likewise written a number of songs which have been
deservedly admired, loved, and sung. Allan Cunningham used to say, that
if he could only succeed in writing two songs which the inhabitants of
his native land would continue to sing, he would account it sufficient
fame. Tannahill has accomplished this, and much more. In temperament, as
well as circumstances, he differed widely both from Lady Nairn and the
Ettrick Shepherd. Amiable and good in all her ways, Lady Nairn's career
appears to have been lovely and alluring as the serene summer eve; the
Shepherd was rich as autumn, in the enjoyment of life itself, and all
that life could bring; but Tannahill's nature was cloudy, sensitive, and
uncertain as the April day. Lady Nairn, ambitious of doing good and
promoting happiness, dwelt, in heart at least, "among her own people,"
giving and receiving alike those charms of unbroken delight which spring
from the kindness of the kind, and fearing nothing so much as public
notoriety. Hogg loved fame, yet took no pains to secure it. Fame,
nevertheless, reached him; but when found, it was with him a possession
much resembling the child's toy. His heart to the last appeared too
deeply imbued with the unsuspicious simplicity and carelessness of the
boy to have much concern about it. On this point Tannahill was morbidly
sensitive; his was an unfortunate cast of temperament, which, deepening
more and more, surrounded him with imaginary evils, and rendered life
insupportable. Lady Nairn was too modest not to be distrustful of the
extent of her genius, and presumed only to exercise it in composing
words to favourite melodies. The genius of Tannahill was more
circumscribed, and he was consequently more timid and painstaking. Hogg,
ambitious of originality, was bold and reckless. He had the power of
assuming many distinct varieties of style, his mind, taking the tone of
the subject entered upon, as easily as the musician passes from one note
to another. In education, Tannahill had the advantage over the Shepherd,
but in nothing else. The Shepherd's occupation was much more calculated
to inspire him with the feelings, and more fitted in everything to urge
to the cultivation of poetry, than the employment at which Tannahill was
doomed to labour. The beauty and grandeur of nature, solemn and sublime,
surround the path of him who tends the flocks. Though occasionally
called upon to face the blast, and wrestle with the storm, he still
experiences a charm. But when the broad earth is green below, and the
wide bending sky blue above, the voice of nature in the sounding of
streams, the song of birds, and the bleating of sheep differ widely from
what the susceptible and poetic mind is destined to experience amidst
the clanking din of shuttles in the dingy, narrow workshop of the
handloom weaver. Here the breath of the light hill breeze cannot come;
the form is bowed down, and the cheek is pale. Life, however buoyant and
aspiring at first, necessarily ere long becomes saddened and subdued. To
poor Tannahill it became a burden--more than he could bear. Yet it was
among these circumstances that he contrived to compose those chaste and
beautiful songs which have delighted, and still continue to delight, the
hearts of so many. Though not marked with much that can be termed
strikingly original, this, instead of militating against them, may have
told in their favour. Wayward conceits, fanciful thoughts and
expressions in songs, are like the hectic hue on the cheek of the
unhealthy; it may appear to give a surpassing beauty, but it is a beauty
which forebodes decay. "Oh, are ye sleeping, Maggie?" may be regarded as
the most original of Tannahill's songs. It is more ardent in tone, and
in every respect more poetic, than his other lyrics. The imagery is not
only striking, but true to nature, though in maintaining the simple and
tender, it does more than approach the sublime. His style is uniformly
distinguished by a chaste simplicity, and well sustained power.
In these observations, we have pointed to that affinity of mind which
unites in sentiment those possessing it, in spite of worldly
distinctions. And song, too, we have found, is a prevalent and
far-pervading agency, which become the mean of binding together a
nation's population on the ground of that which is true to nature. It,
therefore, does so in a manner more congenial and pleasurable than most
other ties which bind; those of interest and necessity may be stronger,
indeed, but these ties being much more selfish, are also, in most
instances, much less harmonious. Song-writing is the highest attribute
of poetic genius. The epic poet has to do with the exercise of energies,
which produce deeds that are decided, together with the operation of
passions and feelings which are borne into excess. These are more easily
depicted than the gentler sentiments and feelings, together with the
lights and shades of national character which constitute the materials
of song. Nor will strains which set forth the actions of mankind as
operating in excess, ever be so popular as simple song. Though
communities are liable to periods of excitement, this is not their
natural condition. Songs founded upon such, may be popular while the
excitement lasts, but not much longer. Philosophers and inquiring
individuals may revert to and dwell upon them, but the generality of the
people will renounce them. Those who linger over them, will do so
through a disposition to ascertain the causes which gave them birth, and
how far these were natural in the circumstances. He who sings, feels
that the same ardour cannot be re-awakened; and the sentiments which the
poet has expressed become as things that are false and foolish.
Nearly all the poems of Burns proceed on the same principles upon which
popular song proceeds. He approved himself considerably original and
singularly interesting, by taking up and saying, in the language best
suited for the purpose, what his countrymen had either already, to one
extent or other, thought and felt, or were, at his suggestion, fully
prepared to think and feel. It is thus that song becomes the truest
history of a people; they, properly speaking, have rarely any other
historian than the poet. History, in its stateliness, does not deign to
dwell upon their habits, their customs and manners, and, therefore,
cannot unfold their usual modes of thinking and feeling; it only notices
those more anomalous emergencies when the ebullitions of high passion
and excitement prevail; and such not being the natural condition of any
people, a true representation of their real character is not given. If
song equally tends to strengthen the bonds of nationality, it is also
that from which the true cast of a land's inhabitants can be gathered.
From habits and training, together with the native shades of peculiar
character, there is in human nature great variety; so, consequently, is
there also in song, for perhaps it might be difficult to fix upon one of
these peculiarities, whether of outward manner or inward disposition,
which song has not taken up and illustrated in its own way. Every song,
of course, has an aim or leading sentiment pervading it. It either tells
a tale calculated to interest human nature and revive feeling, or sets
forth a sentiment which human nature entertains, so that it shall be
turned to better account. This involves the field which song has it in
its power to cultivate and improve. But neither the pure moralist, nor
the accomplished critic, must expect a very great deal to be done on
this field at once. The song-writer has difficulties to contend with,
both in regard to those by whom he would have his songs sung, and the
airs to which he writes them. If in the latter case he would willingly
substitute classical and sounding language for monosyllables and
contracted words, the measures which the air require will not allow him;
and should he suddenly lift up and bear high the standard of moral
refinement, those who should attend may fail to appreciate the movement,
and refuse to follow him. If he can contrive, therefore, to interest and
entertain with what is at least harmless, it is much, considering how
wide a field even one popular song occupies, and how many of an
undesirable kind it may meanwhile displace and eventually supersede. The
tide of evil communications cannot be barred back at once, and song
remedy the evil which song in its impurer state has done. Nor is the
critic, who weighs these disadvantages, likely to pronounce a very
decided judgment upon the superiority and inferiority of songs, whether
in general or individually.
Few of the different classes of society may view them in the same light,
and estimate them on the same grounds that he does. If he _thinks_, the
people _feel_; and they overturn his decisions by the songs which they
adopt and render popular. It is by no means so much the correct beauty
of the composition, as the suitableness of the sentiment, which insures
their patronage. Few of the songs of Burns are so correctly and
elegantly composed as "The lass of Ballochmyle;" yet few of his songs
have been more rarely sung.