Page images
PDF
EPUB

a chapter on the manners of the Borderers, may be cited as evidence of the pleasure which they took in the chanting of such ballads. It has been observed further that the mass of lyrical poetry which arose from the influence of the Reformation is probably greater than that of any former period in the history of Scotland; while the Jacobite struggle has been made illustrious by the innumerable ballads and songs in which its memory is preserved. The account of the legendary ballads has proved, moreover, that Scottish poetry possesses a large number of lyrics illustrating popular superstitions, and that some of these lyrics must have been traditionally preserved for several hundred years. The popularity of these ballads cannot have been more extensive at a recent date, when printed literature was already beginning to be widely circulated, than it was in times when the greater part of the information, now got from book and newspaper and magazine, was conveyed through the pulpit, the fireside tale, and the ballad or song. is, therefore, interesting to collect some of the latest testimonies we possess to the extent of the popularity which the ballads enjoyed down to the period when they were first extensively committed to the press by our modern collectors.

It

No man was in a better position to bear such testimony than Sir Walter Scott, and a passage from the introduction to the "Border Minstrelsy" is peculiarly suitable to our purpose:-"The causes of the preservation of these songs have either entirely ceased, or are gradually decaying. Whether they were originally the composition of minstrels professing the joint arts of poetry

and music, or whether they were the occasional effusions of some self-taught bard, is a question into which I do not mean here to inquire. But it is certain that, till a very late period, the pipers, of whom there was one attached to each Border town of note, and whose office was often hereditary, were the great depositaries of oral, and particularly of poetical, tradition. About spring time, and after harvest, it was the custom of these musicians to make a progress through a particular district of the country. The music and the tale repaid their lodging, and they were usually gratified with a donation of seedcorn. This order of minstrels is alluded to in the comic song of Maggie Lauder, who thus addresses a piper:

[ocr errors]

'Live ye upo' the Border?'

By means of these men, much traditional poetry was preserved, which would otherwise have perished. Other itinerants, not professed musicians, found their welcome to their night's quarters readily ensured by their knowledge in legendary lore . The shepherds also, and aged persons, in the recesses of the Border mountains, frequently remember and repeat the warlike songs of their fathers. This is more especially the case in what are called the South Highlands, where, in many instances, the same families have occupied the same possessions for centuries.

"It is chiefly from this latter source that the editor has drawn his materials, most of which were collected many years ago, during his early youth." 1

With reference to the class of persons to whom Scott

1 "Border Minstrelsy,” vol. i. pp. 224-226.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

alludes as the principal source of his materials, no one was in a better position to speak than the Ettrick Shepherd. Speaking of his native district, he says:Many are not aware of the manners of this country; till this present age, the poor illiterate people in these glens knew of no other entertainment in the long winter nights than repeating and listening to the feats of their ancestors, recorded in songs which I believe to be handed down from father to son for many generations, although, no doubt, had a copy been taken at the end of every fifty years, there must have been some difference occasioned by the gradual change of language." Interesting allusions to the fondness of the Scottish people for ballads and songs will be found scattered throughout the introduction to Allan Cunningham's "Songs of Scotland," deepening our regret that one who possessed such splendid opportunities for collecting the popular lyrical poetry of his country, should rather have bewildered other inquirers by substituting for the genuine remains of ancient song modern revisions by himself.

"1

The observations just quoted from Scott and from Hogg imply that even in their time, and in the most poetical districts of Scotland, the knowledge of the ballads had already begun to fade from the memory of the people, in consequence of the spread of book literature. Even yet, indeed, few Scotchmen who have had their tastes for popular poetry awakened can have failed to catch, from mother, or nurse, or peasant friend, some snatches at least of ballad verse which were evidently preserved by mere tradition; but

1 "Border Minstrelsy," vol. i. p. 315.

most of the living generation find it difficult to realize how the ballads have been preserved at all without writing. Still, the recitation and chanting of these ballads have done their work in former times; while it would be wrong to suppose that their withdrawal from the perilous safe-keeping of mere recollection and their preservation in books have destroyed their influence. We shall presently see that their influence has thus been only extended and intensified.

The preceding remarks have been confined to the ballads it is necessary to add a few remarks of a similar purport in reference to the songs. Passing over those lyrics, which may be called songs rather than ballads, connected with the War of Independence, we come, in the earlier half of the fifteenth century, on the first of the Jameses,—the first of the royal poets of Scotland. Besides abundant evidence of his celebrity as a musician having extended even to the continent of Europe, there is the testimony of Joannes Major, the historian, who was nearly contemporaneous with James, to the fact that songs of his composition in the vernacular language were held in high esteem by his people. In the humorous poem of Peblis to the Play, attributed to James by Major, there are two songs referred to as if they were popular at the time: There fure ane Man to the Holt, and There sall be Mirth at our Meeting yet.

From this period till more than a century afterwards there have been preserved several detailed allusions to Scottish songs by their titles. These allusions are of very great value in studying the history of Scottish

lyrical poetry: to us they are of interest mainly as showing that the songs of Scotland were numerous and popular even in those early times. The first of these allusions occurs in an amusing poem, called Cockleby's Sow, which must have been written about the period of James I. Gavin Douglas's Prologues to his translation of the Æneid, which belongs to the beginning of the sixteenth century, contain also the title of some songs popular in his time. But the most valuable list of the kind is to be found in The Complaint of Scotland—a work published in 1549, which is remarkable as the first original composition printed in Scottish prose. These allusions it is useless to quote at length, because they are little more than mere catalogues of the titles of songs, and in themselves are not more interesting than other catalogues, while they are unintelligible to the general reader without an antiquarian commentary. It is only necessary to add that the Gude and Godlie Ballads, referred to in a previous chapter, throw further light on the number, nature, and popularity of the secular songs which they parody. As illustrating the same period ought to be mentioned the two great collections made by Sir Richard Maitland and George Bannatyne, which have been frequently referred to in previous chapters as the Maitland MS. and the Bannatyne MS. respectively; but these are of more value for the general history of Scottish poetry than in the special connection of Scottish songs.

During the seventeenth century the life of the Scottish people was absorbed in a struggle which withdrew intellectual activity from everything else, and blighted

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »