Illustrations of Scottish History; Life and Superstition from Song and Ballad

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 edition. Excerpt: ...uropean anthology. The exquisite pathos, the inimitaljle humour, the felicity, verve, and paiohiness of the lyrics themselves, together witli the celebrity of at least many of the later wiiters, and the passion with which then names are cherished hy adventurous Scots in every region of the globe, liave combined to give our national songs a fame and a popularity exceptionally great. Song is indi. sputalily tlie earliest form of poetic and, indeed, of any literature everywhere; and though tlie oldest Scotti. sh specimens now existing are of comparatively moderate antiquity, we know of some lliat were cun-ent as early as the days nf V; dlace and the Bruce. The Giule Wallace, as it has come down to us, l)ears in places the stamp of great antiquity; and When Alexander our King was dead a touching lament for the wars and troubles that followed the death of Alexander III. in 1286, preserved in Wintons Cronykil was undoubtedly in its earliest form contemporaneous with the events w hich it deplores. The form in which we have it, as might be expected of a composition handed on by recitation from age to age, when printing was not as yet, and the professional antiquary not even a conception, is that of the age of the chronicler himself. The genuineness of the fragment quoted by Fabyan of a song represented as having been composed by the maidens of Scotland, in which they naturally, but somewhat maliciously, called on their sisters of England to mourn for their lemans lost at Bannock-burn, is attested by the St. Albans Chronicle, and its refrain of heuealowe with rumbylowe is found in James the Firsts Peblis to the Play: - Hope, Ciilye, and Cardronow, Gathered ovit thick-fold, With hey and how, runibeloav, The young folks were full bold. Fabyan has..