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Untitled Article
seem to have the same effect . Scotsmen , by hearing the popular songs of their native land repeated from the first dawn of intellect onwards through life—by hearing them sung by the lips most loved on earth—by entwining them gradually with all a man ' s heart loves the best , come at length to regard them
in something like the light of unwritten laws—laws not enacted by God or man—but laws so embued with truth , love , and happiness , so hallowed by remembranee—by patriotismby time—b y all , in short , that can make them venerable and dear , as to carry with them a vague and uncertain but powerful authority . And this is the reason why Robert Burns is
sainted b y and enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen—why the man -whom the flimsy and heartless and headless aristocracy made a " gauger , " is greater than kings and conquerors—mi g htier than priests and peers . Many a glorious old song and ballad did Scotland possess before his day—many a lilt sung in days of old by inspired lips , and carried down tlie stream of time , written not on the work of men ' s hands , but on
human hearts ; but , lie , rising like the bright and blessed morning star , came forth of the peasant ' s cot , a true and clearsouled man ; and relying on the burning soul of love and goodness , which Omnipotence had placed within him , and on tlie intense sympathy which he bore to all created things , more especially the poor and despised of his native land , took the old and hallowed music which had been sung on the banks
and braes , amid the hills and glens , and by the lochs and streams of his land for centuries , and to that music he gave words such as poet never before uttered—words tending not to the amusement merely of the great and noble , but to the expression of the noblest sentiments which mortal pen ever wrote •—which mortal soul ever conceived ; and these sentiments he
addressed to those who needed instruction—to the poor and humble ! Who dares to say that Burns was not a teacher—a man sent—a prophet according to the wants of his time ? Who dares to say that every sons * that ever poet sung in truth and nature , is not a teacher' ? Let the scoiner go to the lowly cottage hamlets of this land of ours , where he whose hand traces these lines was nursed—for hamlets , and lowly and
happy ones too , are even yet , despite the a ^ e ' s inaiiiinoii-womhip , and despite a stronger force—the necessity of a change in our social relations—scattered through the length and breadth o { the land—and let him listen there to the maiden , sinking iu her loveliness , and look how her hearers , from the
hoaryheaded man , whose foot is sinking into the grave , to the young child , whose senses are entranced by the sound even before it can comprehend the sense—sit enraptured by the simple melody , be it " Duncan Grey , " " Th < j Land o ' the Leal /* " The Flowers of the Forest , " or " Mary in Heaven , " or any other Qf the thousand » 8 exquisitely beautiful songs of which my
Untitled Article
204 The Songs of Scotland .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 204, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/12/
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