Blair Collection > Selections from the Gaelic bards

xvi INTRODUCTION.
LowlandeiSj while they admit the claim of the Highlanders, take
to themselves the little that is good in Celtic music and song, in
order that with it the}- may swell the triumphs of a land, that not
being geographically English, is considered to be Scotch."
When such utter ignorance, and such absurd mis-statements, are
found in a book which, both from its title and its subject, ought
to show better things — when we know, moreover, that not merely
strangers, but the Scottish people themselves — many even of the
Highlanders, and almost all the Lowlanders are quite unaware of
the immense mass of popular poetry belonging to their country,
which is treasured in the Gaelic Language, and do not frequently
so much as know the names of poets whose admirable works should
do so much to raise the lyric glory of Caledonia, it is surely time
for those who, happening to have been more favourably circum-
stanced, are on this point better instructed, to endeavour to show
their countrymen how much they have been neglecting — how
unfair they have been to the Highlands and their inhabitants,
when they believe on the worst, or on no authority at all, that the
lyric genius, which has made Scotland so famous, has been
bounded by an imaginary geographical line, and that the descend-
ants of the people who have given the northern half of the British
Isle all the names by which it ever has been known, have used a
language always unblest by the spoken music of sentiment, and
have done nothing to add to the glory of their land, except what
was reaped on the fields of battle by their strong arms and their
hardy valour. This shows the folly into which people will stray,
who take upon themselves to dictate with regard to things they
do not even endeavour to understand. Of the Lowland Scottish
Language, and its claims to be considered something different from,
and higher than the provincial dialects of the English counties, we
have nothing to say at present, neither does it come in our way
to speak of Scottish Music, or of its origin, Highland or Lowland,
Celtic, Scandinavian, or Saxon, or a union of them all; but we
make this one remark in passing, that Highland music is very
unfairly characterised when it is termed "rude and wild," mean-
ing thereby, not that it has never received any scientific culture,