Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Jacobite relics of Scotland > [First series]

Xll INTEODUCTION.
have apparently been written about that time, I have not thought
proper to admit above one-fifth, and yet I am sure the peruser
will think that there is enough of them in all conscience. It was
not on account of any inferiority in point of merit that I excluded
so many, but because, when they were all together, there was
such an endless repetition of the same sentiments, a chime on
terms and epithets, that was quite intolerable. Nor is it possible
to obviate this altogether in such a collection ; but, as they now
appear, it will not be much felt ; for they are considerably varied
and many of them highly spirited and whimsical, and altogether
extraordinary for such an age.
With regard to the music, it is requisite for me to state, that
though I am perhaps better acquainted with the Lowland me-
lodies of Scotland, as sung by the peasantry, than any person now
living, yet I am so little of a musician, that I can scarcely be said
to understand the first principles of the art. But having been
directed by the Society to preserve such of the Jacobite airs as
are still extant, I set about it with great diligence and greater
delight, but with very slender prospects of success ; for I found
that the people of every county in the eastern parts of Scotland
sung them to their own favourite tunes. The Galloway people's
music appears to be, like themselves, a kind of Irish, mixed with
something else, nobody knows what it is. So that, on my first
general application to rural musicians, I began to suspect that
my efforts would in a great measure be unavailing. On looking
more narrowly into my old manuscripts, I found that, of three
manuscript volumes of unpublished Jacobite songs that I had
from John Steuart, Esq. younger of Dalguise, almost every one
had the name of the air marked to which they were composed or
sung. The Honourable Miss RoUo's old manuscripts had the