Ossian Collection > Selections from the Gaelic bards

INTRODUCTION. XVU
which is quite true, but obviously that it is destitute of beauty,
of natural grace and artistic feeling, to affirm anything like which
is to assert something outrageously false. Wliatever of tender-
ness, of freshness, of natural elegance, of depth of sentiment there
is in the Lowland Scotch Music, any one who goes about such
inquiry, in an unprejudiced spirit, will find in the Highland melo-
dies too, and not in an inferior degree. I remember hearing a
gentleman, himself a musician, well acquainted with music in its
highest and most elaborate departments say, that Highland melo-
dies, when properly played or sung — that is with their own simple
and peculiarly expressive character — thrilled him through with an
amazing power. He felt as in a moment surrounded with High-
land scenery, its lofty mountains and sweet glens, its sounding
winds and waters, its mists and varied skies, and old historic asso-
ciations, and he was accordingly profoundly affected. I can well
understand this, for no music can be more like a living wail of
sorrow, or a living laugh of joy, than that which melts our hearts,
or makes them dance beneath its magic influence in the sweet
wild notes of the mountain melodies of the Highlands. For my
own part I will yield to no Scotchman whatever in admiration for
everything that is good and beautiful, and distinctively character-
istic in Scottish poetry, no matter where or by whom produced ;
but I believe there is a chapter, and that not the worst in it, yet
to be added to " The Book of Scottish Song;" and I believe, when
that chapter is added, this book will contain a treasure of popular
national lyrics such as is possessed by no other nation in the
world.
In the following pages I attempt to show, not only that there is
as much Highland poetry, in proportion to the population, as there
is of Lowland poetry, but that it possesses as much variety, and as
high excellence of its own, as the Lowland Scottish poetry, of which
we are all so justly proud. With regard to the poetry current at one
time or another in the Highlands, a simple statement of one or
two well-known facts will be sufficient to render that strikingly
evident, and to prove that poetic genius was abundantly possessed
by the inhabitants of the mountain and insular districts of Scot-