J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular rhymes of Scotland

PREFACE.
The purpose of this work is to supply a presumed desidera-
tum in popular antiquities. The various collections of Percy,
Evans, Scott, and others, have now probably given to the world
nearly all that is worth preserving of the songs and ballads of
our island ; and this section of British traditionary poetry has
been received amongst the cultivated intellects of the country
with a degree of favour which could not have been dreamt of
in the days of Milton and Dryden. Careless unaffected graces,
simple pathos and humour, the total absence of all those marks
of the chisel of the literary workman, and of all those strainings
after effect, which mar the merits of so much elegant literature,
have secured for these wildings of the national intellect an
affectionate admiration and regard, of which many modern
writers of native and acquired skill might well be envious.
Reared amidst friends to whom popular poetry furnished a
daUy enjojTnent, and led by a tendency of my own mind to
delight in whatever is quaint, whimsical, and old, I formed the
wish, at an early period of life, to complete, as I considered it,
the collection of the traditionary verse of Scotland, by gather-
ing together and publisliing all that remained of a multitude of
rhymes and short snatches of verse applicable to places, fami-
lies, natural objects, amusements, &c. wherewith, not less than
by song and ballad, the cottage fireside was amused in days
gone past, while yet printed books were only familiar to com-
paratively few. This task was executed as well as circum-
stances would pennit, and a portion of the ' Popular Rhymes of
Scotland' was published in 1826. Other objects have since
occupied me, generally of a graver kind ; yet, amidst them all,
I have never lost my wish to complete the publication of these
relics of the old natural literature of my native country.
When now about to perfect this wish, I cannot help feeling
anxious that the articles collected may be viewed in a proper
light. It is to be observed, first of all, tliat they are, in most