and discipline, universally condemn the practice of dancing, and the schools where it is taught; and the more elderly and serious part of the people of every persuasion, tolerate rather than approve these meetings of the young of both sexes, where dancing is practiced to their spirit-stirring music, where care is dispelled, toil is forgotten, and prudence itself is sometimes lulled to sleep.

The reformation, which proved fatal to the rise of the other fine arts in Scotland, probably impeded, but could not obstruct the progress of its music; a circumstance that will convince the impartial inquirer, that this music not only existed previously to that æra, but had taken a firm hold of the nation; thus affording a proof of its antiquity stronger than any produced by the researches of our antiquaries.

The impression which the Scottich music has made on the people, is deepened by its union with the national songs, of which various collections of unequal merit are before the public. These songs, like those of other nations, are many of them humourous, but they chiefly treat of love, war, and drinking. Love is the subject of the greater proportion. Without displaying the higher powers of the imagination, they exhibit a perfect knowledge of the human heart, and breathe a spi

rit of affection, and sometimes of delicate and romantic tenderness, not to be surpassed in modern poetry, and which the more polished strains of antiquity have seldom possessed.

The origin of this amatory character in the rustic muse of Scotland, or of the greater number of these love-songs themselves, it would be difficult to trace; they have accumulated in the silent lapse of time, and it is now perhaps impossible to give an arrangement of them in the order of their date, valuable as such a record of taste and manners would be. Their present influence on the character of the nation is however great and striking. To them we must attribute in a great measure, the romantic passion which so often characterizes the attachments of the humblest of the people of Scotland, to a degree, that, if we mistake not, is seldom found in the same rank of society in other countries. The pictures of love and happiness exhibited in their rural songs, are early impressed on the mind of the peasant, and are rendered more attractive from the music with which they are united. They associate themselves with his own youthful emotions; they elevate the object as well as the nature of his attachment; and give to the impressions of sense, the beautiful colours of imagination. Hence in the course of his passion, a Scottish peasant often exerts a spirit of

adventure,

adventure, of which a Spanish Cavalier need not be ashamed. After the labours of the day are over, he sets out for the habitation of his mistress, perhaps at many miles distance, regardless of the length or the dreariness of the way. He approaches her in secresy, under the disguise of night. A signal at the door or window, perhaps agreed on, and understood by none but her, gives information of his arrival, and sometimes it is repeated again and again, before the capricious fair one will obey the summons. But if she favours his addresses, she escapes unobserved, and receives the vows of her lover under the gloom of twilight, or the deeper shade of night. Interviews of this kind are the subjects of many of the Scottish songs, some of the most beautiful of which Burns has imitated or improved. In the art which they celebrate he was perfectly skilled; he knew and had practised all its mysteries. Intercourse of this sort is indeed universal even in the humblest condition of man in every region of the earth. But it is not unnatural to suppose, that

it may exist in a greater degree, and in a more romantic form, among the peasantry of a country who are supposed to be more than commonly instructed, who find in their rural songs, expression for their youthful emotions, and in whom the embers of passion are continually fanned by the breathings of a music full of tenderness and sensi

VOL. I.

C

bility.

bility. The direct influence of physical causes on the attachment between the sexes, is comparatively small, but it is modified by moral causes beyond any other affection of the mind. Of these music and poetry are the chief. Among the snows of Lapland, and under the burning sun of Angola, the savage is seen hastening to his mistress, and every where he beguiles the weariness of his journey with poetry and song.*

In appreciating the happiness and virtue of a community, there is perhaps no single criterion on which so much dependence may be placed, as the state of the intercourse between the sexes. Where this displays ardour of attachment, accompanied by purity of conduct, the character and the influence of women rise in society, our imperfect nature mounts in the scale of moral excellence, and from the source of this single affection, a stream of felicity descends, which branches into a thousand rivulets that enrich and adorn the field of life. Where the attachment between the sexes sinks

*The North American Indians, among whom the attachment between the sexes is said to be weak, and love in the purer sense of the word unknown, seem nearly unacquainted with the charms of poetry and music. See Weld's Tour.

sinks into an appetite, the heritage of our species is comparatively poor, and man approaches the condition of the brutes that perish. " If we could with safety indulge the pleasing supposition that Fingal lived, and that Ossian sung, Scotland, judging from this criterion, might be considered as ranking high in happiness and virtue, in very remote ages. To appreciate her situation by the same criterion in our own times, would be a delicate and a difficult undertaking. After considering the probable influence of her popular songs, and her national music, and examining how far the effects to be expected from these are supported by facts, the inquirer would also have to examine the influence of other causes, and particularly of her civil and ecclesiastical institutions, by which the character, and even the manners of a people, though silently and slowly, are often powerfully controuled. In the point of view in which we are considering the subject, the ecclesiastical establishments of Scotland may be supposed peculiarly favourable to purity of conduct. The dissoluteness of manners among the catholic clergy, which preceded, and in some measure produced the reformation, led to an extraordinary

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* Gibbon.