The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. The Songs of Scotland of the past half century   By: Charles Rogers (1825-1890)

THE

MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL;

BY

CHARLES ROGERS, LL.D. F.S.A. SCOT.

VOL. II.

ALTRIVE. THE RESIDENCE OF THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

EDINBURGH: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK, NORTH BRIDGE, BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS TO THE QUEEN.]

[Illustration:

[Signature: James Hogg]

THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD

Lithographed from an original Portrait in the possession of his widow by Schenck & McFarlane, Edinburgh.]

THE

MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL;

OR,

THE SONGS OF SCOTLAND OF THE PAST HALF CENTURY.

WITH

Memoirs of the Poets,

AND

SKETCHES AND SPECIMENS IN ENGLISH VERSE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

BY

CHARLES ROGERS, LL.D. F.S.A. SCOT.

IN SIX VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

EDINBURGH: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK, NORTH BRIDGE, BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS TO HER MAJESTY.

M.DCCC.LVI.

EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PAUL'S WORK.

TO

JOHN BROWN, ESQ., OF MARLIE.

My dear Sir,

I dedicate to you this second volume of "THE MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL," as a sincere token of my estimation of your long continued and most disinterested friendship, and of the anxiety you have so frequently evinced respecting the promotion of my professional views and literary aspirations.

I have the honour to be, My dear Sir, your most obliged, and very faithful servant, CHARLES ROGERS.

Argyle House, Stirling, December 1855.

INTRODUCTION

TO

The Modern Gaelic Minstrelsy.[1]

The suspicion which arose in regard to the authenticity of Ossian, subsequent to his appearance in the pages of Macpherson, has unjustly excited a misgiving respecting the entire poetry of the Gael. With reference to the elder poetry of the Highlands, it has now been established[2] that at the period of the Reformation, the natives were engrossed with the lays and legends of Bards and Seanachies,[3] of which Ossian, Caoillt, and Cuchullin were the heroes. These romantic strains continued to be preserved and recited with singular veneration. They were familiar to hundreds in different districts who regarded them as relics of their ancestors, and would as soon have mingled the bones of their fathers with the dust of strangers, as ventured on the alteration of a single passage. Many of the reciters of this elder poetry were writers of verses,[4] yet there is no instance of any attempt to alter or supersede the originals. Nor could any attempt have succeeded. There are specimens which exist, independent of those collected by Macpherson, which present a peculiarity of form, and a Homeric consistency of imagery, distinct from every other species of Gaelic poetry.