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By Daniel Clark, M.D.,
Toronto
SCOTLAND stands
pre-eminent in the number of its lyrics. The temperament of its people,
the grandeur of its scenery, the patriotic ardor of its peasantry and
the deep emotional and intense devotional elements in the warp and woof
of the Scottish nature were and are conditions favorable to the
production of a lineage of song writers. The dramatic and the epic were
not equal in power and variety to the work in this line of its southern
neighbors. It is worthy of note that sustained efforts of this poetic
form have not been super excellent as a rule among northern nations. The
bards of olden times played on the harp and sang of love, of martial
glory and wailed requiems over departed warriors in extemperaneous verse
which took an abiding form as literature and became widely diffused
among the peasantry. No doubt songs and music existed in Scotia long
ages prior to the period of written history and before the era of
Ossian. The minstrelsy of the North was transmitted by vocal utterance
through many generations of men in an increasing stream in the course of
centuries and analagous to the latter period in aspiration, sentiment
and harmony. Occasionally generations would pass without the minstrel
and his lays until some national crisis would arise, such as the war of
Independence, when bards sprang into existence whose war songs called to
field and combat like the clarion notes of a trumpet. We all know the
potency of lyrics set to appropriate. music in rousing nations against
tyranny and wrong. There is a great deal of truth in the famous saying
"The song writer is more powerful than the lawgiver." The Marseillaise,
that great hymn of freedom, when sung in the streets of Paris was more
feared by French tyrants than were legions of armed men. The inspiring,
the martial, the pathetic and the defiant in it often set up rebellion
and anarchy. During the first revolution, Carlyle says whole armies and
great multitudes sang it "with eyes weeping and burning, with hearts
defiant of death, of despot and of devil." That song alone roused the
populace to fury and madness. Napoleon I. had laid the German nation at
his feet dispirited and disheartened, but the battle songs of Arndt and
Korner roused the national and patriotic spirit to such an extent as to
enable it to throw off the yoke of the bloody tyrant.
We know how the Celtic-Irish were fired into
rebellion in 1798 largely by the martial strains of Shan Van Vocht and
how the Fenians rose in insurrection setting the country in turmoil,
causing bloodshed, to the notes of "The Red above the Green," "God Save
Ireland," and "The Wearing of the Green." The native Boers are singing
with effect the hymn songs written by local bards in the Transvaal.
It is astonishing what hold the Jacobite
songs still have upon the Scottish people and how much they help to keep
alive the attachment of the Highlanders to the unworthy but handsome
Prince Charlie, the last of the unfortunate Stewart line of ancestry.
The sentiment survives in lyrics the dynasty which evoked it just as did
the songs of Beranger in laudation of Bonaparte. The songs of Dibdin
warmed the hearts of the British sailors in storm, in calm, and in
battle. They actually in their stirring measures were a powerful factor
in quelling mutiny by an appeal to the love of home and country. No one
can measure the untold influence that Campbell's "Ye Marinet's of
England," ''The Battle of the Baltic," and ''Men of England," had in the
tempest of conflict at that stormy period of British history. Many a lad
joined the navy in being stirred by such strains as "A Wet Sheet and a
Flowing Sea," and ''The Bonnie Bark of Allan Cunningham." It has been
truly said that next to the Bible, Scottish song has influenced the
nation. The Scot and his descendants in every clime hold in pleasant
memory from the cradle to the grave the literature of which they are so
proud and which was poured into willing ears from the time mothers sang
over them cradle songs.
They cling to its among the noblest elements
of national life. ''Auld Lang Syne" helps to bind into brotherhood in
every stanza of that fraternal song. So much does it meet the feelings
of all that other, nationalities sing it with equal fervor to a heather
born son or daughter of Scotland. It has a universal application and
response in its vibrations. It thrills the human soul and fills it with
kindred and brotherly emotion although the versification is so simple
and halting. The same may be said of such songs as "We're a' John
Tamson's Bairns," "The Land o' the Leal," of the Baroness Nairne, which
is hymnal in its sentiment.
The historical features of Scottish song and
the circumstances which evoked them have yet to be written by some
master mind. As Rogers in his ''Scottish Minstrel" says, ''It ebbed and
flowed as did the changes in national life, being as it were verbal
photographs of the times." An impetus was given to it in the period of
James I. after his English captivity. This sovereign was distinguished
for his skill in poetry and music. His writings were graceful and were
often tinctured with a colouring of wit and irony. His royal successors
encouraged this form of literature even if not expert themselves. James
IV. bestowed favors on "Henry the Minstrel," and on the poet Dunbar. It
is not to be forgotten that James the V. wrote the well known songs "The
Gaberlunzie Man,'' and ''The Jolly Beggars," and James VI. of Scotland,
although a weakling in mans' ways, got a reputation as a writer of
verses in Latin and English. At that period a more than local reputation
was made by Barbour, Gavin Douglas and Sir David Lyndsav. Gavin Douglas
wrote a passable translation of Virgil's Eneid.
After the Union many bards wrote in English
and Latin and as a result the vernacular was partially ignored. Allan
Ramsay to some extent restored it. He was greatly assisted in this way
by such song writers as Mrs. Allison Cockburn, Jane Elliot of Minto, Sir
John Clerk, Dr. Austn, Dr. Geddes, Alex. Ross and others.
A grand and new star arose in the poetic
firmament a century ago in the person of Robert Burns. Scottish song
then reached its climax. He so struck the chord of the Scottish lyre,
that its vibrations were felt in every bosom. The songs of Caledonia,
under the influence of his matchless power became celebrated throughout
the world. He purified the elder minstrelsy and by a few but effective
touches removed its fading aspects. "He could glide like dew into the
fading bloom of departed song and refresh it into beauty and fragrance."
The same might be said of Baroness Nairne. The robust and patriotic
songs of Scott interspersed in his epics. The mystic ballads of Joanna
Baillie. The sweet melodies of Allan Cunningham. The tenderness of
Tannahill. The martial strains of Campbell. The tinge of pastoral beauty
and simplicity in Hogg. And •imagery and simplicity of Riddell,
Motherwell, Ballan Lyne, Blackie and Allan, stamp their songs as the
best of their kind now extant.
A pleasing feature of Scottish song is the
tendency of the poets to rapturously sing of the beauties of nature. The
scenery of the country has had doubtless much to do with this bias. Its
snow capped and misty mountain tops; its heathery hills; its bosky
dells; its wimpling burns; its gowany leas; its rocky and majestic
shores on which the oceans have sung by their tempestuous waves the
grand oratorios and anthems of nature throughout the ages of time, all
have inspired the poetic pen in a matchless way.
Did a reader know nothing of Scotland, its poetic literature alone would
show that the sweet singers were luxuriating in the beautiful and the
true of charming nature in its stern and its tender exuberance. |
