Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/302

 the songs of Robert Burns? What German "lied"—what French or Italian "canzonet" or "chansonette" expresses such real human tenderness as "Of a' the airts" or "My Nannie O!"? And it should be remembered that the imaginative pathos of the Scottish song has its other side of imaginative humour—sly, dry humour, such as cannot be rivalled in any language or dialect of the world. And in spite of the incredible assertion that they are beginning to despise their native Doric, there are surely few real Scotsmen who, even at this time of day fail to understand the whimsical satire of the famous old Jacobite song:

Wha the deil hae we gotten for a king But a wee, wee German lairdie, An' he's brought fouth o' foreign trash An' dibbled it in his yairdie,— He's pu'd the rose o' England loons An' broken the harp o' Irish clowns— But our Scotch thistle will jag his thumbs! The wee, wee German lairdie!

We shall not find anything of a bilious nature in a Scottish love-song. We shall not hear the swain asking his lady-love to meet him "in some sky," or "when the hay is in the mow," or any other vaguely indefinite place or period. The Scottish lover appears,—if we may judge him by his native song,—to be supremely healthy in his sentiments, and gratefully conscious of the excellence of both life and love. He takes even poverty with a light heart, and does not grizzle over it in trickling tears of dismal melody. No; he says simply and cheerily: