Reader, have you ever watched, or haply accompanied the youth in his devious rambles through the glen, as, in boyhood's dawning morn, he culled from the luxuriant herbage, opening upon the fairy prospect around him, a blossom of every hue that Flora garlands her Spring mantle with? If so, you never will forget, while life's pulse continues to vibrate warm within you, the glowing recollections which that lovely morning's perambulation hath left behind it, upon memory's track. From the margin of the still pool beneath the linn, the youthful enthusiast gathers the white and the yellow water-lilies, leaving the less inviting iris and the arrow-leafed water-plantain, to preside over the blooming grot or dingle's recess, during the absence of the fair nymphs of the burn; the rose-bay willow, scarlet campion, and paler saxifrage, are anon gathered by him from the streamlet's dimpled margin; the daffodil, golden-cup, and various coloured violets, perfuming and scentless, from the shelving bank above; while the marshy mossy spot hollowed beneath the shadowing mountain ash-tree, fringed over with heather-bell and polypody, next afford him the light and the deep blooming speckled orchis, the yellow asphodel, and the pink-eyed sundew. Not yet satiated with young Summer's offerings, the ambitious little urchin scales the summit of his elysium, studded over with the changeful milk-wort, and adds to his posie, the blue gentian, the eye-bright, the deep gold and carmine streaked St. John's wort, and the Alpine

scorpion grass of etherial blue, with a golden star in its breast: so, having gathered his nosegay, and wreathed it round with a limber twig of meadow-sweet, or a tendril of woodbine, he returns home, and exultingly presents the treasure to his delighted parents, who forthwith are invited to rejoice with him in their turn, as he tells over, one by one, the various dyed blossoms, and enumerates the different localities of strath and fell, from whence he so lately collected them.

Time steals on apace, till life's meridian has settled over him; yet all the storms and vicissitudes with which fortune alternately has assailed his course, while journeying onward to this goal, cannot efface the sunny spots, which, of yore, kept hallowing and playing around his childhood's fancy, nor dim the pristine recollection which erst had called them forth into existence, and now matured them with manhood.

Even so, it fares with the legendary lore of Ballad and Song, which has been painted and impressed upon the young and susceptible mind, by the maiden, mother, or matron, who watched over our dawning years, while

which

"We danced our infancy upon their knees,"

grew with our growth, and strengthened with our

strength, as our vivid imaginations continued straining to portray every trait of the mournful, warlike, or pathetic, into the fair semblance of reality-when our mind's eye saw them all before us dancing into life, beckoning our compassion, rousing us up to feats of chivalry, or entreating our tears! When each and all of these fancy-born hallucinations kept flitting before our excited mind by turns, until, wearied and exhausted, we had fallen asleep, and alternately dreamed them all over again.

But, drawing this digressive parallel to a close, regarding early virgin impressions, whether the same has been called into existence from the study of nature, garnished forth in her May-tide livery, or, rather, from the talismanic aspirations of song, seared down upon the plastic mind during the halcyon days of infancy, the Editor now submits to his reader, an outline of the little work before him, which, for arrangement's sake, he has divided into Four Sections.

The first of these Sections, embraces a few essays by Byrd, the celebrated pupil of Tallis, along with selections from the works of numerous other musicians and lyric composers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These lighter emanations of the muse of bygone times, the Editor doubts not, will be sufficiently appreciated by many; while, to others, who deem themselves passingly

PREFACE.

ix

indifferent to every thing else which chimes not directly

upon

"Some splendid passage in the last new poem,"

he would be inclined to remark, of these earlier Songs, what Burgh in his Anecdotes of Music, says of melody during the Elizabethian period, that those pieces, which, in their day, have afforded delight to the best judges of their respective merits, even now are entitled to examination as well as respect, however much the revolutions of taste and fashion may have diminished their popularity amongst us, their more polished and fastidious descendants. This First Section contains one hundred pieces, which, for the most part, are now only to be found sprinkled over the pages of a few rare or expensive works; and even these are occasionally placed beyond the reach of the majority of song admirers, while others of them, he hazards not to say, have long since been out of print, and remain altogether unknown, excepting to a very few antiquarians in lyrical lore.

The Second Section comprises a few excerpts from the unpublished minor poetry of Sir William Muir of Rowallan: the illustrative remarks upon the same, have been kindly furnished the Editor by the gentleman whose name is attached to the article; and by many, he doubts not,

this will be considered as the most interesting Section of the work. It ever will remain the Editor's most earnest wish, that the unpublished remains of this nearly forgotten Scottish poet, should, at some time or other, form a separate publication; and with the public, whose will in these matters is often tantamount to a law, it now rests to decide, whether or not this task should yet be attempted by him. The Editor, after having transcribed the whole of Sir William's recovered manuscript poetry, with the exception of his psalmody, and read each specimen individually and repeatedly over, is inclined to say much in favour of Rowallan's poetical powers, and even wills to place this western baronet's abilities, as a candidate in the Parnassian scale, almost next in degree with those of that much talked about, though little read or understood brother of the lyre, Sir William Drummond of Hawthornden, who also was his contemporary. These gentlemen having been born within nine years, and died within eight years of each other, the former in the sixtythird, and the latter in the sixty-fourth year, of their respective ages.

The Third Section, amongst other varieties, contains a small portion of the Song and Ballad lore, that erst was floating about on the wings of tradition, over the shires of Renfrew and Ayr, during the era of the Editor's boyhood; and which, some time ago, at passing intervals, were noted