THIS HIS is usually a brilliant and a taking magazine theme, and many brilliant papers are written upon it. But here, we do not mean to sparkle at all; intending merely to discuss the matter in a philosophic and perhaps rambling manner, without giving way to the temptations which lie along the path of such a flowery disquisition. Indeed, our peculiar ideas on the subject will not allow us to do otherwise; for the popular songs we mean do not lie very much among the lofty Pindarics, or the more polished fragments of lyric verse. Popu Îar songs, and that high style of poetry, are two very different things-such as they have been for a very long period of time; and the dignity and influence of the former, which were never greater than in the old states of Greece, their isles and colonies, seem to us to have only diminished in the progress of civilization, and to be just now less than ever they were. The older the world has grown, in fact, and the more it has improved itself in general-we refer, of course, to those nations, the history and literature of which are most familiar with our ideas-the more it has appeared to forget the old poetic feelings of the people. The older generations had ten times the spirituality that belongs to the world at present; a curious thing to say, but a true one. The reason is, the world has grown wiser than it was. It has less of the ignorance, idleness, and superstition, in which the men of those by-gone days felt their thoughts grow into fear, and wonder, and worship-that is to say, into the ways of reverie and song. The spirituality of the world, at present religion apart is confined to those cliques of theorists who seek solutions of the eternal enigma, and others of the poetic school, who hear harmonies, and clasp the mountain in the mind's embrace. But we have an idea that much of this modern rapture, which spiritualizes nature in a style unknown to the preceding ages of poetry, is a mere jargon, imitated from Wordsworth, Shelley, VOL. VII.-26

and the more genuine thinkers. Deep thought and poetic feeling were more equally shared by all classes formerly, and the aggregate of these was then much greater than it is now. Our spiritual poets are apt to follow a spiritual façon de parler, though the great majority of them may have no more spirituality than any of the rest of us, reader. For the rest, we would ask: Is there one of the present age, in town or country, afraid of a ghost? Not one, indeed; and the smallest laddie in the school will take a vizzy at you, if you talk to him of fairies or goblins. Ah, we must quote softly to ourselves, once more (what the reader may skip, if he pleases), the somewhat hackneyed lines of Schiller-Coleridge:

"The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty, That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,

By forest, or slow stream or pearly spring, Or chasms, or watery depths-all these have vanished,

And live no longer in the faith of reason."

No doubt, all are gone-either to yon starry world, or the Red Sea-which last, by the by, will soon be no place of repose for any quietly disposed supernatural, after the great railroad and canal of Suez shall have made it a highway of the world's intercourse, and vexed its depths with ten thousand keels, paddles, and screws. The world, we repeat, has certainly grown wiser, in chemistry, and goes at a far greater rate per hour, from one place to another; but, in the matter of that spirituality we speak of, as connected with the love and enjoyment of music, and the amenities of poetry, it has rather grown deficient than advanced; so that we must look back somewhat for the genuine popular songs of our theme, and the influence belonging to them. Such songs are, of course, things which are, or should be, sung by the masses of the people, which express all their sentiments and feelings, and, conse

quently rank high among their solaces and enjoyments. In the present state of society and literature, we do not see anything of the kind very distinctly.

Glancing backward, therefore-and, when we discuss the genial subject of poetry, we always do glance backward -we perceive that, in those simpler ages when music and verse formed parts of the laws and public worship, the national songs were necessarily popular, and the choruses and psalms of Miriam, Deborah, David, and others among the Hebrews, were also those of that people, in war or peace. David's In Memoriam for Jonathan must have been sung in their households and fields, and not without tears, for many a day, while the verses of the Song of Solomon would be among their lyric enjoyments in their most genial hours.

In the republic of Greece we find, still more clearly and numerously, the general influence and importance of the people's songs. Within their several restricted limits, the inhabitants of that bright clime of battle and of song were all more or less connected with the government and religious services of the state, and the number of their games and festivals, celebrated with all the grace and pomp of music, made them familiar with the efforts of their poets makers of the airs and choruses of their country. For this reason, in the earlier ages of those little states, popular songs and the poetry of the nation were the same. Homer was a singer of the people, and his themes were such as, in all ages, are the surest to win their ears and sympathies-those of adventure by sea and land, war, and the great pitched battles; and after him came the Cyclic poets, who still harped on the subjects of their great precursor-the siege of Troy, and all the achievement and mythology that belong to it-and who got their name from the habit of always writing and singing "about it and about it," in a circle, as it were, with their Thebaids, Epigoniads, Cyprias, Little Iliads, Nostis, and so forth. And then, when the voices of poetry were more variously heard among the Hellenic races the people still understood and appreciated them; the Elegies, Iambics, Strophes, Epodes, Nomes, Threnodies, Mimes, Symposiacs, Scolia, Erotics. Hymeneals, Epinicia, the Goat songs, the jolly Dithyrambs, and clear Pæans, and that grand anapestic military march, on

the flutes, to which the calm Spartan line stepped into action-the song of Castor, the Dorian demigod-all these, we say, the people knew as well as the poets and polemarchs themselves; and the flute or harp airs, in the gay, satirio songs of Simonides, Arion, Tyrtæus, Alcæus and the rest, were as popular -in their respective states, at leastas those of Robert Burns among his countrymen of Scotland. Even the Spartans, who have had such a name for black broth and general austerity, were so addicted to tunes and choruses, that when, in the Messenian war, they asked assistance of the Athenians, and the latter people (who never could resist a joke, and whose jest on the mulberry face of Sylla cost them so dear) sent them a singer with his phorminx, those simple Dorians made much of him, and in the end said he was as good to them as a regiment of hoplitai-he roused them all up with his music so spiritedly.

That was, indeed, the finest age of poetry-an age in which the old tetrachord of Homer became the sevenchorded lyre of Terpander; poetry meant something then. It was “a true thing" to use the words of poor Audrey, in As You Like It-and, either in the Dorian, Phrygian, or Lydian styles of harmony, modulated the war and worship, the labor and joyous leisure of the whole community. But in process of time a distinction grew up, and the songs of the people became different from the metres of the poets; though their social and political education still left them fully competent to appreciate the best things brought out in the modes of their lyric bards, and to modulate in their homes and workshops the melodies that might particularly strike their fancies. The track of those bards is, as everybody knows, a bright and classic one; but it would be more to our purpose to ramble into the more uncertain ways leading us among the people's own airs and choruses, seeing that everything coming from that genuine source has a raciness and originality which seldom or never belong to the more dignified order of poetic expression. It is to be regretted, however, that the latter are so fragmentary and so few. The people, as we have said, were capable of enjoying much of the higher order of poetry, and there were among the symposiacs, epigrams, and scolia of the wealthier classes, many melodies that made them

selves popular with mechanics, soldiers, and husbandmen. Enjoying their chief meals, with thanks to the generous gods, the Greeks sat leisurely at table--sat, in the manlier early times, before the Persian fashions came up-and were accustomed to cheer their banquets with wine-songs of various names, and, among them, the scolia-verses having something of the meaning of our "sentiments," and these the feasters sung in succession, each holding, during the singing of his stanza (made extempore or chosen from some poet), a sprig of myrtle or a lyre, which he gave in turn to the man he was pleased to knock down for the next song. One of these scolia, as Athenæus tells us, was the famous song of Harmodius-" I will bear my sword in myrtles"—another, the song of Hybrias of Crete, in which a burly palikar of the old stock says: "My chief property is a spear and a sword and my body's defense, a leathercovered buckler," et cætera. These and others were familiar as household words in the mouths of the people--especially "I'll bear my sword in myrtles"--a cherished melody for ages, in the midst of a people fitted by climate and education to receive the finest impressions of poetry and patriotism.

But we know little of the more genuine order of songs they vocalized after their own fashion. The Spartan oi polloi, after having taken part in the graver musical rites, were in the habit of 66 unbending," with great license and extravagance, in their hyporchematic dances and choruses, where satyrs capered and gesticulated, old men reeled about on stilts, and men and women alike mimicked and railed at one another and everything else. The Athenians, in the festivals of Bacchus, enjoyed themselves in the same loose, dithyrambic way. In such amusements, which were common all over Greece, the people would exhibit their genuine feelings, and chant their own minstrelsy. But all this old comedy is lost, or was never recorded. Fragments, however, of the Greek popular song, have come down to us. One of the oldest of them is a Mill-song"-such as, from its subject, must have been among the most ancient in all countries. The refrain of a Mitylanean song was:

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"Grind, mill, grind!

For King Pittacus This mill of Mitylene grinds!"

The allusion to the king being, no doubt, grafted, by order, on the old island formula. It is remarkable, that when Priest Ball, the English sans culotte of the time of Henry VI. (the author, says Stowe, of the red republican couplet

"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman ?") went about exciting rebellion, he circulated notices, formed partly by himself, on the mill-songs, or mill-work of the country, such as would best come home to their ideas and interests. There are other Greek instances, presenting a curious resemblance to modern popular customs. There were several chants sung by people who went about, at seasons, soliciting gifts at the doors of the more wealthy sort to wit, the Song of the Swallow, the Song of the Crow, the Wool-chaplet, and the Song of the Field-fares. These were originally

sung by the mendicants of the commu-
nity, who, like the gaberlunzies and
bedesmen of Scotland and England,
had a regular license to beg; but after-
wards the boys and youths took up the
game, and went from door to door, the
jolly beggars of their day. The song
of the swallow was sung in spring, on
the first appearance of that bird:
"Here comes, here comes the swallow!

With happy hours and seasons bright,
Her head so black and her breast so white,
And we bring her with chant and hollo!
Out of your houses hand a dole-
A bunch of figs or wine in a bowl,
Some wheaten meal, or what you please,
A barley-cake or a slice of cheese!"

Then they go on to threaten that, if refused, they will pull down the door and run off with the young wife; declaring they are none of your graybeards, but gay lads that would do it! There was also the song of the crow, which ran something in this style:

"Worthy masters, here we go!

Some barley or wheat to help the crow,
A loaf, or a handful of salt or so;
For all are welcome to the crow.
Aha! good Plutus is kind to-day,
The sweet little lady comes out with a tray.
The gods reward her, and give her, I pray,
A right good husband, to make her gay,
And a boy, with his grandsire to sport and
play,

And a girl, the image of her mother,

To bring her, some day, just such another!"

In the Wool-chaplet Song, persons carried the staff of Apollo round among their neighbors; and the Lay of the

Field-fares, sung in Autumn, was of the same character. These customs have come down to the present day, existing in Scotland, as the Hogmanay chant of the New Year's Eve in some parts of England, in honor of Bishop Blaize, and more remarkably, in Ireland, where, on St. Stephen's day, boys and men carry about a holly-bush with a dead wren in it, singing the Wren Song, and demanding money at the doors. A lay of the swallow is still sung in some districts of modern Greece.

The Greeks had also some gay fancies respecting cranes, frogs, mice, and so forth-a burlesque war of the two latter being attributed to Homer himself. Such fancies appear in the modern popular rhymes, especially of Scotland. The Scots have a ballad showing how a frog goes to court a mouse, and dines with her and her uncle rat; when all three are set upon by a cat. The rat dies; the frog takes to the water, where he is quacked to death by a drake; and the mouse reaches her dwelling, blessing her stars she is so small of size. This resembles the nursery rhyme beginning:

"A frog he would a wooing go,

Heigh ho, says Rowley;

Whether his mother would let him or no,
With my roly, poly," etc.

Some of the oldest of the people's songs were those sung, chiefly in the country parts, on the subject of Linus, one of the traditional youths of many localities, who perished in the flower of their age, and received the melodious pity of succeeding generations-such as Hylas, Bormus, Adonis, or Thammuz, yearly wounded-the latter being he for whom the Hebrew maidens were wont to sit weeping in the chambers of their imagery, after the Oriental custom. The young men generally sung the song of Linus, while the maidens chanted that of

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Calyce"- the Flower-bud-lamenting the evanescence of human life, love, and beauty. There were others of a like character, called the Lay of the Maid of Twilight, and the Lay of the Maid of Dawning-laments of unrequited love. The latter maiden goes about the woods, wildly seeking Menalcas, and the burden of her song is: "Tall grow the woods; wo is me, Menalcas!" reminding the reader of some of the old refrains of our language:

"Lady Isabel sat in her bower sewing;

Aye, as the gowans grow gay."

Those popular songs of the Greeks were extremely light and musical. In the Anthema-Flower-song-on the coming of spring, the return was: "Where are my roses, where are my violets, Where is my parsley?

Here are your roses, here are your violets,
And here is your parsley!"

Again-among some of the metrical games of the girls, was one of which we have a verse or two. A maiden, Chelone (Tortoise) sits on the shore, and her companions go about her, singing:

"Tortoise, tortoise in the middle,

What are you about?'

'I've got a stock of Miletus' wool,
To card and spin it out.'
'Tortoise, tortoise, your young son,
Tell us how died he?'

'He jumped from my white horses
Into the deep sea!""

The foam-crests on the Lake of Killarney, in Ireland, are called "O'Donoghoe's white horses," by the people of the district, showing how true to nature was the old Greek fancy. In another popular chorus of Sparta, the young men exhort one another:-" Forward, lads! haste, haste your steps, and show yourselves more gaily!" a spirited movement, resembling the tarantella of Naples.

Athenæus shows that the Greeks were a music-loving people; for he says that the various trades-millers, potters, masons, reapers, herdsmen, armorers, sailors, and all other classes of workers in the community-had their own songs and choruses, which they chanted as they labored. These have not been preserved. But among the small poems attributed to Homer, is one called the Potter's Oven, in which Minerva, patroness of the important fictile art, is implored to bless the batch of earthen-ware then in the furnace. Our modern songs of the Bell, of the Anchor, and of the Ship, have had their originals, no doubt, in the ancient lyrics of the sprightly Greek trades-people. The scraps and remnants alluded to above, as well as others that may be gathered from extant Greek works, show that the popular songs of the Hellenic race must have been of a rare order of grace and fancy, if not of melody; and that the want of them is, at least, as much to be regretted as that

of the more dignified lost poetry of the time; because the former had greater reference to the ideas of the people, their jocoseness and genius, than that framed on the mythologies and traditions of the educated poets. Archilochus, Aristophanes, and others, give a good idea of the free thoughts and ideas of their countrymen, and show that much of the Greek poetry must have died with the common songs they were accustomed to sing.

Coming, by natural transition, to Rome, we find that its literature has preserved little or none of the poetry of the people. Indeed, what has been called the literature of Rome, was not the growth of that soil. The curse of imitation was upon it; and its great misfortune was, that the Greek literature had lived before it, and was partly cotemporary. Rome, inaugurated by filibusters, and the wild right of the strong hand, was long obliged to keep armed watch upon its hills; and fighting and farming were the chief occupations of the turba Remi for ages. The two earliest pieces of their poetry extant are, the song of the Fratres Arvales-agricultural flamens who blessed their fields-and the Carmen Saliare, sung by the leaping priests of Mars round the national bucklers. Still, the custom of popular singing, natural to such a clime, could not be wanting, and the Romans, inspired by the genius of the Etruscans, their more civilized neighbors, used to celebrate in ballads, lyric verses, and military pæans, the heroism of their chiefs and ancestors. These ancient lyrics were afterwards used by Ennius and Fabius Pictor in forming their poetic annals and histories of the city-things which Niebuhr considers a sort of epopee, or string of fictions, and which Macaulay has pretended to give an idea of in his fluent and artistic ballads-showing that no mere force of taste or critical feeling can ever reproduce anything like the genuine old poetry of any simple people.

From the Etruscans the Romans also received the licentious fashion of the Fescennine verses and sports-matters pertaining to human nature, and a happy soil. For near five hundred years the languages and ideas of the neighboring little states of Italy had been growing round Rome, and a native literature was beginning to show itself,

when it came in contact with that of Greece, and its promise was frustrated. People say, the Romans had no poetry, till they took Tarentum, and the other cities of the Greek colony in Italy, and brought the servile Greek writers to the city. But it was then they lost it. The true literature of ancient Rome was changed in the cradle, so to speak; another was put in its place, and it was itself sent to live in the remote country places, on the traditions, manners, customs, jests, sports, games, and festal choruses of the earlier ages. Then tragedies and comedies on foreign models were written in Rome by the great masters (masters in literature and slaves in social degree), Andronicus, and others; but the people did not enjoy them, and were, therefore, satirized by the plagiarists. Horace tells us, with an air of scorn, how the plebs yearned after the old style of things, or at least, a good rousing spectacle with horses and chariots, instead of the elegant imported dramas. Julius Cæsar, and other literary men, tried to reclaim the people's tastes, and wrote a number of amateur plays for the purpose; but it was all in vain. The people thought them very stupid-an opinion in which we are disposed to concur-and still called for the mimes, the horses, chariots, wild beasts, and manly gladiators -which in the end they got and enjoyed-till Alaric came to the gate.

The Roman people had no sympathy with the Roman literature, after the times of Andronicus. From that period, the religious and heroic systems and hereditary inspirations of the people. were sneered down by that pantheon of Roman writers we are accustomed to reverence-just as the Lydgates, Chaucers, Blind Harries, Skeltons, and the other old bards and ballad-makers of England, were disparaged by the metaphysical poets, and the vicious and influential school of Dryden, Pope, and the rest, who came after them. Roman literature was a second-hand literature, cultivated by the polished class which may be called the aristocracy of Rome, and, in its poetic and dramatic features, little favored by the masses. In such a literature, we can find few of those flowers of popular song of which we have been talking; though there are passages in some of the Roman poets, full of nature, and the spirit of the clime. We remember one, for instance,