VICTORIA, OR PORT PHILIP. THE fine colony of Victoria, which we described in an early number of this Journal,* has excited a greatly increased interest since the discovery, in the neighbourhood of Melbourne, of the richest gold mines yet explored in Australia,-indeed, we may say, the richest yet known in the world. The reader will remember that Victoria (formerly called Port Philip) occupies the southern region of Australia, along the coast of which it extends about four hundred miles, having New South Wales on the north, and South Australia on its western boundary. Sir Thomas Mitchell named the district, when first explored by him, Australia Felix (the Happy), from its flowery plains and green hills,-so different from the parched deserts of the interior. Squatters soon took possession of the district, and throve amazingly, with their flocks and herds; and then it was that the Government, which had at first undervalued the natural richness of the land, took possession for the Crown, and proceeded to colonize it in the usual manner. This was as recent as the year 1836, and since then the progress of the colony has been most rapid. In the year named, the population did not exceed 300 persons; in 1845, it amounted to 32,000; and now it may have reached 600,000,-emigrants daily pouring into the colony from all quarters. The progress of Melbourne, the capital, has been equally rapid. It was only founded in 1837; in 1845, its inhabitants numbered about 7,000; and now they amount to about 30,000 ! Ship after ship, laden with emigrants, is now approaching these shores, which only about fifteen short years ago, was roamed by a few wandering blacks; the beautiful land lying entirely unreclaimed, in a state of nature, wild, and uncultivated. As those emigrant vessels near the coast, many eyes peer into the horizon, eager to descry the land of their future hopes. Approaching from the west, the high land of Cape Otway, the most southern point of Australia, first comes into sight, towering majestically from the sea, densely timbered to its summit. Along the coast, the dark sombre green of the vegetation, so peculiar to Australia, displays itself to the charmed eye of the gazer; welcome, indeed, after those * See No. 13. [PRICE 14d. But long sixteen thousand miles of sea-voyage, during which even the oldest friends become tedious to each other, the varieties of life at sea having long since become stale, flat, and tiresome exceedingly. there at last is Australia the long looked-for, gazing steadily into the southern ocean from the heights of Cape Otway! The ship scuds along towards the north-east, and in the inner or northern part of the bight, a narrow gap in the cliffs displays itself, between Point Lonsdale on the one side, and Point Nepean on the other. Through this narrow entrance, the ship dances in upon the ripple caused by the gulf-stream confined by the narrow channel, the water of which is rather shoal, and further confined by sunken reefs on either side. But at length the goodly vessel is fairly within the portals, and has passed the heads and narrows, when a vast and placid bay-lake-like in its aspect-lies before the emigrant's eye. now in the extensive bay of Port Philip, which is land-locked against the ocean storms, and is about twenty-five miles in extent in all directions. He is Some time elapses before the land is sighted along its northern margin. Geelong lies along the shore to the westward, and Melbourne is still below the horizon in the north. At length, sailing on, the tops of trees rise up along the horizon, then low banks of sand, flat tracts of bush, and, slightly elevated above them, occasional levels of clear yellow space. Gradually rising up far in the west, the Barrabool hills come into sight; and in the north, an undulating and mountainous region is descried stretching round the bay inland. The northern shore is now approached; Shortlands Bluff with its lighthouse is passed on the left; then Point Drake, with another lighthouse. The ship is now in Hobson's Bay, and the little town of Williamstown lies in front. The bay is crowded with ships, many of which are full of cargo but empty of hauds, the seamen having all "run off to the diggings." So there the richly-freighted vessels must lie, until the temptation of enormously advanced wages succeeds in inducing the men to return to their posts. The passengers are soon set on shore, all eager to reach the land, and take their part in the golden labours of the colony. The city of Melbourne, however, is not so accessible a port as Sydney. It lies across the flats, nine miles off, up the river Yarra Yarra, which is navigable only to vessels of small burden. Steamers are, however, constantly plying, and the place is soon reached, where house accommodation (notwithstanding the number of new houses in the place) is extremely scarce, in consequence of the enormous influx of emigrants; and lodgings are very expensive. Melbourne has been described by one visitor, as "a well-laid-out ugly town." Another has spoken of it in more glowing terms, as "beautifully situated in and on the sides of a valley, and presenting an extensive mass of fine buildings." The place is certainly wonderful for its age, is growing at a remarkable rate, and promises yet to become an immense city, notwithstanding the unfavourable access to it by the Yarra Yarra; which, however, can be remedied, as has been proposed, by the formation of a short ship canal across the flat country extending between it and the deep waters of the bay. The Yarra Yarra has been celebrated by Australian writers as a lovely picturesque river; and the scenery along its banks above Melbourne, is certainly very fine. But the river presents no shelving bed or pebbly beach, as is the case with European streams; its banks are abrupt and muddy, and its waters often float along the carcass of a bullock, drowned while attempting to drink out of the river. Above Melbourne, the Yarra is dammed up in order to keep out the tide, so as to afford a plentiful supply of fresh water to the inhabitants. This fresh water is carried down to Melbourne in tank boats, which also supply the shipping. Now that labour has become so dear at Melbourne, men can scarcely be had to carry the water to the inhabitants; and as much as from five to ten shillings a cart-load has to be paid for it. But there only needs pipes to be laid from the reservoir above the town, amply to supply this deficiency. The streets of Melbourne are laid out on an extensive plan, their very large dimensions are even complained of by some. But it is a good fault, and the conveniences of plenty of room will be experienced as the population and business of the place increase, as they cannot fail to do. The original plan of Sir R. Bourke was a parallelogram, of about a mile in length by three quarters of a mile in breadth; but in less than fifteen years, this plan has already been built up to, and the city now far exceeds the boundaries first fixed; the whole of the original space having been covered with wharves, shops, offices, and private dwellings. The buildings are partly of brick, sometimes stuccoed, and partly of stone. Where labour is so dear as it is at Melbourne,-the wages of carpenters and builders, even before the discovery of gold, having been about seven shillings a day,-little may be expected in the way of ornament, though in several cases that is not wanting. But generally, the houses of Melbourne have been "rushed up" in a hurry for the immediate uses of living men, rather than for the uses of posterity. The original designers of the place committed a grave blunder in choosing for their burial-ground a place so close to the town, already built round about by houses; but the removal of this has been spoken of, and will doubtless be effected before long. 66 The principal streets run parallel with the river, and the shops in some of them are of surprising elegance and size for so juvenile a town. Indeed, they would not do discredit to Oxford Street or the Strand. There are plenty of churches of all sorts, and dissent thrives as abundantly in Australia as it does at home, each persuasion having its own place of worship. There are also several banks in the place, which have now plenty of business in consequence of the large yield of gold in the neighbourhood; several newspapers, which, however, have been prevented coming out with due regularity of late, in consequence of the compositors, like most other people, having "gone to the diggings." A college, schools, mechanics' institutes, bible societies, cricket clubs, savings' banks, and all the various appliances of social progress exist at Melbourne. Steamers are constantly plying from the wharves there to Williamstown, Geelong, Sydney, Van Diemen's Land, South Australia, and now to England and America. The neighbourhood of the city is very beautiful, yet in some places it is rendered extremely disgusting by the smell arising from the extensive "boiling-down establishments," several of which are close at hand. In 1850, 120,000 sheep and 5,500 head of cattle were boiled down merely for the sake of their tallow, which amounted to 27,700 cwt., while the carcasses were thrown to waste! How well would it be for the starving millions of Ireland, and the millions of underfed agricultural labourers of England, could they be placed in a land so teeming with abundance as this is, where the land is crying out for want of labourers, and where millions of pounds of meat are thrown away for want of eaters! A writer in a recent Victoria newspaper, thus speaks :-"We beg to remind the good people of Great Britain, that even before the discovery of gold burst upon us, this was one of the finest and most prosperous of the British colonies. Let the gold-fields cease their yield to-morrow, and we still retain all the elements of national wealth and national greatness. Those who venture to share our wealth, may venture boldly, for boundless plenty smiles side by side with countless wealth. Our splendid harvests are now whitening for the sickle, with no men to reap them. The same land which is thus pouring forth its mineral treasures, is still feeding the finest sheep and cattle that ever were fattened upon natural grasses. Their fate has hitherto been that shameful waste,-the melting-pot!" The land in the neighbourhood of Melbourne is rich and fertile, and boundless grazing districts lie away towards the interior. Squatting and sheepgrazing had been the most lucrative pursuit of the colonists up to the discovery of gold; and many poor industrious men had raised themselves thereby to a condition of comfortable independency, and even opulence. But wheat-growing is also a profitable pursuit there, the serious droughts which so frequently occur in Sydney being much rarer in the Victoria district, from the prevalence of south winds at particular seasons, which discharge copious showers and dews upon the land. Hot winds, it is true, occasionally blow from the north, like a sirocco; but these are of short duration; and though they cause a most stifling sensation for the time they last, do not interrupt vegetation, nor act prejudicially to the health of the inhabitants. All kinds of garden fruits produce abundantly, and grapes of very fine quality are grown in the open air. The general aspect of the country for forty miles north of Melbourne, is green and undulating, with occasional extensive plains naturally cleared and thickly covered with grasses of various sorts. Thousands of acres may often be found in one block, quite ready for the plough. Indeed, we know of no country presenting greater capabilities for agricultural and pastoral pursuits, or holding out stronger attractions to those who seek a new field for their industry on a foreign soil. Comparatively little capital is required to commence operations on the soil in Victoria, the main and almost only requisite being steady application and industry. The wages of all kinds of labour had risen rapidly in Melbourne up to the date of the last advices from the colony. Previous to the gold discoveries, ordinary operatives were receiving an average of seven shillings a day; but the rate of remuneration had increased to such an extent in consequence both of the demand for labour, and the absence of many of the former labourers at the mines, that workmen could scarcely be had at wages of a pound sterling per day. Female servants of all kinds were in great request, and were offered wages of from twenty-five to thirty-five pounds a year; but these were difficult to be had, most of the "likely" young women who arrive in the colony being immediately appropriated by the thriving single men for the more important function of wives. Geelong is the second town in Victoria, not yet equal to Melbourne in point of population and importance, but likely to become so, if not greatly to exceed it in these respects. Its superior natural advantages consist in its easy accessibility from the sea at all times, ships of large burden being able to approach close to the place. The only obstacle is a shoal, which obstructs the entrance to the harbour of Corio, but which, however, can easily be cleared away, and is likely soon to be removed. Another great advantage of Geelong is, that it is the shipping port for a very extensive fertile district, extending nearly two hundred miles westward, including the splendid Barabool Plains, so rich in pastoral and agricultural wealth. Most of the wool grown in the colony is hence shipped at Geelong, and the quantity is likely to increase rapidly as the country in the interior becomes settled. It was the fertile appearance of the country extending westward from Geelong, which induced Sir Thomas Mitchell to confer on the district the name of Australia Felix. Another advantage of Geelong is, that it is situated almost in the centre of the richest gold districts yet discovered in Australia, Mount Alexander being about equi-distant from Melbourne and Geelong. But more of this in a future number. The scenery in the neighbourhood of Geelong is deservedly praised as amongst the most beautiful in Australia. The beautiful little bay of Corio, which forms an inner portion of the extensive bay of Port Philip, is surrounded by an amphitheatre of rising ground, perched on the summit of one of which stands the pretty little town of Corio. Station Peak and the Anaki-Youan hills, of volcanic origin, rise up on the opposite shore; and the variety of the view, the rich green of the forest and pasture land, lying under the deep blue of the sky, makes it resemble, and nearly to equal, the choicest Italian scenery. A very brisk trade is carried on at Geelong, and During employment is generally abundant there. the wool season, heavy drays arrive from the distant interior with the wool produce of the season, there to be shipped for England; and heavy purchases of clothes, groceries, and articles of comfort, as well as of luxury, are there made for the families of the interior. The growth of Geelong has been steady and natural, not forced, like Melbourne, by government favouritism, and the numerous adventitious circumstances attaching to the capital of the colony, as the seat of the courts of justice, colleges, schools, and the mart for land speculations. It has grown up with the flocks and herds of the interior. It is the true child of the district, depending upon the prosperity of the country settlers; and, looking at its admirable position as the port of unquestionably the richest pastoral and agricultural district in Australia, we consider that the prosperity of Geelong, its wealth and importance, cannot fail to equal, if not to outstrip, those of any other town in Australia. The rich pastoral district which we have described extends as far westward as Portland; and along the south shore there are several good ports, of which Portland Bay and Port Fairy are the most important. The interior of the district, towards the north, is as yet only occupied by squatters, whose immense flocks graze over a large extent of unreclaimed, and often almost unknown, country. But the colonists are gradually encroaching upon the wilderness, and must at length entirely subdue it. Again, on the opposite side of Port Philip Bay, extending to the eastward, lies the little-known country of Gipps' Land: rich in running streams, navigable lakes, minerals-such as coal, lime, copper, and gold,-and also possessed of a rich and fertile soil. The Australian Alps lie in this district; and the neighbourhood is considered extremely favourable for sheep grazing. Gold has already been found in the Alps, in considerable abundance. The climate of Victoria has been much praised. Its summer (which occurs in our winter time) is that of Nice, Bareges, New York, or Vienna; and its winter is that of Florence, Cadiz, or Rome. The greatest nuisance of the climate is the hot blasts from the north, which bring with them quantities of dust. These blow principally about the end of summer. They resemble the sirocco which blows off the African deserts. The hot wind is usually of short continuance, but is apt to cause ophthalmia and determination of blood to the head; otherwise, the climate is exceedingly genial, wholesome, and bracing. The summers are neither intolerably hot, nor are the winters intensely cold. Out-door labour is never suspended all the year round; and the trees do not shed their leaves as in For nine colder climes, but are always verdant. months in the year, the winds blow from the south, bringing clouds from the Pacific, which discharge showers of rain upon the soil-generally during the night; yet sudden variations of temperature are not unfrequent, and the settlers accordingly usually go about well clad. In winter, thin ice is frequently seen, and snow sometimes, but snow rarely falls except in the mountains. Generally speaking, the climate of South Australia is exceedingly grateful and wholesome to man, and eminently favourable to all kinds of One of the best vegetable and animal produce. proofs of the salubrity of Australia, is to be found in the fact that the invalids of India now resort thither for the resuscitation of their health, in preference to going either to the Cape, to Italy, or to England. In another article we have further to speak of the recently discovered gold-fields of the Victoria colony. THE SONGS OF SCOTLAND. "You must know that all my earlier love-songs were the breathings of ardent passion, and though it might have been easy in after-times to have given them a polish, yet that polish, to me, whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on them. Their unconth simplicity was, as they say of wines, their race."-Burns's Letters to Thomson. SCOTLAND is especially rich in its treasures of native music and song. Both are thoroughly national, characteristic, original, and racy of the soil. Wherever you meet with them-abroad or at home, amid the tropics or at the antipodes their intense nationality of feeling at once reveals their origin. It may truly be averred that the heart of the Scotch people is written in their songs. They are the vehicle of deepest emotion, of playfulest humour, and of most passionate love. It was a Scotchman-the patriotic Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun-who said, "Give me the making of a nation's songs, and I will let who pleases make its laws." The full force of this sentiment can scarcely be felt by the English or the American reader; for this reason, that song, in England and America, is not national, as it is in Scotland, where it pervades the moral atmosphere in which the people breathe. Though the Reformation fell with greater weight upon Scotland than upon any other country, and the sombre influence of Knox and Calvin enveloped the nation, and gave a strong and abiding colour to the life, the habits, and character of the people, yet the spirit of song survived amid it all, and the popular voice found its freest vent in melody and verse. The Scotch songs were not heard in the halls of the rich only, but were the familiar entertainment of the poorest cotter in his clay-built biggin. You see this in the character of the Scotch songs to this day. They sing of cottage life, of scanty fare, and of the loves of the poor. The most popular songs of all are those which depict the lot of toil; and through the cheerful, hopeful, and happy spirit which they breathe, they serve to gladden the humblest condition. "Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair," is the healthy moral which runs through them all. Take, for instance, the common old ditty of "Clean Pease Strae," in which the Scotch lass is counselled as to the prominent circumstance which should govern her in the choice of a husband. It is not "respectability,' "class position," an "establishment," or any such thing; but pure love and "eident" industry. As usual with the Scotch song, there is a little bit of story in it; but see how simple and natural it is! We quote from memory, so that a slip or two must be excused by the Scottish reader : When John an' I were married My minnie, canker'd carlin, Wad gie us nought ava. We wair't our fee wi' cannie care, As far as it wad gae, Then kind we cuddled down at e'en, 'Mang clean pease strae. By workin' late an' early, We've come to what you see; And Fortune thrave aneath our hands, The rose blooms gay on Cairny Banks, And love will lowe in cottage low, As weel's in lofty ha'. Sac lassie tak' the lad ye like, Whate'er your minnie say, Though ye should cuddle down at e'en 'Mang clean pease strae. Scotch songs are not "pretty." Though they have been the rage in drawing-rooms, they are yet born of the people. They were not meant to be merely ornamental; they were the growth of simple taste, of true feeling, often of intense passion. Love, joy, patriotism, are their inspiration; not an affected feeling of things, but real, earnest, genuine feeling. Their power seizes hold of you. They stream with hopes and fears, and bounding delights. Burns often succeeds in working out a drama in a few graphic stanzas, which straightway reach your heart-strings and hold fast by them. Barry Cornwall-no bad judge of good song-writing, says of Burns, "To my thinking, the sentiment in some of Burns's songs is as fine and as true as anything in Shakspere himself." Burns's best songs often approach the ballad in character-comprising a story as well as a sentiment, and yet, at the same time, essentially a song. Take, as an instance of this, his immortal song of "Highland Mary," which is only too long for quotation. But " Lucy's Flitting," by William Laidlaw, the friend of Sir Walter Scott, and for a long time his secretary, is so exquisite an example of the Scotch song-writers' art of embodying a story in a song, that we cannot forbear the temptation of giving it here 'Twas when the wan leaf frae the birk-tree was fa'in, Oh, what is't that pits my puir heart in a flutter? Then what gars me wish ony better to be? The lamb likes the gowan wi' dew when its droukit, The hare likes the brake and the braird on the lea; But Lucy likes Jamie ;-she turn'd and she lookit, She thocht the dear place she wad never mair see. Ah, weel may young Jamie gang dowie and cheerless, And weel may he greet on the bank o' the burn; For bonny sweet Lucy, sae gentle and peerless, Lies cauld in her grave, and will never return! You would scarcely expect so much glowing passion among a people so proverbially "cold" as the Scotch. But there you have it, unmistakeably intense, in their popular literature-their songs. The love-songs of Scotland are wonderfully full of poetic beauty, and of deep, intense feeling. Not Burns only, but a host of other Scotch song-writers, from poets whose names are lost, though their songs survive, down to There is a Allan Cunningham and James Hogg. verse of a beautiful old song, by a writer whose name has been lost, which Burns adopted as an introduction to several verses of his own; though they are certainly inferior to this original opening stanzas— O gin my love were yon red rose That grows upon the castle wa', And I mysel' a drap o' dew Into her bonnie breast to fa'! O then, beyond expression blest, I'd feast on beauty a' the night, Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest, Till fley'd away by morning's light!" And the exquisite ballads of " 'Mary of Castle Cary," by Hector Macneill, and of "Mary Morrison," by Motherwell, show that the genius of the Scottish song-writers has not degenerated in modern times. Songs of humble courtship, too, there are in great abundance, containing pictures of Scottish life such as you can find nowhere else. Some village fair one is depicted in glowing colours, as a very Venus— indeed, to the lover, whether in cottage or palace life, but in the former more than in the latter case, she is all in all, and the personation of everything that is fair and beautiful and loving in woman. "My Peggy is a young thing," by Allan Ramsay, is "Will ye a charming specimen of this kind of song. gae to the ewe-bughts, Marion," is another of the same kind; both words and music of great antiquity. It begins Will ye gae to the ewe-bughts, Marion, O, Marion's a bonnie lass, And the blithe blink 's in her ee; And fain wad I marry Marion, Gin Marion wad marry me." There is, sometimes, too, a roguishness about the Scotch singer's description of rustic beauty, which has all the grace of Suckling and Lovelace, with much more than their heartiness and naturalness. What, for instance, can be more exquisite than the little bit of character so deliciously hit off in the following two stanzas of an old Scotch song, in which the rustic poet is describing his mistress : In preaching time sae meek she stands, Sae saintly and sae bonnie, O, 1 cannot get ae glimpse of grace, For thieving looks at Nanie, 0; My Nanie, O, my Nanie, O; The world's in love with Nanie, O; Scotch songs also abound in pictures of domestic peace and comfort. "There's nae Luck aboot the House," is a capital specimen of this style of song. A husband is about to arrive at home, after a long absence. The wife speaks : But are ye sure the news is true? Is this a time to think o' wark? Ye jauds, fling by your wheel! For there's nae luck aboot the house, Is this a time to think o' wark, * My Turkey slippers I'll put on, Sae sweet his voice, sae smooth his tongue, His very foot has music in't As he comes up the stair. And will I see his face again, And will I hear him speak? I'm downricht dizzy wi' the thocht, In troth I'm like to greet. There's nae luck, &c. We could say much of the pauky humour of the Scotch songs, so prominently displayed in such as "Rob Rorrison's Bannit," Robert Nicoll's "Jannet Dunbar," and Burns's "Duncan Gray." Here is a verse from the latter song, which may be pronounced unsurpassable, though we despair of conveying to English readers the full force of the native humour it contains: Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan prayed, Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig,* Ha, ha, the wooing o't. Duncan sigh'd baith out and in, Grat his een baith bleart and blin', Ha, ha, the wooing o't. This little verse would require a powerful Scotch glossary to explain it; for it must be acknowledged to be intensely Doric. And here we would notice another delicious feature of these Scotch songs-which is their abounding joy in the beauties of external nature. The lover woos his bride 46 By Logan's Streams," on "Yarrow Braes," along "Loch Erroch side," by the "Birks of Aberfeldy,' in "Kelvin Grove," while "Comin' through the Rye," or "Low down in the Broom," or A lofty crag off the coast of Ayrshire. "When the Kye come Hame," or Amang the Riggs o' Barley.' In these popular songs you have a succession of beautiful pastoral pictures, lit up by the glowing sentiment of love. The scenes are mostly laid in the open air, amidst pastures, and woods, and green fields, or by the gentle flow of some winding stream. Thus the scenery of Scotland has become immortalized through its songs, and the "Yellow broom of Cowdenknowes," the "Bush aboon Traquair,' the "Birks of Invermay," the "Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon," are known and sung wherever the English language has reached. These Scotch songs have served to make Scotland dear to thousands of hearts not knit to her by the ties of country or of kindred; while the memory of them, as sung by the lips most loved on earth, keeps the hearts of Scotchmen ever warm towards their native land, though sundered from it by broad oceans and continents. Thus "Auld Lang Syne" is sung by Scotchmen, in chorus, on the banks of the Ganges or the Yarra Yarra, and their eyes glisten, and their hearts throb, as they recall to mind the home of their youth, and the many dear friends they have left behind them there. Robert Nicoll has told a story of the influence of one of the popular songs of Scotland upon a Highland soldier engaged in the expedition to Buenos Ayres many years ago. The soldier had been taken prisoner by the Spaniards. Having formed an attachment to a woman of the country, and charmed by the easy life which the tropical fertility of the soil enabled the inhabitants to lead, he had resolved to remain and settle in South America. When he imparted this resolution to his comrade, the latter did not argue with him, but leading him to his tent, he placed him by his side, and sung him "Lochaber no more.' The spell was instantly on him. The tears came into his eyes, and wrapping his plaid around him, he murmured, "Lochaber nae mair! 1 maun gang backNa!" The songs of his childhood were ringing in his ears, and he left that land of ease and plenty for the naked rocks and sterile valleys of Badenoch, where, at the close of a life of toil and hardship, he might lay his head in his mother's grave." A theory has been formed of the origin of this characteristic national song amongst the Scotch-so different from anything on this side of the Tweed. It has been attributed to the mountainous country, and to the strong patriotic feelings which the inhabitants of such a country are supposed to cherish for it, in comparison with the inhabitants of more level and fertile countries. But this theory is, we think, disposed of by the fact, that the national song of Scotland is almost entirely confined to the Lowlands, -the richest, most fertile, and level part of the country-scarcely, in these respects, to be distinguished from England. There are many parts of England, from the Border down to the West Riding of Yorkshire, which are more mountainous than the Lowlands of Scotland; and yet they have not produced a native song that we know of. The Highlanders, who inhabit the mountainous and picturesque part of Scotland, have added very little to its stores of national music, except a few wild pibrochs, befitting the uncouth instrument on which they are usually played the Highland bagpipe. The Scotch songs are not Celtic, nor are they wedded to Celtic words, but to the Lowland Doric Scotch-a dialect of the mixed Saxon, Danish, and Norman, like our own English. But where has the music come from? From what ancient race have these beautiful old-world melodies descended? Some of them are doubtless native to the people, have been created by them, sung by them, and handed down to their children. Others |