A collection of ancient and modern Scottish ballads, etc

IV
pathos, and descriptive beauty of their country's
bards. Our language may fluctuate, and per-
haps be lost in the English, but so long as there
remains amongst us a taste for simplicity in writ-
ing, and beauty in poetry, so long will our an-
cient ballads and songs be admired. They are
very numerous, and exhibit an astonishing fer-
tility of genius in their authors, who relate the
loves, depict the manners, and record the actions
of a rude but gallant people, with a brevity of
description, and a tenderness of feeling, that take
a firm hold of the mind ; and may therefore be
studied with much advantage by the lover of true
poetry, and perused with no little mental profit
by the politician and historian.—It was on these
foundations that Burns raised that fame which
immortalises him ; his enthusiastic admiration
led him to imitate, and he surpassed them in
feeling, and equalled them in humour ; his cri-
tical taste improved many of our old songs, and
his compositions have raised the lyric poetry of
Scotland above that of every other country.
To him have succeeded Macneill, Hogg, and
Tannahill, who uphold the lustre of their pre-
decessors by the lively images and natural feel-
ing which pervade their pieces, and by that
want of gaudy colouring which dazzles the eye
but never readies the affections.