Minstrels of the Celtic nations: metaphors in early nineteenth-century Celtic song collections.

McAulay, Karen E.

When it comes to nineteenth-century song collections, most librarians probably find that Schubert, Schumann, or Brahms are used more than any national, or so-called folk song collections. After all, nineteenth-century German Lieder are core repertoire. Edward Jones (2), Robert Archibald Smith, (3) or John Stevenson and Thomas Moore (4) quite simply are not! Whilst a few of Moore's songs are still sung--like his 'The Last Rose of Summer', or 'The Minstrel Boy'--the late-eighteenth-century Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards, and Smith's two early-nineteenth-century collections, The Scotish Minstrel and The Irish Minstrel, are now distinctly rare.

Of course, major composers such as Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms all made arrangements of national songs, but there are many more contemporary collections by less well-known but perfectly competent arrangers.

It can be argued, though, that old national song collections have their own intrinsic value. Indeed, national song collections contain something not generally found in an art-song collection--namely their prefaces or introductions and any annotations on the individual songs. In literary terms, this is known as paratextual material--the commentary that sets the collection itself in context.

Thus, whilst collections of art songs stand on their own merits, it is evident that compilers of national song collections felt a compulsion to set the tone of their collection with commentary of some kind. The preface might discuss the provenance of the songs, issues of editorial policy, or the accompaniment. But what I find most interesting are the clues concerning the cultural preoccupations of their compilers.

By the turn of the eighteenth century, British and Irish national song collections came in many shapes and sizes--verses alone, unaccompanied melodies, and varying kinds of accompaniment. Indeed, Stevenson's and Bishop's settings of Moore's Irish melodies sometimes come close to the richly complex settings of Beethoven himself.

The present article will introduce a few early-nineteenth-century collections that are of particular interest to the musicologist with an interest in cultural history. Robert Archibald Smith's The Scotish Minstrel and his subsequent The Irish Minstrel bridge the chronological gap between the late-eighteenth- and very early-nineteenth-century collections by the likes of George Thomson or James Johnson (to take opposite extremes) and later Victorian collections. Smith's simple but musically competent arrangements went beyond the simple figured bass in Johnson's Scottish Musical Museum (5), but took a quite different direction to the complex settings in Thomson's A Select Collection of Original Scotish Airs for the Voice (6)--and would have been much more playable.

Smith, initially a weaver like his father, made music his profession from the age of 27. In Paisley, he was precentor (leader of the music) at Paisley Abbey Church and a music teacher, later moving to become choirmaster at St George's Parish Church in Edinburgh. In keeping with the current vogue for authenticity and preservation of a vanishing heritage, his Scotish Minstrel books purported to contain songs collected from genuine country folk. Smith had friends in high places--including the ballad collector William Mother-well, and the Jacobite sympathizer and poet Lady Carolina Nairne, whose committee of ladies carefully vetted Smith's selection prior to publication, as they were anxious to cleanse the songs of any vulgarity or impropriety. (Indeed, Lady Carolina even disputed whether it was necessary for the Scottish dialect to be used exclusively, arguing that the English dialect was 'so civilised' compared to 'broad Scotch'.) (7) Lady Carolina herself delivered songs incognito to the publisher, calling herself enigmatically, 'Mrs Bogan of Bogan'. It would have been rather improper for a lady in her position to become directly and publicly involved in authoring songs for publication.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a music dictionary writer called David Baptie commented that The Scotish Minstrel contained many of Smith's own songs, "frequently anonymous". (8) An examination of surviving correspondence between Smith and ballad collector William Motherwell confirmed that Smith had made up some of the songs, and passed them off as old.

Smith wanted Motherwell to author the preface to the final volume. When Motherwell couldn't meet the deadline, Smith and Lady Nairne's committee wrote it and asked Motherwell to glance over it and edit as necessary. Two aspects are interesting: firstly, Smith's own confession of writing new material and passing it off as old material, and, secondly, the terms in which Smith initially asked Motherwell to help. The following is taken from a letter from Smith to Motherwell, written on 13 October, 1823:-

   [...] I write this very hurriedly to trouble you with a Parcel for
   the redoubtable Spinner of verses Wm Chalmers (9) -[...] I have
   sent him an air as written from his Singing that he never saw or
   heard of before[;] likewise his delectable song of "Wig a-jee"[.] I
   intend to [...] introduce their author into the Preface if we have
   any. As this is to be the last Vol., I have been hoaxing most d--y
   God forgive me [...] The fragment of "Heigh ho the green Rowan
   tree" is mine words and all--[...] [...] it has just come back from
   being inspected by the Ladies who are wonderfully well pleased with
   it [...] (10)

Smith went on to ask:

   Do for God's sake make out a Preface[;] we must wind up the matter
   decently and brag of course of the many fine airs produced and
   saved from oblivion. (11)

The question of fakery, and related theme of 'found' songs, is in itself quite intriguing, as are the metaphors used to describe them.

The question of authenticity had troubled song collectors for years. It was particularly important that the songs and song texts were perceived to come from the peasantry--because there had been a major literary scandal about the Ossian poems allegedly translated from the Gaelic by the Highlander James Macpherson in the 1760s. (12)

In fact, there is a whole genre of literary fakes from this era. Smith's contemporary, the poet Allan Cunningham, ruined the reputation of the Yorkshireman Cromek by supplying fake songs for his Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, and wrote a much-lauded poetry collection, The Songs of Scotland, in similar vein. (13) But the fakery went beyond poetry into fiction, alleged attribution, and even fake identities.

There was also a distinct trend for "found" manuscripts, going back to Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765)--actually a real manuscript, but lavishly edited by Bishop Percy for publication. (14) The trend continued as a theme for novels by authors such as Sir Walter Scott (The Antiquary) and James Hogg (The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner). (15) Therefore, it begins to look as though R. A. Smith's fabrication of 'national' songs, and fake attributions actually reflected contemporary literary trends. And if any further proof is needed, it is to be found in the metaphors used in these national song collections.

Let's take a closer look at the prefaces to Smith's two collections, the 'Scotish ' and Irish Minstrels. In the first volume of The Scotish Minstrel, the author assures the reader that the music and poetry 'are national, as we have scrupulously avoided the insertion of any airs or verses, however beautiful, that are not of Scotish origin.' Next, he highlights the inclusion of 'hitherto unpublished' songs, and likens folk music to the wild flowers of nature, gathered from 'the peasantry', rather than being art-songs. The Irish Minstrel preface likewise uses similar imagery, as is shown in Table 1 below.

Scotish Minstrel simple "breathings of nature" ... Not a few of these wild flowers have been gathered from the peasantry.

Irish Minstrel '... our old national melodies are imperishable plants, unfading evergreens ...'

TABLE 1 Floral and nature metaphors in Smith's Scotish & Irish Minstrels

In the Scotish Minstrel, several more pages then draw upon earlier authorities as to the age and ancestry of the contents, before the author winds up the Preface with a reference to the collection's namesake, the 'Scotish Minstrel' himself:.

   ... from the liberal contributions that have been sent to us, we
   have a store of materials, which are now in preparation for a
   Supplementary Volume. There are some Scotch bards to whom we have
   not had the courage to make any application; but if they would
   twine a wreath for the Minstrel, proud would he be to wear it. We
   now send him forth, "with all his imperfections on his head", like
   other Minstrels, to wander through the mountains of his native
   land--to traverse the green wilds of Erin, and the sequestered
   vales of Cambria; and, we trust, he will be hospitably received"
   'mong merry England's cultured fields." (16)

It is evident that, for R. A. Smith, Lady Nairne, and her Committee, the old anxieties about authenticity have been quelled. Instead, we have symbolic imagery, and the expectation of a warm reception for the Scottish minstrel in the welcoming arms of his Celtic and English cousins. We note how Smith has been careful to place this collection within a wider Celtic tradition when he mentions that the minstrel (and his songs) are sent 'to traverse the green wilds of Erin, and the sequestered vales of Cambria' ... and to 'merry England...'.

Furthermore, several distinct themes are emerging. The first is the idea of the minstrel. Going back at least as far as Bishop Percy's Reliques, much was made of the minstrel and the bardic tradition. In fact, the inspiration was very much due to a poem called 'The Bard', written by Thomas Gray in 1757. It was based on a story that King Edward I massacred all the nation's bards, until he came to the last bard, who berated him for what he had done, then committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. Images of the wandering minstrel and his harp pervade poetry and song collections, whether on the cover, in the title, prefatory context, poetic subject matter, or as an engraving (see Illustration 1 below).

In fact, there was also a late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Gothic genre of what's now identified as 'minstrel-writing', where the minstrel was a key character in the novel. He was not necessarily cast in the role of subservient servant supported by a patron. For example, in 1806, the Irish writer Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan) wrote an enormously popular novel entitled The Wild Irish Girl, with Glorvina (the beautiful daughter of a deposed, impoverished Irish king) playing her harp divinely in ruined ancestral halls.

In song collections as well as novels, the minstrel represented timeless tradition. Crumbling ancestral piles, solitary minstrels, and impoverished descendants of royalty all had a particular resonance with contemporary audiences. The Scottish Union and Jacobite rebellions were long past, but their memory lived on.

In Ireland, Sydney Owenson, Thomas Moore, and their contemporaries were still living in turbulent times. They resented the loss of their own royalty amid the interference of the English many generations before. Within their own generation, there had been an Irish rebellion in 1798, and the Act of Union, creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was passed in January 1801. The political atmosphere was highly charged. The quasi-masonic organisation called the United Irishmen, which had a strong interest in literary nationalism, made much of the symbolism of the new-strung harp, metaphorically playing to a new tune. Their minstrel, far from being a symbol of servitude, was becoming a symbol of liberty and defiance.

In 1805, the year before Owenson's novel The Wild Irish Girl thrust her into public prominence, she published a book of Irish songs based on Irish Gaelic airs: Twelve Original Hibernian Melodies. (17) Moore began publishing his Irish Melodies in 1808, continuing until 1834.

Cultural nationalism exudes from every pore of these collections. This is because the raw pain of the long-past Scottish Union and Jacobite rebellions, or more recent Irish history, could safely be described in an artistic context, and political resentments made more acceptable, by mingling them with an aura of tragic loss. Significantly, in Moore's 'The Minstrel Boy', our bard goes to be a soldier. The song has had many revivals.

As mentioned already, R. A. Smith compiled a parallel collection called The Irish Minstrel after his Scotish Minstrel series. The Scottish writer who contributed the lyrics to Smith's first Irish song, 'Dear Harp of Erin', certainly recognised the significance of the bard and his harp to the Irish. Again, the accompaniment is very simple indeed--quite different to Thomson's artistic extravaganzas.

Smith got into trouble about his Irish Minstrel because of allegations that he had lifted material from Thomas Moore's collections: Gillian Hughes has revealed that Smith made simpler settings of certain lyrics by James Hogg that Thomas Moore had used in his Irish Melodies; Moore or his publisher subsequently demanded that the first edition of Smith's Irish Minstrel be burnt. Hughes finds that, although Smith denied trying to compete with Moore's collection, his arguments were weak. Plainly, copyright is not merely a modern concern. (18)

A cursory glance at the illustrations from different editions Moore's Irish Melodies, and the titles of some of his songs, are sufficient to demonstrate the importance of bards, minstrels and harps to the audiences of the day. In Illustration 1, the title page of a words-only edition of 1859, (19) we have the evocative image of the solitary blind minstrel, perched on a [space] moss-covered ruin, and apparently lost in thought. (Knowing the cultural background of the United Irish movement, we might go so far as to suggest that the image is a symbolic representation of nostalgia for the songs and history of Ireland's distant past.)

In Illustration 2, we have the Minstrel Boy, cast down on the field of battle. Weapons are strewn on the ground around him, and another warrior lies, perhaps dead, behind him. Despite the pandemonium, with horsemen and foot-soldiers approaching, the minstrel boy defiantly breaks his harp strings rather than let it be played in captivity.

The text for 'The Minstrel Boy' is an interesting mix of calls for patriotism and defence, while at the same time putting through an unsubtle call for Irish freedom.

   The Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone,
   In the ranks of death you'll find him,
   His father's sword he has girded on,
   And his wild harp slung behind him."-
   "Land of song!" said the warrior-bard,
   "Tho' all the world betrays thee,
   "One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
   "One faithful harp shall praise thee!"

   The Minstrel fell!--but the foeman's chain
   Could not bring his proud soul under;
   The harp he loved ne'er spoke again,
   For he tore its chords asunder;
   And said "No chains shall sully thee,
   "Thou soul of love and bravery!
   "Thy songs were made for the pure and free,
   "They shall never sound in slavery!"

The bardic history was just as important to the Welsh, although their recent political history was less eventful. Nonetheless, as mentioned earlier, Thomas Gray's poem, 'The Bard: a Pindaric Ode', can be given much of the credit for the subsequent popularity of bardic and minstrel writing. Jones published his Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards in 1794, (20) following this with The Bardic Museum in 1802. (21)

The frontispiece here, far from portraying either the violent ending of the 'last Bard' or indeed any more contemporary political symbolism, incongruously shows a rather gentlemanly bard in knee-britches playing a full-sized harp (not the smaller crwth, or folk-harp), to an assembly of men, women and children on a hillside. It is set in context by a suitable epigraph. (The epigraph, incidentally, is a conflation of quotations from poems by Joseph Addison and Thomas Sheridan--and actually has nothing to do with Welsh song!)

   'The Muse so oft her silver Harp has strung,
   That not a mountain rears his head unsung." (22)
   "And many an amorous, many a humorous Lay,
   Which many a Bard had chanted many a day." (23)

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Two further categories of metaphors emerge in national song collections--the natural, organic imagery of flowers, paths and streams, and the likening of traditional songs to precious jewels. The symbolism of both is fairly obvious--plants and wild flowers grow naturally, and if they're wild, then they're unspoilt, and grow without human cultivation. (Indeed even today, as twenty-first-century consumers, we are still drawn to the idea of things being wild and natural.)

Nonetheless, the wild flower is a common metaphor in writings of this period. Sir Walter Scott alluded to 'garlands of song' and 'wild-flowers' in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-1803), including the land itself in his metaphor--perhaps reminding us that the agricultural revolution was just getting under way:

   Like the natural free gifts of Flora, these poetical garlands can
   only be successfully sought for where the land is uncultivated; and
   civilisation and increase of learning are sure to banish them, as
   the plough of the agriculturalist bears down the mountain daisy. (24)

And only three years later, Sydney Owenson, who admired Walter Scott greatly but was not a personal friend, went to even greater lengths in the preface to her Twelve Original Hibernian Airs of 1805, implying that through this collection, she was saving the music from its inevitable disappearance

   [...] But while the broad field of Irish music, even in its
   autumnal decline, afforded a rich harvest to the successful
   exertions of national taste, some few blossoms of poesy and song
   were still left [...] It was reserved for the [...] humble gleaner,
   to discover the neglected charms, and to behold them like the rose,
   fragrant even in decay. [...]

   I have endeavoured to snatch them from the chilling atmosphere of
   oblivion, and bound them in a wild and simple wreath [...]

Jewels, similarly, are things to be treasured forever. Allan Cunningham's nature metaphors in the preface to his The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern (1825), (25) resembled those in Walter Scott's earlier Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Yet, by mixing in the precious stones metaphors, Cunningham's confession to a friend about his contributions to Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale (1810) collection is in metaphorical terms even richer than Scott's:

   The critics are much of the same mind as yourself. Your conjecture
   is not very far wrong as to my share of the book. Was it the duty
   of a son to show the nakedness of his own land? No, my dear friend.
   I went before and made the path straight. I planted here and there
   a flower--dropped here and there a honeycomb--plucked away the
   bitter gourd--cast some jewels in the by-paths and in the fields,
   so that the traveller might find them, and wonder at the richness
   of the land that produced them! Nor did I drop them in vain. Pardon
   the confession, and keep it a secret. (26)

Whilst this paper has focused on collections published in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, it is important to note that the imagery and metaphors did not dry up straight away. For example, an 1858 edition by George Gilfillan of Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, allows us to find both Percy's minstrels and bards, and nineteenth-century Gilfillan's natural metaphors. Just look at the rich metaphors in Gilfillan's preface:

   It was not surprising that, in such a dreary dearth, a small bunch
   of wild flowers, culled, as it were, from the walls of a ruined
   castle, but, with the scent of free winds, and the freshness of the
   dew, and the tints of the sun upon the leaves [...] should attract
   notice and awaken delight [...] (27)

However, new political developments sometimes led to unexpected new notes appearing amongst the old familiar metaphors and imagery. Take, for example, an Irish collection dating from 1846, called The Spirit of the Nation. It was first published as two series in May and November 1843 as The Spirit of the Nation, by the Writers of The Nation Newspaper, with the tunes named but no music supplied. (28) Its popularity was such that it was published as a new, augmented edition in six numbers in 1844, and finally as a single volume, now with music added, in 1846. (The Preface to this last is actually dated 'Nation Office, 1st January, 1845', but the frontispiece is dated 1846.) (29) The binding is embellished with a gold embossed minstrel with his harp. He's seated beside a river, by a ruined tower and a crumbling Celtic cross. The image of the round tower is distinctly Irish, where they were probably used as defensive keeps. All the imagery: the round tower and the Celtic cross, as well as the shape of the harp, would have very Irish resonances.

The frontispiece main picture similarly shows a young bard with harp, described by the poet Thomas Davis as "the minstrel of the Nation"; an old bard who has been awoken by the younger man's singing; and "two young brothers in arms", with further symbolism in the smaller pictures. None of this was accidental: the artist Frederic W. Burton's design for both cover and frontispiece was intentionally, and lavishly rich in metaphor, as explained at length in an essay by the poet Thomas Davis, who was involved in the Young Ireland movement behind both this collection and The Nation newspaper, and was indeed one of the founders of the latter, which had been established in 1842. (30)

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The Spirit of the Nation mainly contains poems, though there are some musical items. Many of the contents are about fighting for freedom, but there's a blend of old imagery and much more contemporary material, including a musical item, 'The Repealer's Trumpet Call'--an instrumental setting for four trumpets, drum, and 'Band'. 'The Repealer' is a reference to the Repeal Association founded by Daniel O'Connell in 1840, against the Act of Union of 1801 between Great Britain and Ireland. So this apparently innocuous-looking book was actually at the sharp edge of a political movement.

Instances like this confirm the value of these old national song collections, and are what make them so fascinating. It is only too easy--and indeed too tempting--to visualise our minstrel, harp in hand, wandering timelessly and endlessly between the Celtic nations. Flower-strewn paths and bejewelled fields lead him from picturesque riversides to ruined castles, as he sings, with a catch in his voice, about long-forgotten times and lost freedoms. However, depending on the collection, this imagery may represent many opposing ideas: nostalgia for long-lost times; a retrospective tribute to Gray's popular and poignant ode; historical bitterness; or, indeed, coded calls for rebellion. I would argue that an understanding and appreciation of these different cultural influences helps us to understand the distinctive contexts in which these Celtic collections were both compiled and received, and enables us in turn to appreciate them for the unique insights offered by national songbooks, as opposed to the more mainstream art-song repertoire.

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Karen E McAulay (1)

(1.) Dr Karen McAulay is Music and Academic Services Librarian at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. This paper was given at the IAML Conference in Dublin, Ireland, July 2011.

(2.) Edward Jones, Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (London, 1794); The Bardic Museum (London: Printed for the author by A. Strahan, 1802).

(3.) Robert Archibald Smith, The Scotish Minstrel: a selection from the vocal melodies of Scotland, ancient and modern, 6 vols (Edinburgh: R. Purdie, [1821-1824?]); The Irish Minstrel, a Selection from the Vocal Melodies of Ireland, Ancient and Modern. Arranged for the Piano Forte, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: R. Purdie, 1825).

(4.) Thomas Moore, Moore's Irish Melodies, 10 vols [1-7, arr. John Stevenson; 8-10 arr. Henry Rowley Bishop] (London: Power, 1808-34).

(5.) James Johnson, The Scots Musical Museum, 6 vols (Edinburgh: James Johnson, 1787-93); The Scotish Musical Museum: Consisting of Upwards of Six Hundred Songs, 6 vols (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1839); and The Scots Musical Museum: Consisting of Upwards of Six Hundred Songs, with Proper Basses for the Pianoforte, New edn, 4 vols (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1853).

(6.) George Thomson, Robert Burns, and Allan Ramsay, A Select Collection of Original Scotish Airs for the Voice, to Each of Which Are Added, Introductory & Concluding Symphonies, & Accompanyments [sic] for the Violin & Piano Forte [...], with Select & Characteristic Verses by the Most Admired Scotish Poets, Adapted to Each Air, Many of Them Entirely New, Also Suitable English Verses, in Addition to Such of the Songs as Are Written in the Scotish Dialect (London: Printed & sold by Preston & Son, 1793); followed by his A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, for the Voice, with Introductory & Concluding Symphonies & Accompaniments for the Piano Forte, Violin & Violoncello (London: Printed & Sold by Preston & Son, 1801-1841), 6 vols., numerous issues and editions.

(7.) Oliphant, Caroline, Life and Songs of the Baroness Nairne: with a Memoir and Poems of Caroline Oliphant the Younger, ed. by Charles Rogers (London: Griffin, 1869), xlii-xliii.

(8.) David Baptie, Musical Scotland (Paisley: Parlane, 1894), 174.

(9.) William Chalmers, evidently a poet, has not been conclusively identified. Robert Burns earlier made use of a "notary public" by this name, in the town of Ayr in 1786, but he would have been a very old man by 1823. Having said that, Ayr is not too far from Paisley, where Smith and Motherwell had lived, so it is not impossible that this was the same man.

(10.) Letter from Smith to Motherwell dated 13th October 1823, Glasgow University Library, GB 0247 MS Robertson 3/13, ff. 22r-23r.

(11.) Ibid.

(12.) The works were collected in The Works of Ossian, the Son of Fingal, (London, Printed for T. Becket and P. A. Dehondt at Tully's Head,1765).

(13.) Robert Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1810); Allan Cunningham, The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern; with an Introduction and Notes, Historical and Critical, and Characters of the Lyric Poets (London: Printed for John Taylor, 1825)

(14.) Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, songs, and other pieces of our earlier Poets, (chiefly of the lyric kind.) Together with some few of later date, 3 vols (London: Dodsley, 1765).

(15.) Walter Scott, The Antiquary (Edinburgh : Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh; and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London., 1816); and James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Written by Himself: With a Detail of Curious Traditionary Facts, and Other Evidence, by The Editor (London : Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1824).

(16.) Smith, Scotish Minstrel, I, viii. Note the veiled invitation (... but if they would twine a wreath for the Minstrel, proud would he be to wear it ...) to contemporary poets to write new material for "the Minstrel"

(17.) Twelve Original Hibernian Melodies, with English Words, imitated and translated, from the Works of the Ancient Irish Bards, with an introductory Preface and Dedication, by Miss S. Owenson. Arranged for the Voice, with an Accompaniment for the Piano Forte [by J. Hook] (London: Preston, [1805?])

(18.) For more about Smith's alleged copyright breach, see Gillian Hughes, 'Irish Melodies and a Scottish Minstrel', in Studies in Hogg and his World, 13 (2002), 36-45.

(19.) Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies (Halifax: Milner and Sowerby, 1859).

(20.) Jones, Edward, Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards: preserved by Tradition and authentic Manuscripts, from very remote Antiquity (London: Printed for the Author, 1794).

(21.) Jones, Edward, The Bardic Museum, of Primitive British Literature, and other admirable rarities; forming the second volume of the Musical, Poetical, and Historical Relicks of the Welsh Bards and Druids (London: Printed for the Author, 1802).

(22.) Joseph Addison, 'Windermere Lake'

(23.) Thomas Sheridan, Lectures on the Art of Reading (1775)

(24.) Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: consisting of Historical and Romantic Ballads, collected in the Southern Counties of Scotland; with a few of modern date, founded upon ancient tradition. (Kelso; Edinburgh; London: Printed by J. Ballantyne, for T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, 1802-1803), Vol. I, 23-24.

(25.) Allan Cunningham, The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern (London: Printed for John Taylor, 1825).

(26.) David Hogg, The Life of Allan Cunningham, with Selections from his Works and Correspondence (Dumfries: John Anderson, 1875), 124. (One can infer from the context that this letter dates c. 1810-11.)

(27.) Percy, Thomas, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: consisting of old heroic ballads, songs, and other pieces of our earlier poets ; together with some few of later date; memoir and critical dissertation by George Gilfillan (Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1858), Vol.1, p. x-xi

(28.) The Spirit of the Nation, by the Writers of The Nation Newspaper (Dublin: James Duffy, 1843).

(29.) The Spirit of the Nation: Ballads and songs by the writers of 'The Nation', with original and ancient music, arranged for the voice and pianoforte. (Dublin: J. Duffy, 1846).

(30.) Thomas Davis, 'Irish Arf, The Nation, 27 July 1844, most recently reprinted in Essays of Thomas Davis, Centenary Edition, ed. With Preface and Notes by D. J. O'Donoghue, with an Essay by John Mitchel (New York: Lemma Publishing Corporation, 1974), 164-66. Davis's writings are cited by both Mary Helen Thuente, The Harp Re-strung: the United Irishmen and the Rise of Irish Literary Nationalism (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1994), 226-227; and Fintan Cullen. (Sources in Irish Art: a Reader, ed. Fintan Cullen (Cork: Cork University Press, 2000), p. 246-248. (Cullen also cites works by Jeanne Sheehy (1980) and Harry White (1998) in connection with the Spirit of the Nation collections.).