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My idea at first as to call my address — The Songs and Singers 

 of Cumberland* and Lakeland, because the productions of the 

 poets of whom I have been speaking seldom get beyond the 

 compass of what we understand by a Imllad or a song ; though if 

 you take the word song in its fullest acceptation, it is difficult to 

 limit the kind of poetry to which it may be applied : David was 

 the sweet singer of Israel, and Carlyle calls the stupendous work 

 of Dante a song. 



It is maintained now by many, that the immortal work of 

 Homer consisted originally of songs or rhapsodies in which the 

 history and the manners of the earlier Grecians were sung by the 

 wandering minstrels at their festive assemblies. 



Such songs seem to have formed the method by which the 

 traditionary history of the earlier Romans, in all their rustic austerity 

 and simplicity, was handed down to the knowledge of the later 

 historians. These are the songs which Macaulay has so success- 

 fully attempted to imitate in his Lays of Ancient Rome, and 

 possibly there was no more effective way of handing down the 

 history and the memory of their ancestors than when — 



With weeping and with laughter 



Still is the story told, 

 How well Horatius kept the bridge 



In the brave days of old. 



It is somewhat in the same way — to compare great things with 

 small — that we find the chief value for the songs and singers of 

 our native land. 



They spoke a language which, though fast dying out, still retains 

 its hold in many of our sequestered valleys. They give truthful 

 glimpses of the manners and customs of our forefathers ; and some 

 of the most enduring sketches of the history of our country are 

 preserved — when they are preserved at all — in the rhyme and 

 rhythm of their well-remembered lines. 



For retaining a vivid remembrance of events ; for handing down 



* " The Songs and Singers of Cumberland'" was the title which I gave to 

 this paper when, with some omissions, I read it at the Mechanics' Institute at 

 Coniston on October 30th (under the presidency of Dr. Kendall), as the first of 

 the Coniston series of lectures for the winter of 18S4-85. 



