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the Saviss and the Calabrese. We find none of these airs 

 of traditional music, wildly sweet, and simply pathetic, 

 which speak so forcibly to the heart, and operate like 

 magic on the imagination and affections of the people, 

 with whom they are indigenous, to awaken the love of 

 parent soil, and excite a fond association of ideas.* I 

 can speak from experience: I have felt the powerful and 

 inexpressible effect of the strains of national music; and 

 found myself melted, to a degree of enthusiastic tender- 

 ness, by hearing some of our original Irish airs sung and 

 played, even by very middling performers. I have seen 

 many of the Scotch nation, particularly from the High- 

 lands, most forcibly affected, by the strains of their native 

 music. If the fact be, as I have supposed, that the 

 English have no appropriate minstrelsy or indigenous me- 

 lody, let us endeavour to account for this deficiency. The 

 Scotch, Welsh and Irish, though the countries they inhabit 

 have been much subject both to foreign aggression and 

 intestine wars, yet retain more of the aboriginal inhabi- 

 tants, and are, at this day, a less mixed race than the 

 English. They have still, in some measure, retained in 

 popular use their peculiar dialects, hainded down to them 

 from remote ages. They converse in their own languages 

 with a conscious delight; and have preserved, together 

 with their languages, many of their ancient customs, in- 

 stitutions, 



* The powerful effects of tlie air, called Ranz de Vache, on the Swiss, 

 while they were a people, were like enchantment. 



