EXCURSUS ON OLD IRISH METRIC. 97 



In conclusion I may mcntion that it is a curious fact, and one well dcserving 

 of further investigation, that niany of these old rhythms have in quite modcrn times 

 been resuscitated by English, or rather Scotch and Irish poets. We here refer more 

 especially to Burns, Hogg, INIoore, and others who, in writing words to old Gaelic 

 or Irish tunes, were led by their fine feeling for mcasure to an often most felicitous 

 reproduction of those ancient rhythms, while similar attempts at an adaptation of vcrse 

 to such tunes made about a century or two eariier show a decided lack of such 

 genuine poetic instinct. Thus, to mention one striking instance, Burns' and Hogg's 

 well-known song, ' My love she 's but a lassie yet,' shows the same metrical structure 

 as the Ossianic poem published by me in the Revue Celtique, VI. p. 186, viz. 8- 

 8rt SZ (or rather 4 Z + 41^) 8 <?, a being trisyllabic, b monosyllabic. The only 

 difterence is that while the Irish poem has seven syllables, those of Burns and Hogg 

 have eight, and show therefore an iambic movement, in accordance with the tune 

 which begins with an up-beat. Indeed, but for the very different character of the old 

 Ossianic poem one might sing it to the same air to which Burns and Hogg wrote 

 their songs. Now, in the Bahnoral edition of the popular songs and melodies of 

 Scotland, by G. F. Graham, 1884, p. 33, we are told, on the authority of Charles Kirk- 

 patrick, the annotator of Johnson's IMuseum, that the old title of this air was ' Put up 

 your dagger, Jamie,' and that the following words, first published in the Vox Borealis, 

 or Northern Discoverie, 1641, used formerly to be sung to it: 



' Put up your dagger, Jamie, 



And all things shall be mended, 



Bishops shall fall, no not at all, 



When the Parliament is ended. 



Which never was intended, 



But only for to flam thee, 



We has gotten the game, we'll keep the same, 



Put up thy dagger, Jamie.' 



The most obvious deficiency in these verses, as compared with those written to 

 the same air by Burns and Hogg, is the absence of the trisyllabic rime. This might, 

 however, easily be supplied by adding an ! after Jamie, mended, ended, &c., an artificial 

 way of overcoming the want of trisyllabic rime-words in English so frequently employed 

 by Burns. 



When the above was already in print, Professor Windisch kindly scnt me his article 

 on Fland Manistrech's poem on the birth of Aed Slane. Of the many new and 

 important metrical observations with which this article abounds, none are in opposition 

 to my theory, w-hile some of them decidedly tendto confirm it. I shall here mention 

 two of these which seem to me most conclusive, On p. 227 Windisch, noticing such 

 rimes as re chele, gle messe, SP. IV,, says that a satisfactory explanation of this 

 phenomenon can only be found if we assume the metrical accent to have rested on the 

 short -e. Now this will be found to be the case in all the instances given by N^indisch, 







