ST. KILDA. HIGHLAND MUSIC. 41 



bility and range, have taught the voice powers of which 

 it was not before conscious. The same reasoning may 

 be applied to instrumental composition ; as the ear does 

 not ever appear to have conceived any system of harmony 

 or melody which was not previously suggested, at least in 

 its general principles, by the capacity and powers of the 

 instruments in use, or by greater acquisitions of expe- 

 rience respecting their capabilities. Even in the most 

 recent times, the fuller introduction of wind instruments, 

 and the additional powers and effects thence gained, has 

 produced, in the hands of the German school, a revolution 

 in music, undreamt of by their preceptors of the Italian. 



It is a much less easy task to deduce from this High- 

 land source, the system of the national melody of Scot- 

 land, and to trace the progress of musical refinement 

 downwards to a later period, namely, that of the pastoral, 

 pathetic, or cheerful style of the more modern Scottish 

 airs ; while it is also a more delicate subject, as it is in 

 danger of clashing with long established opinions, and with 

 the prejudices of those who confound the pleasures derived 

 from early habit, from association, and from the ideas 

 excited by the poetry, with those which are proper to 

 the melodies only, considered as musical compositions and 

 independently of the exquisite words so often attached to 

 them. Yet on tracing from the rudest to the most refined 

 specimens of real Scottish melodies, freed from the innu- 

 merable recent specimens which have been interpolated 

 in the list, it does not appear difficult to observe the 

 gradual progress of refinement from the simplest Gaelic 

 air to the most perfect compositions of genuine character. 

 If this should be established, it is to the Highlanders, or 



7 o 7 



to the most ancient Caledonians, that the foundation of 

 Scottish melody must be attributed, however much im- 

 proved by the ideas suggested from more recent and 

 better schools of music; although it must still be ad- 

 mitted that this peculiarity of character is often lost, even 

 in compositions of which the origin cannot be ascertained, 

 and which may possibly be somewhat distant. The 



