ST. KILDA. HIGHLAND MUSIC. 47 



a predominant or more refined taste. The highest depart- 

 ments of art are often indebted to the lowest for useful 

 or valuable suggestions. Independently of these con- 

 siderations, it is impossible to refuse praise to the melodies 

 of Scotland. They are often exquisitely pathetic and 

 touching, even when separated from the poetry with which 

 they are so frequently united. In the humourous style 

 they excel perhaps even more. Though faulty with regard 

 to that which is now esteemed correct in composition, 

 and though monotonous, from the innumerable repetitions 

 and the limited variety necessarily implied in their scale, 

 they are not perhaps exceeded in merit by any national 

 compositions of an age equally unrefined. It is only 

 to be regretted that those whose musical education ren- 

 ders them competent judges of the subject, do not lend 

 their assistance to maintain these relics of antiquity 

 in a state of purity ; and to preserve and restore the 

 national taste, instead of suffering it to be regulated 

 by those whose want of feeling or understanding tends 

 rather to deprave it. If Scottish melody is distinct 

 from cultivated music, it still possesses a character 

 worthy of being preserved ; and is in much more 

 danger from the ignorant than from the educated mu- 

 sician. 



But the nation at large has little considered the subject 

 of music, nor has it hitherto been much cultivated as 

 an art in this country. Neither the principles on which 

 it is founded have been studied, nor its history and pro- 

 gress traced, from the rudest efforts, towards that limit 

 of perfection which is probably yet distant. It is not 

 however peculiar to the Scots to forget, that although 

 the term music, like poetry, may have a meaning which 

 every one limits to his own capacity for acquirements, 

 the former, like the latter, is unlimited in its powers 

 of expression ; and that cultivation is equally required 

 to comprehend the higher departments of both. Under 

 these circumstances, it is not surprising if the Scots 



