78 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



Ballads and Music " is the name of another collection which he published toward 

 the end of last year. " The object of this publication," he asserts, " as that of the 

 Manx Carols, is to collect in one volume a curious literature, the greater part of 

 which was threatened with almost certain loss." Though he has been assiduous 

 in collecting those ballads, and in thus preserving from oblivion songs which were 

 wont to be sung by the peasantry of Man, he has. no high opinion of the poetical 

 merit of many of them. He divides them into " mythical, semi-historical and 

 historical ballads ; children's songs and ballads connected with customs and super- 

 stitions ; love-songs, patristic ballads, nautical ballads and miscellaneous ballads." 

 He thinks more highly of the Manx melodies than of the ballads, forasmuch as 

 they are in most cases older, as well as superior to the words which are now set 

 to them. He has strong reasoas for entertaining the hope " that the results of 

 this little book will be to admit the music of the Isle of Man to a distinct though 

 humble share in the great body of national music which is now being so generally 

 collected," and that in it may be found, in the striking words of a recent writer, 

 ".the national idioms in their simplest and most unsophisticated expression." As 

 the" music to which ballads are sung intensifies the great regard that the peasantry 

 of any country entertain for their songs, it may naturally be expected that the 

 publication of their songs, along with their appropriate music, will increase the 

 zest wherewith the inhabitants of the Isle of Man sing such songs as " Coayl jeh ny 

 Baatyn-Skeddan," " Mannin veg veen," and " Na Kirree fo Niaghtey." 



