THE SOUL OE SONG. Ill 
themselves of liberties long lost, under the impulse of 
their national melodies. The effect produced on the 
Swiss soldiers, when in the service of the French, by an 
ancient air of the Ranz des Vaches , was so powerful 
that it was forbidden to be played, so forcibly did it 
remind the men of the mountainous homes which they 
had left, and of the hearts that were beating and 
the eyes that were weeping for them. 
National song, of all other, holds a powerful sway 
over the minds of those in whom it awakens thoughts of 
fatherland and freedom. What would be the poetry of 
any nation, or any age, if robbed of the spirit of its 
song? What would be left of Scottish character if the 
ballads of the Caledonian bards were swept away ? if the 
harps of the minstrels perished with the fingers that first 
swept them ? The song that cheered the shepherd boy 
while tending his sheep, comes back to him in the hour 
of oppression and danger; and even upon the battle¬ 
field, that melody calls up the moors and mountains of 
his native land; the wild woods and the streams come 
back, and the breezy freshness of the heather fans his 
cheek again, as he marches with a firm step and a 
nervous arm to win his liberty or die. It is said that 
he who writes the songs of a nation may at the same 
time predict its history, for patriotism has ever burned 
the brighter when music fanned the flame, and the 
human breast has ever throbbed with a holier devotion 
when the soul of song was stirring at the heart strings. 
The same tender emotions which move the camel- 
driver to sing to his camel, as he shares with the patient 
brute his dates and barley-bread, and then ceases in his 
