AN HEROIC BALL AD,

Roic

NOW FIRST PUBLISHED COMPLETE;

WITH THE OTHER MORE APPROVED

SCOTISH BALLADS,

AND SOME NOT HITHERTO MADE PUBLIC,

IN THE TRAGIC STYLE.

TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED

TWO DISSERTATIONS,

I. ON THE ORAL TRADITION OF POETRY.

1. ON THE TRAGIC BALLAD.

JAMQUE SACRUM TENERIS VÁTEM YENERETUR AB ANNIS.

Welly 30 Jant 1944

,

PUBLIC LIBRARY

284641B

ASTOR, LENOX AND TULDEN FOUNDATIONS 第

L

TO

H IS G R A CE

Τ Η Ε

Duke of BUCCLEUGH.

MY LORD,
T is with much pleasure I embrace this

opportunity of testifying my fincere respect for Your Grace's exalted character, as the friend and as the ornament of your country, by addressing these volumes to a name so much revered and beloved by the nation

whose

24

whose poetry they are intended to preserve and to illustrate.

The chief compofitions in this volume, My Lord, will be found to breathe the living {pirit of the Scotish people, a race of men who have left monuments of their martial glory in every country. Your GRACE, it is hoped, will with pleasure here recognise the noble ardour your example lately tended to revive, by raising and commanding in perfon a military force in defence of your country, at a period when her natives had not discernment to perceive, nor spirit to affume, the privileges of British subjects.

The second volume, My LORD, contains chiefly pieces descriptive of rural merriment, and, of love and domestic happiness. Even these, it is humbly believed, Your GRACE will not disdain; for it is well known that the felicity of the poor in general, and of your numerous tenants and dependants in

particular,