The opening of Preface
Scotland has probably produced a more patriotic and more extended minstrelsy than any other country in the world. Those Caledonian harp-strains, styled by Sir Walter Scott "gems of our own mountains," have frequently been gathered into caskets of national song, but have never been stored in any complete cabinet; while no attempt has been made, at least on an ample scale, to adapt, by means of suitable metrical translations, the minstrelsy of the Gaël for Lowland melody. The present work has been undertaken with the view of supplying these deficiencies, and with the further design of extending the fame of those cultivators of Scottish song--hitherto partially obscured by untoward circumstances, or on account of their own diffidence--and of affording a stimulus towards the future cultivation of national poetry.