The title which this little volume bears, sufficiently explains the reason of its appearance, and whatever small claims it may be able to advance for originality in a theme so often and so ably handled by experts in the folk-lore and the popular music of their country. I have no pretensions either to the scientific knowledge or to the curious literary research which might enable me to compete with these men of Skill, and to share in any part of the praise which they have so justly earned; I only thought I might do some good, in an age urged by various stimulating forces to seek after what is new rather than to hold by what is true, if I should present, in a sort of dramatic totality, the wealth of moral, intellectual, and aesthetical nutriment of the best kind that lies stored in our heritage of national song. My task, therefore, was simply one of collection and.