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PREFACE. |
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This volume contains the majority of the best Songs, by deceased poets and musicians, of Great Britain and Ireland. That it has been possible to compress anything answering to this description into so small a compass is due to a variety of causes, of which deficiency of material whence to choose has assuredly not been one. But, the best things, in every kind of art, are necessarily few. The field of choice, too, has been limited in the present instance to pieces which fully answer to the popular idea of a song—a thing, the first condition or qualification of which is that it can be sung, and to which, therefore, apt notes are as essential and as important as apt words. Moreover, it was desirable that the collection should consist exclusively of National songs—songs which, through their tiuth to nature, their felicity of expression, and the operation of time, have sunk "deeper than did ever plummet sound" into the hearts of the people among whom they have sprung up and circulated.
The presentation of these songs without accompani-ment, has been dictated not merely by want of space, but by the desire to present them in their original forms. For, in almost every case, the tune is the only original part of the music of a national song; the addition even of a bass having been generally made by a later hand — not always guided by a sympathetic spirit.
In thus bringing together the Songs of Great Britain and Ireland, an opportunity will be afforded both for confirming a just impression in respect to |
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