Note 13 — Chapter II · MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE.

A favourite and appropriate book in this part of Scotland is Wilson's Tales of the Borders. There are not many farm-houses in the Lowlands of Scotland in which one does not find old copies, bound and unbound, of Wilson's Tales. Usually they show unmistakable evidence of having been frequently perused. One is bound to admit that the modern reader, if he spends an evening turning over these old pages, will find little reason to pride himself on the superiority of the popular reading of to-day. The short story, now in vogue, may be finely illustrated, and highly sensational, but its matter is certainly inferior, as a rule, to the general run of Wilson's stories. Wilson, in his humble way, was a gleaner in the field so richly harvested by Sir Walter Scott. The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border had called attention to the great stores of poetry and romance lingering among the peasantry of the Debateable Land. Wilson's Tales showed how much of the old spirit remained more than two centuries after the Union, and, in spite of all Christianity and an orderly Government had done for the softening of manners. Hogg, in speaking of his own countryside, said: "The poor people of these glens know no other entertainment in the long winter nights than repeating and listening to the feats of their ancestors recorded in songs which I believe to have been handed down from father to son for many generations." Wilson and his successors gathered up as much of the romantic material as they found available, and printed it for the delight of their generation.