ABSTRACT
This chapter sets in context two of the song collections, R. A. Smith's The Scotish Minstrel, and Allan Cunningham's contemporary poetry collection, The Songs of Scotland, both dating from 1820-1825. Earlier literature, including Welsh and Irish sources, and other contemporary and near-contemporary collections by Walter Scott, James Hogg and William Motherwell, is cited for the purposes of comparison. Ferber suggests that the British Romantic era is often said to extend from the last decade of the eighteenth century, through the first four decades of the nineteenth. Although musical Romanticism is generally taken to extend well beyond the chapter is generally constrained by the literary rather than the musicological definition. Whilst harps feature in abundance in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Scottish song collections, they are the harps of bygone minstrels and bards, rather than Aeolian harps quivering responsively in the breeze without human intervention.
