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THE TWO LAST LINES ONLY ARE ORIGINAL; YOU WILL EASILY PERCEIVE THAT
THEY OCCUR IN THE VERY PLACE WHERE WE SUSPECTED A WANT. I AM
SURPRISED TO HEAR THAT THIS SONG IS SUSPECTED BY SOME TO BE A MODERN
FORGERY; THIS WILL BE BEST PROVED BY MOST OF THE OLD PEOPLE
HEREABOUTS HAVING A GREAT PART OF IT BY HEART; many, indeed, are not
aware of the manners of this place, it is but lately emerged from
barbarity, and till this present age the poor illiterate people in
these glens knew of no other entertainment in the long winter nights
than in repeating and listening to these feats of their ancestors,
which I believe to be handed down inviolate from father to son, for
many generations, although no doubt, had a copy been taken of them at
the end of every fifty years, there must have been some difference,
which the repeaters would have insensibly fallen into merely by the
change of terms in that period. I believe that it is thus that many
very ancient songs have been modernised, which yet to a connoisseur
will bear visible marks of antiquity.
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