How solemnly he enumerates the psalm-tunes usually made use of on such occasions, and discriminates the character of each:-- "They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps DUNDEE'S wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive MARTYRS, worthy of the name, Or noble ELGIN beets[17] the heavenward flame." He was not, alas! always disposed in after life to reverence these sacred melodies as he had done in his youthful days.

In his poem of "The Holy Fair," he less reverently adduces mention of these sacred airs:-- "Now turn the Psalms o' David ower, And lilt wi' holy clangour.
O' double verse come gie us four, An' skirl up the Bangor." These tunes seem to have been strictly and exclusively national.

In proof of such psalmody being quite national, I have been told that many of these tunes were composed by artisans, such as builders, joiners, blacksmiths, etc.
Several of the psalm-tunes more peculiar to Scotland are no doubt of an early date.

In Ravenscroft's _Psalms_, published with the music in four parts in 1621, he gives the names of seven as purely Scottish--_King's, Duke's, Abbey, Dunfermline, Dundee, Glasgow, Martyrs._ I was used to hear such psalmody in my early days in the parish church of Fettercairn, where we always attended during summer.

It had all the simple characteristics described by Burns, and there was a heartiness and energy too in the congregation when, as he expresses it, they used to "skirl up the Bangor," of which the effects still hang in my recollection.