[714]. He too heard a girl “singing an Erse song,” as she span; and he had his jest, “I warrant you, one of the songs of Ossian.” Hill’s Boswell, V. 133 f.
[715]. Before this he had been in a boat and heard one Malcolm sing “an Erse song, the chorus of which was ‘Hatyin foam foam eri,’ with words of his own.... The boatmen and Mr. M’Queen chorused, and all went well.” Ibid., V. 185.
[716]. A Journey to the Western Islands, Dublin, 1775, p. 97.
[717]. The doctor complaining that he never could get an Erse song explained, was told “the chorus was generally unmeaning,” which, of course, would point to a predominance of the refrain; Johnson himself slyly quoted an unintelligible refrain from an old English ballad. Hill’s Boswell, V. 274.
[718]. V. 203; Lockhart’s Life of Scott, IV. 307. Pennant tells the same story in his Tour in Scotland.
[719]. See above, p. [281], quotation from Leyden. See also for Scottish custom, Chambers, Book of Days, II. 376 ff.
[720]. Note to Passus, IX. 104, ed. of Piers Plowman, version C.
[722]. E. H. Meyer, p. 133.
[723]. Kurschat, Litth. Gram., p. 445, quoted by Böckel, p. cxx.