Different, indeed, is the case when we come to consider Ramsay as a song-writer and a lyrist. To him the former title rather than the latter is best applicable. This is not the place to note the resemblances and the differences between the French _chanson_, the German _lied_, the Italian _canzóne_, and the English song or lyric. But as indicating a distinction between the two last terms, Mr. F. T. Palgrave, in the introduction to his invaluable _Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics_, regards a 'lyric' as a poem turning on 'some single thought, feeling, or situation'; Mr. H. M. Posnett, in his thoughtful volume on _Comparative Literature_, remarks that the lyric has varied from sacred or magical hymns and odes of priest bards, only fulfilling their purpose when sung, and perhaps never consigned to writing at all, down to written expressions of individual feeling from which all accompaniments of dance or music have been severed. But approximately defined, a lyric may be said to be a poem--short, vivid, and expressive of a definite emotion, appealing more to the eye than with any ultimate view of being set to music; a song, as a composition appealing more to the ear, wherein the sentiments are more leisurely expressed, with the intention of being accompanied by music. Mr. E. H. Stoddard, in the preface to his _English Madrigals_, defines a lyric 'as a simple, unstudied expression of thought, sentiment, or passion; a song, its expression according to the mode of the day.' The essence of a lyric is point, grace, and symmetry; of a song, fluency, freedom, and the expression of sympathetic emotions. Ramsay, according to this basis of distinction, was, as has been said, rather a song-writer than a lyrist. The works of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, abound in lyrics, but contain comparatively few songs, in the modern sense of the word, in which we speak of the songs of Burns, Moore, and Barry Cornwall. Ramsay, in his songs, sacrificed everything to mode. In nine cases out of ten he had the tune for the song in his mind when he was writing the words. In Scotland, as is well known, there is an immense body of music, some of it ancient, some of it comparatively modern, though none of it much later than the Restoration. That was the mine wherein Ramsay dug long and deep for the music for his _Tea-Table Miscellany_. To those ancient tunes he supplied words--words that to this day remain as a memorial of the skill and sympathy wherewith he wedded the spirit of the melodies to language in keeping with their national character.