Only since 1846, the year after Lady Nairne’s death, can she be said to have taken her place by name in the literature of her country. In that year, her surviving sister Mrs. Keith thinking there could be nothing wrong now in letting the truth be known, there appeared the projected collective edition of the songs in the form of a thin folio, with this title-page: “_Lays from Strathearn, by Caroline, Baroness Nairne, Author of ‘The Land o’ the Leal,’ etc.: Arranged, with Symphonies and Accompaniments, for the Pianoforte, by Finlay Dun._” In a subsequent edition several pieces that had been omitted in this one were added; and now perhaps the most complete collection of the songs is that edited by Dr. Charles Rogers in 1869 in a small volume containing the words without the music, and having a memoir prefixed. The number of pieces there printed as Lady Nairne’s is ninety-eight in all. What strikes one first on looking at the ninety-eight is the variety of their moods and subjects, the versatility of mind they exhibit. There are Jacobite songs; and, what is remarkable in one brought up in Jacobite sentiments and traditions, there are songs of sympathy with Knox, the Covenanters, and the old Scottish Presbyterians and Whigs, the very contradictories of Scottish Jacobitism. Then there are lovesongs, satirical songs, humorous songs and songs of Scottish character and oddity, nonsense songs and songs of philosophic “pawkiness” and good sense, songs of scenery and places, and songs of the most tearful pathos. A few are of a distinctively religious character. Passing from matter or subject to quality, one may say that there is a real _moral_ worth in them all, and that all have that genuine characteristic of a song which consists of an inner _tune_ preceding and inspiring the words, and coiling the words as it were out of the heart along with it. Hence there is not perhaps one of them that, with the advantage they have of being set to known and favourite airs, would not please sufficiently if sung by a good singer. Apart from this general melodiousness or suitability for being sung, the report for _all_ of them might not be so favourable; but, tried by the standard of strict poetic merit, about twenty or twenty-five of the whole number, I should say, might rank as good, while eight or ten of these are of supreme quality. Would not this, though written by a woman, serve for the rallying of a thousand men for any cause, right or wrong?