If we accept the printed collection lying before us from this point of view, and with a grateful and kindly spirit, we may charge the editors all the more earnestly to keep their poetic archives pure, lofty, and in good order. It serves no purpose to print everything; but they will place the whole nation in their debt if they contribute toward that thorough, faithful, and intelligent history of our poetry and our poetic culture which from now on must be the ultimate goal of scholars. FOLKSONGS AGAIN COMMENDED (1823) My old love for original folksongs has not lessened, but has rather been increased by receiving valuable communications from many quarters. In particular, I have received from the East, some separately, and some in collections, such songs of many different peoples; they extend from Olympus to the Baltic Sea, and from that line towards the northeast. My hesitation in publishing any of them is due partly to the fact that many varied interests have drawn me here and there and so prevented me, but also more particularly to the following circumstance. All true national poems have a small circle of ideas, to which they are always limited, and in which they revolve. For that reason they become monotonous in mass, because they express one and the same limited situation. Examine the six modern Greek songs inserted above; every one will admire the powerful contrast between the virile freedom of spirit in the wilderness and a government, orderly indeed, but still barbaric and of insufficient power. A dozen or more would be sufficient to exhibit this refractory character in them, and show us repetitions such as we find in our own folksongs, where we often come upon more or less happy variations of the same theme, as well as mixed and heterogeneous fragments. It is remarkable, nevertheless, how much the individual peoples mentioned above differ among themselves in their songs; this characteristic we shall not discuss abstractly, but will rather develop by means of examples from time to time in the ensuing numbers. Since contributions for this purpose will be highly welcome from all quarters, we request the friend who showed us at Wiesbaden in the summer of 1815 some Greek songs in the original and in a very happy translation, promising to send us soon a copy which never however appeared, to get in touch with us again and cooperate with us in this praiseworthy undertaking. LAURENCE STERNE (1827)