The present collection of patriotic songs will, I think, accord with the imperial spirit of the day; for they are representative of the whole British Empire.

It is needless to dwell upon the inspiring energy of song. Since the age of TyrtÆus it has everywhere been recognised as a powerful incentive to valour. A nation can scarcely exist without a national anthem. How characteristic are the anthems of the nations! It may almost be said that the difference of the English and the French nations is expressed by the contrast between God Save the King and the Marseillaise. What an influence songs have exercised upon the life of nations! The debt of Scotland to Burns, the debt of Ireland to Moore, is greater than words can tell. Fletcher of Saltoun was perhaps not wrong in his estimate of the songs, as compared with the laws, of a nation.

I am not responsible for the present collection; perhaps, if I had made it, I should have left out some few songs which find a place in it, and should have inserted some few others which do not, but the purpose of it I heartily approve. To consolidate the Empire, and to animate it as a whole with noble ideas, is one of the greatest needs and duties of the present day; and an empire, like an individual, lives not by bread alone, but by its sentiments, its ambitions, its ideals.

J.E.C. CALCUTTA.

October 1901.