CHAPTER XIII.

BARDS OF THE ANGLO-GAELIC ERA.

“Here one thing springs not till another die, Only the matter lives immortally.” —SYLVESTER’S DU BARTAS.

The authors whose works come under notice in this chapter may be described as belonging to the Anglo-Gaelic era of Highland history, when the influence of English thought, movements, and manners began to penetrate into the most sequestered corners of the north west. This influence came in through the two channels of the religious literature of English Puritanism and Imperial politics. When the Highlander came under the spell of the former in such works as those of Bunyan, he no longer cherished alien feelings towards Bunyan’s fellow-countrymen, many of whose struggles and sufferings were akin to his own; nor did he want any longer to nurse a spirit of mere Gaelic separatism that might conflict with the national purposes of the latter. We, therefore, find traces of English reading and culture in all the Gaelic poetry that has been produced since the commencement of this era. Even very early last century there is evidence that English thought began to exercise some influence on the compositions of the Highland poets. As already pointed out, English literature contributed not a little to the development of Dugald Buchanan’s sacred muse. The chief Gaelic poets of this period were fairly well educated, and knew the English language well. Several of them were clergymen who had gone through a course of training in Scottish Universities.

There are three elements of sadness that enter into the poetry of this period—first, the sorrowful cry of baffled Jacobitism; second, the vain cry of enthusiasts over the disappearance of Gaelic habits and customs; and again, the intense wail of a fatherland spirit over the depopulation of the Highlands. Along with greater devotion to the cultivation of erotic poetry these are the themes of the bards of this era, who feel painfully conscious that the ground of this transition period is fast slipping away from under their feet.

ROBERT MACKAY.

This famous Sutherlandshire Bard, better known as Rob Donn, or Robert the Brown, was born in the parish of Durness in 1714. He is said to have composed verses between his third and sixth years, like some other poets, early lisping in numbers. For a long time before his death he filled the humble office of principal herd for his chief’s (Lord Reay) cattle. He died in 1778, when he was sixty-four years of age. Although most of his pieces cannot be said to be religious—some much the reverse—we are told that he was an elder in the national Presbyterian Church. His death was deeply regretted over the whole country, where his memory is still most warmly cherished.

His poetical works were collected and edited early in this century by the late Rev. Mackintosh Mackay, LL.D., who wrote a memoir of the bard. Sir Walter Scott directed Lockhart to review Mackay’s Poems eulogistically in _The Quarterly Review_, giving him a place among the real sons of the muse. The monument to his memory has inscriptions on it in Gaelic, Greek, and Latin, so that Rob Donn has had fair justice done him.

Mackay wants imagination and the overpowering feeling we find in two or three others of the Gaelic bards. But although he does not stand among the very first of the Gaelic poets, he is yet a powerful, refreshing, and influential singer, with a good deal of wit, point, and satire. He is a shrewd and sensible man, with a Wordsworthian tendency to exalt the commonplace into fit themes for poetry.

His _Elegy on Ewen_ is one of his best-known pieces. The morning he composed it he heard of the death of Pelham, then Prime Minister to King George the Second; and he contrasted his death with the dying state of poor Ewen, in whose house he had stayed the previous night. Ewen could not converse with the bard, who, after kindling the fire in the morning for the dying man, composed the poem from which the following stanzas translated by a clansman of the bard—Mr Angus M. Mackay—are taken:—

’Tis thus thou dost instruct us, Death, That we should turn ere yet too late! The longest lives are but a breath, Thou callest hence both small and great! But these thy latest actions ought To ope at once our slumberous eyes— Thy sudden leap from Britain’s court To this low nook where Ewen lies! Long time, O Ewen, yes, long time, Has dread disease foretold thy fate; Now nigh Death’s door dost thou repine, With no one to compassionate! If unimproved the time has passed, And many a crime been done therein, Yet hope remains while life shall last, O yet repent thee of thy sin!

If we believe thy word, O Death, These lessons we shall ne’er let slip! There is no mortal drawing breath Too vile for thy companionship! The solemn truth when will we learn,— Death’s vision is both high and low— From Ewen’s sores thou didst not turn, Great Pelham felt thy mortal blow.

Thou makest grief in court and hall When at thy touch earth’s glories fade, The ragged poor man thou dost call For whom no mourning will be made! All men, O Death, thy face shall see, And all be forced with thee to go! Watchful and ready we should be ’Twixt Pelham high and Ewen low!

And all around thy victims fall, Unseen thy sudden bullets fly; The noises round us loudly call That we should be prepared to die. Thou that art lowest in the throng, Hast thou not heard that Ewen dies? And thou whom riches render strong, That low in death great Pelham lies?

Friend of my heart, and shall not this Make all our thoughts to heaven tend? Society a candle is That flames away at either end! Where shall we find a humbler man In Scotland than thy father’s son? And in all Britain greater than This Pelham, save the king, was none! Long time, O Ewen, &c.

This old beggar did not yet lose his power of hearing, and feeling insulted by the manner in which his name was introduced into the moralising verses he snatched up a club towards the close of the song, and creeping behind the bard aimed a blow at him with all the strength of his withered arm. Rob barely escaped, and tried to soothe the enraged old man.

Mackay shows great detestation of greed in his poems. One is a dialogue between the world and the greedy man. The wants of the bard in his humble station were few and easily supplied, so he could contemplate with sorrow the growing spirit of selfishness that began to creep in along with advancing civilisation and change of habit. This spirit he rebukes in the following verse from an address to Lord Reay:—

Hadst thou by nature been a man of greed, How soon had grown the tempting glittering hoard; If thou to pity’s tears hadst deigned no heed, And hard-wrung rents with human curses stored!

But no, for when the yearly rents were paid, It was more joy to thee a thousand-fold To see a glad face in God’s image made, Than the king’s image on the yellow gold!

Like many of the bards, Rob appears to have suffered from a sore affair of the heart. A yellow-haired Annie deceived him, and ran away with a fair carpenter from the south, and he sang _Is trom leam an àiridh_. It seems the courting was carried on at a shieling, a favourite place of resort for fond swains and tender maidens:

Oh, sad is the shieling, And gone are its joys! All harsh and unfeeling To me now its noise, Since Anna—who warbled As sweet as the merle— Forsook me—my honey-mouthed, Merry-lipped girl!

* * * * *

Ach, ach, now I’m trying My loss to forget— With sorrow and sighing, With anger and fret. But still that sweet image Steals over my heart; And still I deem fondly Hope need not depart.

So fancy beguiles me, And fills me with glee, But the carpenter wiles thee, False speaker! from me. Yet from Love’s first affection I never get free; But the dear known direction My thoughts ever flee.

The above verses are Pattison’s translation. It is said that the deceitful “Anna” led an unhappy life afterwards, and never recovered her old spirits after the memorable parting at the “shieling,” of which the bard sings so pathetically.

While Rob Donn is not equal to Macdonald or Macintyre in the highest qualifications of the poet, he is their superior in power of satire. His two rival bards have confounded vituperative language with satire, but Mackay never. He is a great favourite with his countrymen, who are very proud of him, and have laudably done all they could to make known his poetry and perpetuate his fame.

In many respects Mackay is a typical representative of the northern counties, where the intense Celtic spirit and feelings of nationality which characterise Argyllshire Celts do not prevail so extensively. The Teutonic element brought in by the Norse is stronger in the North, and may partly account for this apparent lack of Celtic enthusiasm and of the usual Celtic grace of style. In his own way, though exercising his sportive muse in a more confined and humbler sphere, Rob Donn might be described as a sort of Highland Praed or Calverley.

The bard was in the service of two of his clan on whom he has composed well-known elegies. These two were Lord Reay and John Mackay. The elegy on the latter has been translated as follows by the clansman already referred to in a good sketch which appeared some years ago in a London periodical:—

Some keep the verbal law of man, And yet hard creditors are they; They store what legally they can, What the law _makes_ them, that they pay! Though want and misery they see, Not less through pity grows their sum; Shut eyes and purse alike will be Against the poor and needy one!

This bastard honour grows apace— The creed of numbers beyond ken, Who, greatly to their own disgrace, Would rather owe to God than men! Theirs will be loss beyond recall When God shall sum up all their debt— “Thou heededst not the poor man’s call, I also will thy prayers forget!”

* * * * *

If thou another’s want didst know Thou couldst not in thy goods rejoice; Towards the poor thy heart would glow Although his wants ne’er found a voice. Ah, sooner lose a pound of gold Than take to thee an ounce of sin,— The waters shall bring manifold For all thy treasures cast therein!

I saw the gentle who was poor, And he was full of gloom and grief, He passed the once wide-opened door Where now no more he finds relief! I saw the widow in her tears, I saw the beggar hungering; The orphan now unclothed appears Unnoticed by the unpitying!

Who needs advice must want it now, And see the prosperous times depart; All clouded is the poet’s brow, With none to reverence his art. None seek to make the poor rejoice; And when I ask why joys are fled, They answer me with tearful voice— “Alas! is not MacEachainn dead?”

I see the gathering of the poor— Now poor indeed since thou art dead, And closed for aye the open door Where Love consoled and Bounty fed! And strangers now are praised to me As lib’ral—I knew only _one_— But ah! the wandering stars we see After the setting of the sun!

DUNCAN MACINTYRE.

This bard, Mac-an-t-Saoir—the Irish MacTear—meaning the son of the joiner or carpenter, a recent intruder among the names of the Gaelic clans, is one of the great Highland poets to whom the Gaelic patriot refers with a pardonable measure of pride. Ossian, Macdonald, and he are the chief names on the roll of our bardic annals.

This famous hunter bard, frequently called Duncan _Ban_, or _fair-haired_, was born on the 20th of March 1724, at Druimliaghart, in Glenorchay, Argyllshire. His parents lived in an out-of-the-way spot, far from the parish school, so Duncan never learned to read or write. Yet, rising from a humble sphere of life, with only the education that the traditions, the popular poetry and scenery of his native hills could afford, he has left us compositions which we would not willingly allow to perish. Highly cultivated some of his mental powers must have been. His memory was something wonderful; and yet there have been at all times in the Highlands men equally trained like Macintyre to remember and rehearse thousands of lines of poetry. Upwards of six thousand lines of poetry composed by himself have been published. All this he carried about with him for years, along with the poetry of others, an immense mass of which he knew and was able to repeat, until the Rev. Dr Stewart of Luss, one of the translators of the Bible, was at the trouble of taking them down to the poet’s own dictation some time before 1768, when they were first published in one 12mo volume of 162 pages. A second edition appeared in 1799 and a third in 1804. These were all the editions before his death took place in the year 1812. But thousands knew them who never read them; while many of his more popular pieces found their way into other Gaelic collections. There have been several other editions since Macintyre died.

The first song of Duncan Bàn was composed on a sword with which he was armed at the Battle of Falkirk, where he served on the Royalist side as a substitute for Mr Fletcher of Glenorchay. The sword was lost or thrown away in the retreat, and his employer refused to pay the sum for which he had engaged the bard. But Duncan’s song became popular and incensed Fletcher so much that, meeting the poor poet one day, he suddenly struck him on the back with his walking-stick, and bade him “go and make a song about that.” Macintyre appealed to his patron the Earl of Breadalbane, who compelled Fletcher to pay the bard the stipulated sum, 300 merks Scots (£16 17s 6d).

Soon after the noble Earl—always kind to the bard—appointed him forester and gamekeeper in Coire Cheathaich and Ben-Dorain, the subjects of his two chief and finest poems. He was afterwards in the same capacity with the Duke of Argyll at Buachaill-Eite. Then he joined the Fencible Regiment raised in 1793 by the Earl of Breadalbane, where he served as a sergeant until 1799, when it was disbanded. He afterwards served in the City Guard of Edinburgh till 1806, when he was enabled to live comfortably on his own savings and on the profits of the third edition of his poems. He died in Edinburgh in May 1812, in the 89th year of his age, and was buried in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where a monument has been raised for him.

Duncan Bàn, in some respects, is the first of the Gaelic bards; Professor Blackie seems inclined to rank him above Ossian. He is certainly less artificial than the Gaelic Ossian of 1807—more in harmony with the life and sentiments of the Highlanders. He is the natural outcome as well as the true exponent of the spirit and manners of the period of Highland history which was then drawing to a close. His powers as a poet are of the highest order. But the sphere of his life being so circumscribed, and the themes on which his muse was exercised were so temporary and local in their character, that Duncan Bàn can never receive from the world that homage to which his wonderful and lofty genius entitles him. He has been called the Burns of the Highlands; and, perhaps, his genius is equal to that of Burns, taking into consideration the difference in their education. Burns, however, shows more intensity of conception and stormy passion; while Macintyre dwells with more luscious delight on the beauties and glories of the external world.

Professor Blackie is a great admirer of Duncan Bàn, and has given us what will always remain a delightful translation of Macintyre’s unique poem, _Ben-Dorain_. The translator of Goethe’s “Faust”—whose new edition of his translation of the great German bard’s work must ever be regarded as the best—possesses the poetical ingenuity and subtilty, as well as deftness in rhyme, necessary in a translator of _Ben-Dorain_. _Coire Cheathaich_ is a poem equally celebrated with _Ben-Dorain_, translated into English by Pattison, whose version has been utilized by Mr Robert Buchanan, the distinguished dramatist and poet, with slight alterations, in one of his works. Through these translators the English reader is put in possession of some fair knowledge of the muse of the Hunter-Bard of Glenorchay.

Here is the first verse of _Coire Cheathaich_, or The Braes of the Mist:—

My misty Coire! where hinds are roving; My lovely Coire! my charming dell! So grand, so grassy, so richly scented, And gemm’d with flowers of sweetest smell. Thy knolls and hillocks in dark-green clothing, Rise o’er the green sward with gentle swell, Where waves the cannach, and grows the darnel, And troop the wild deer I love so well.

Duncan’s chief love-song is characteristic. It is composed for his “spouse newly wedded” and not for an unmarried maiden. This is how the bard describes the manner in which he made choice of “Fair Young Mary”:—

My net I cast in the waters clear, And strained hard to draw it to land, And lo! I had caught a bright sea-trout, That lay like a swan on the strand. Pleased was my soul with the fortune That came with such joy to my hand; My spouse! thou art the star of the morning! Blest be thy slumbers and bland!

“Aged and grey” he visited the hills for the last time, and composed his “Last Farewell to the Hills,” one of the most pathetic of his poems. Taking a retrospect of the past, he sorrowfully sings:—

And yesterday I trode yon moor— How many a thought it moved! The friends I walked with there of yore, Where were those friends I loved! I looked and looked, _and sheep, sheep still_, Were all that I could see: A change had struck the very hill— O world! deceiving me.

Few descriptive poets excel Macintyre in his representations of external things, whether animate or inanimate. Everything he touches he invests with the glow and the beauty of poetry. The hills with their mist and deer, the streams and lochs with their teeming inhabitants, and all the natural inhabitants of his native glens and mountains, were congenial themes of his muse. “His Address to his wife—Mairi Bhan Og—may be read beside the sweetest and most expressive of the Lowland lyrics, while it certainly breathes a refined courtesy and a purity of sentiment which these do not always possess, and which is not in any way insignificant in such a man, whether taken as an index of his moral nature, of his intellectual endowments, or of the kindliness of nature in gifting him with such unaffected manliness and good taste.” Macdonald could be sweet and tender when he chose; it was far from being his nature. Macintyre is generally genial and tender, for it is the habitual attitude of his mind and heart. We are told “he was like the rest of the poets, very fond of company and a social glass, and was not only very pleasant over his bottle, but very circumspect.”

I give here a specimen of his poem, _Ben-Dorain_, of which we have a translation from the pen of Professor Blackie:—

My delight it was to rise With the early morning skies, All aglow, And to brush the dewy height, Where the deer in airy state Wont to go; At least a hundred brace Of the lofty antlered race, When they left their sleeping-place Light and gay; When they stood in trim array, And with low deep-breasted cry, Flung their breath into the sky, From the brae: When the hind, the pretty fool, Would be rolling in the pool At her will, Or the stag in gallant pride, Would be strutting at the side Of his haughty-headed bride, On the hill. And sweeter to my ear Is the concert of the deer In their roaring; Than when Erin from her lyre Warmest strains of Celtic fire May be pouring; And no organ sends a roll So delightsome to my soul As the bravely-crested race When they quicken their proud pace And bellow in the face Of Ben Dorain.

Nor will they stint the measure Of their frolic and their pleasure And their play, When with airy-footed amble At their freakish will they ramble O’er the brae. With their prancing and their dancing, And their ramping and their stamping, And their plashing and their washing In the pools, Like lovers newly wedded, Light-hearted, giddy-headed Little fools. No thirst have they beside The mill-brook’s flowing tide And the pure well’s lucid pride Honey-sweet; A spring of lively cheer, Sparkling, cool, and clear, And filtered through the sand At their feet; ’Tis a life-restoring flood To repair the wasted blood, The cheapest and the best in all the land; And vainly gold will try For the Queen’s own lips to buy Such a treat. From the rim it trickles down Of the mountain’s granite crown Clear and cool; Keen and eager though it go Through your veins with lively flow, Yet it knoweth not to reign In the chambers of the brain With misrule; Where dark water-cresses grow You will trace its quiet flow, With mossy border yellow, So mild, and soft, and mellow, In its pouring. With no slimy dregs to trouble The brightness of its bubble As it threads its silver way From the granite shoulders grey Of Ben-Dorain.

Then down the sloping side It will slip with glassy slide, Gently welling, Till it gather strength to leap, With a light and foamy sweep, To the corrie broad and deep, Proudly swelling; Then bends amid the boulders, ’Neath the shadow of the shoulders Of the Ben, Through a country rough and shaggy, So jaggy and so knaggy, Full of hummocks and of hunches, Full of stumps and tufts and bunches, Full of bushes and of rushes, In the glen. Through rich green solitudes, And wildly hanging woods, With blossom and with bell, In rich redundant swell, And the pride Of the mountain-daisy there And the forest everywhere, With the dress and with the air Of a bride.

The number and variety of Macintyre’s compositions is very large, all sorts of themes being regarded as fit for the exercise of his poetic fancy. Like those of the Highland bards, however, his subjects are generally more of local and personal than of the larger human interests—a fact which is not at all surprising when his education, calling, circumstances, and surroundings are considered.

Personal satires and eulogies, as well as the ordinary events of Highland humble life and occupations, form the circle of themes with which his muse is occupied. But wherever he gets the opportunity of seizing upon new subjects he straightway rushes at them, and turns them over in the rural though rich alembic of his intellectual and ethical processes, with results which show shrewdness, sagacity, and poetic powers of observation of a high order. In the corrie, on the hillside, or after the chase, Duncan Bàn is at home, and his poetry then rises to the highest pitch of the true pastoral. Elsewhere his muse necessarily travels on lower planes. But, like all his countrymen, inspired by visions of the great bens and far-reaching valleys, he is ever eager to extend his sphere of observation as well as his horizon of knowledge.

In his suggestive poem in _Praise of Dunedin_, or of Edinburgh, where the patriarchal poet died at the good age of eighty-nine, there is a current of pleasant and pawky observation which reminds us of the great changes that have come over the Scottish capital as over _Ben-Dorain_ of the poet’s “Farewell.” The following verses of a very literal rendering describes the author’s impressions of what usually attracted his gaze in “Bonnie Dunedin”:—

There’s many a noble lady A poor man here may meet In gown of silk or satin That sweeps along the street; And every pretty thing wears stays, To keep her straight and spare; And beauty-spots on her fair face To make her still more rare.

Each one, as well becomes her, Polite among the rest; And proud, and rich, and ribbony, And round and gaily dressed: The clothes on the young maidens Just showing to your eye A strong and pointed well-made shoe— I thought the heels too high.

When I went into the Abbey, It was a noble sight To see the kings in order, From King Fergus, as was right; But now since they are gone from us, Our Alba wants the Crown— No wonder that her once gay court Is like a desert grown.

There is a lantern made of glass, With a candle in each place, That yields a light to every eye Around a little space. Nor less a cause of pleasure Are the instruments they play, That give a sweeter music Than the cuckoo does in May.

It is difficult to say how far the recovery of the regalia, her Majesty’s frequent residence in the Highlands, the crowds of tourists northward every year, and, above all, the Home Rule movement, might affect the sentiment of the line—

“Our Alba wants the Crown”—

but undoubtedly in these days of gas illuminations and electric-light glories, the “lantern made of glass with a candle” would be no “cause of pleasure” to the most unsophisticated son of the mountains.

Macintyre composed an Elegy for himself, from which the following expressions of a feeble faith are taken:—

Loudly shall the trumpet peal With echoes in all quarters heard; From the fields shall wake the dead Left by others there interred; All that perished in distress In the storm or in the flood; To Mount Zion go the host To triumph through the Saviour’s blood.

To the world I say farewell, To all there on pilgrimage; Light and gay I lived my season Until I am weak through age: Changèd now my powers be While death stares me in the face, As I pray for welfare yonder Savèd through my Saviour’s grace.

Contemporary with and immediately after the great singers Macdonald, Mackay, and Macintyre were many other bards whose inspiration is clearly traceable to their era. Some of them composed very largely, although in many cases not more than one or two of their compositions are remembered. Many of the composers were well educated, and had they written in a language better understood in the world in general, their names would have been better known. The present Highlanders, while frequently singing their songs, do not know so much as the names of the authors. The same may be said also of Lowlanders with regard to many of their own songs.

RONALD MACDONALD.—The merits of this bard were overshadowed by the great fame of his father, _Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair_. He was a man of considerable attainments and of undoubted poetic gifts, and published a selection of his own and his father’s poems in 1775. He was to publish more, but did not meet with suitable encouragement.

LACHLAN MACPHERSON.—This writer, probably better known as “Strathmasie,” his territorial designation, and described as a gentleman and a scholar, was born about the year 1723, and died in 1767. He gave able assistance to James Macpherson of Ossianic fame in his translations. The relation of Strathmasie to the work has been a subject of very acrid discussion. His own acknowledged poems are in good idiomatic Gaelic, and in style and metre are quite different from the Gaelic poems of James Macpherson’s Ossian, but quite like the poetry of the other Gaelic bards. In all his published poems there is not a stanza or even a line _a la_ Ossian. In poetic power and originality he is much behind Duncan Bàn and _Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair_, but he has shown that he is quite able to write tolerable poetry. The titles of his poems are—_An Elegy on Cluny_; _The Fellowship of Usquebay_; _A Marriage_; _The Dun Breeks_; _A Hunting Song_; _The Advice_; _An Amorous Piece_; _Satire on Mice_.

JOHN ROY STUART.—Colonel Stuart was a native of Kincardine in Badenoch. He first served in the French army against the British Government. He was afterwards with Prince Charles on the fatal moor of Culloden. After lurking for some time in this country he managed to escape to France, where he died. His signal bravery at Culloden was observed by the Duke of Cumberland, who asked who he was: “Ah, that is John Roy Stuart.” “Good God!” exclaimed the Duke, “the man I left in Flanders doing the butcheries of ten heroes! Is it possible that he could have dogged me here!” Stuart’s Poems—the principal of them is on _Culloden Day_—are impetuous, racy, and vigorous. An English bit of humorous verses, called _Roy Stuart’s Psalm_, extemporised where he was hiding on one occasion, runs thus:—

The Lord’s my targe, I will be stout, With dirk and trusty blade, Though Campbells come in flocks about, I will not be afraid. The Lord’s the same as heretofore, He’s always good to me, Though red-coats come a thousand more Afraid I will not be.

KENNETH MACKENZIE.—This bard was born in 1758 at _Caisteal Leahuir_, near Inverness. When quite a young man he went to sea, but returned in 1789, when he began to collect subscribers’ names for his proposed volume of poetry. Some time after the publication of his poems he was procured the rank of an officer in the 78th Highlanders, through the joint influence of Lords Seaforth and Buchan. After leaving the army he got the situation of postmaster in an Irish provincial town. He was living in 1837. His poems are of an high order, polished, smooth, and well-finished. One of his songs has become a universal favourite—_Am Féile Preasach_.

ALLAN MACDOUGALL.—This highly popular bard, better known as _Ailein Dall_, or Blind Allan, was born in Glencoe in 1750. His parents were poor, so Allan, incapacitated by his infirmity of blindness for the usual spheres of industry, turned his attention to music as a means of livelihood. He soon became well known as a fiddler in the district, and by engagements at country weddings and raffles earned a little to support himself. The poems also he composed helped to make him popular; and with the assistance of Mr E. MacLachlan, latterly of Aberdeen, who was then a tutor in the neighbourhood, a volume was prepared and published. Soon after this Colonel Ronaldson Macdonald of Glengarry took the poet under his patronage. In 1828 he travelled the counties of Argyll, Ross, and Inverness for subscribers for a new edition of his poems, but after procuring 1000 names, and going to press in 1829, the poor poet died. He was buried in the churchyard of Kilfinan. He has been regarded as the last of the family bards. He was a man of true poetic gifts; many of his songs are still highly popular, such as—

“Nam faighainn gille r’a cheannach.”

JAMES SHAW.—Poor James Shaw, otherwise called _Bard Lochuan-Eala_, was born about 1758. He subsequently lived at Ardchattan, where he received some kindness from General Campbell and his lady. He died in 1828 suddenly on board a steamboat when returning from Glasgow, where he was trying to get his poems printed. He has been described as idle and dissipated. _Bidh Fonn Oirre Daonnan_, one of his songs, is still very popular.

DONALD MACDONALD.—Like the Bard of Lochnell this composer too fell a victim to his own infirmities of character. Macdonald, also called _Am Bard Conanach_, was born in 1780 in Strathconon, Ross-shire. He was a sawyer by trade, which he pursued after he removed to Inverness, where he did not fail to give scope to his convivial disposition. His moral conceptions of things do not seem to have been of a very high order, judging by his well-known song _Fhuair me Sgeula moch an dè_.

ALEXANDER MACKINNON.—This composer, whose father was a farmer in Morar, Arisaig, was born in 1770. Early in life he enlisted in the 92nd Regiment, and was present at the Battle of Alexandria in 1801, where he was wounded. He was discharged, and enjoyed his pension for some time; but disliking the quietness of civilian life, he again joined the army, where he remained till he died at Fort-William in 1814. His principal poems are on _Landing in Egypt_, _The Battle of Egypt_, and _The Battle of Holland_. These are characterised by much poetic fire and warlike enthusiasm.

ANGUS FLETCHER.—This gentle and cultured bard, the author of the highly popular production _Clachan ghlinn Daruadhail_, was born on the west bank of Loch Eck, in Cowal, 1776. He was educated at the parish school of Kilmodan. Afterwards he lived for some time in Bute, till he became, in 1804, parochial schoolmaster of Dunoon. He is also the author of some other songs that have become popular, especially _The Lassie of the Glen_, which, in an English dress from Fletcher’s own pen, is well-known. This song was first published in the “Edinburgh Weekly Journal.”

ALLAN MACINTYRE.—Very few Highlanders have ever heard of this author. Macintyre, known as _Ailein nan Sionach_, or fox-hunting Allan, was a native of Kintyre. He published early in the century a small volume of his own, and other poems, but few of his productions are now sung, and his book is rather scarce.

DONALD MACLEOD.—This author published while he was still young a volume of original and other poems in 1811. Young of Inverness was the publisher, and probably he and others influenced the young author in his selection of such pieces of questionable taste and authorship as those of the _Ceisteir Crubach_ and _Mordubh_. MacLeod’s productions are rated very highly by his countrymen who delight in designating him, _Am Bard Sgiathanach_, or The Skye Bard. While Macleod is undoubtedly a man of good poetic parts, he ranks much below his far more distinguished and gifted son, Neil Macleod, whose songs have deservedly taken a high place in popular esteem.

Other bards of various gifts, and authors of published volumes of poetry during this period, are—

_Duncan Campbell_, who describes himself as a native of Kilmun, Cowal, published a “Gaelic Song Book” at Cork, 1798.

_John Macgregor_, published a volume of 227 pages in 1801, at Edinburgh. There is none of decided merit.

_Angus Kennedy_, a native of Ardgour, Argyllshire, published a volume at Glasgow in 1808. One or two of his songs have become very popular.

_William Gordon_, a native of Creich, Sutherlandshire, published a volume of 156 pages in 1802. He was a soldier, and in his latter days composed religious hymns.

_Margaret Macgregor’s_ poems appear in Mackintosh’s Collection in 1831.

There were many other composers of one or a few songs or poems which may be found in various collections of whom we know little or nothing more than their mere names. To this class belong Donald Macintyre of North Argyll, George Morison of the far North, William MacMurchie of Kintyre, Alexander Macinnes of Glencoe, Maclachlan of Kilbride, and some female composers who are only known as the wives or daughters of men described as of certain localities. There does not appear to have been a parish or clachan in the Highlands and Isles that has not brought forth its own singer.

WILLIAM ROSS.

This sensitive and delightful poet was born at Broadford, Isle of Skye, in 1762. He received good education at the parish school of Forres, where he highly distinguished himself. He made a particular study of his native language, and was also well acquainted with Latin and Greek. He sang sweetly, and played on the violin, flute, and other instruments with considerable skill. He became parish schoolmaster of Gairloch, Ross-shire, where he was a very successful teacher. He did not fill this situation, however, very long. He died of consumption in 1790, in the twenty-eighth year of his age. His early death is said to have been hastened by a love disappointment. In _Cuachag nan Eraobh_, one of his best-known songs, he indulges in melancholy and painful reflections. It is addressed to a cuckoo that settled on the branch of a tree beside him. He remembers his false love and sings:—

Nought to me but a sting all her bright beauties bring— I droop with decay, and I languish; There’s a pain at my heart like a pitiless dart, And I waste all away with anguish.

She has stolen the hue on my young cheeks that grew, And much she has caused my sorrow; Unless now she renew with her kindness that hue Death will soon bid me “Good morrow.”

Death did soon bid poor Ross “good morrow” and in this song, like Michael Bruce, he sang his own elegy. How pathetically the poet cries in the prospect of death!—

If she were thus low, with what haste should I go To ask how the maiden was faring: Now short the delay till a mournful array The brink of my grave will be bearing!

Ross is a poet of a high order, and one of the sweetest minstrels the Highlands have produced. Many of his songs are highly popular. The exquisite sweetness and finish of Ross appear in his praise of the “Highland Maid,” the first two stanzas of which are rendered as follows by Mr Angus Macphail, whose early death has been a loss to Gaelic literature:—

My pretty Highland maiden, With tresses golden bright, And blue eyes softly shading, And soft hands snowy white; O’er Scotland’s hills and plains With thee I fain would go, Wrapped in our native tartan plaids That in the breezes flow.

Give me my Highland dress, ’Tis grand beyond compare; Give me my Highland maid, Sweet, smiling, young, and fair; Then banish sleep and care, From eve to rosy morn, In happy love beneath our plaid, The proudest dress that’s worn.

Ross is one of the best known and best loved of all the Gaelic bards. His career, so similar to that of Keats, ends so prematurely and pathetically that his memory has become engraven on the hearts of all who hear his story and love to sing his songs.

EWEN MACLACHLAN.

Ewen MacLachlan, a poet of real culture, sweetness, and light, was born in 1775, in Torracaltin, Coiruanan, where his ancestors, who originally came from Morven, were for several generations. His great-grandfather was a bard of note. He was educated first in the parish school of Fort-William, and afterwards in King’s College, Aberdeen. While carrying on his studies he was tutor successively in the family of Cameron of Camishy, in that of Cameron of Clunes, and in that of Macmillan of Glenpean. He distinguished himself highly at school and at the University, especially in classics. He intended to enter the Church, but on the eve of taking license some friends dissuaded him from taking the step, recommending him to wait, and aim at a professorial chair. Among these was the gentle author of “The Minstrel,” Professor Beattie, who thought much of MacLachlan, and became his fast friend. In 1798 MacLachlan published some of his own productions in Allan Dall’s volume, which he himself committed to writing for the Blind Bard. These were the “Songs of the Seasons,” etc., and several books of Homer’s Iliad translated into Gaelic heroic verse. In 1818 he published his “Metrical Effusions,” where Greek, Latin, English, and Gaelic poems appear. He was engaged by the Highland Society of Scotland to compile a Gaelic dictionary. For this work he was eminently qualified, being intimately acquainted with old Gaelic, as well as with Eastern and classical languages. He died before the work was finished, in 1822, in the 47th year of his age. When he died he was head master of the Grammar School of Old Aberdeen, a post for which his classical attainments peculiarly fitted him. A love-song by MacLachlan—_Gur gile mo Leannan_—is still among the most popular in the language. He himself has furnished us with an English equivalent, which will give a fair idea of the more tender qualities of his genius. These simple and pretty verses, usually sung to a plaintive air, come to us laden with the purity and freshness of the mountain breeze:—

Not the swan on the lake, or the foam on the shore, Can compare with the charms of the maid I adore; Not so white is the new milk that flows o’er the pail, Or the snow that is show’r’d from the boughs of the vale.

As the cloud’s yellow wreath on the mountain’s high brow, The locks of my fair one redundantly flow; Her cheeks have the tint that the roses display. When they glitter with dew on the morning of May.

As the planet of Venus that gleams o’er the grove, Her blue rolling eyes are the symbols of love; Her pearl-circled bosom diffuses bright rays, Like the moon, when the stars are bedimm’d with her blaze.

The mavis and lark, when they welcome the dawn, Make a chorus of joy to resound through the lawn; But the mavis is tuneless—the lark strives in vain, When my beautiful charmer renews her sweet strain.

When summer bespangles the landscape with flow’rs, While the thrush and the cuckoo sing soft from the bowr’s, Through the wood-shaded windings with Bella I’ll rove, And feast unrestrain’d on the smiles of my love.

MacLachlan counted a number of distinguished men among his friends—among others, Alexander, Duke of Gordon; the late Glengarry, Sir John Sinclair, Dr Gregory, and Lord Bannatyne Macleod. His funeral was attended by the Professors of the University and Magistrates of the city to show their respect. His remains were removed to his native Lochaber for burial. On the way to the burial place at Killievaodain in Ardgour the hearse was met and accompanied to the last resting-place by Glengarry and a number of his clansmen dressed in their native garb. Few of MacLachlan’s talents and culture in modern times have devoted their energies to the cultivation of Gaelic literature. There is a reason: the practical spirit of the nineteenth century has, perhaps desirably, cooled even the enthusiasm of bardic natures.

JOHN MACLEAN.

Among the bards of some note who flourished in the first quarter of this century is John MacLean, usually styled the Laird of Coll’s Bard. He is one of the last of the order of family bards, or senachies. But the office in his case does not appear to have been of much advantage to himself—it was more honourable and ornamental than remunerative. MacLean was born in the Island of Tiree in 1787. As an instance of the tenacity with which Highlanders cleave to the traditional pedigrees of their families, it maybe mentioned that he traced himself back through the MacLeans of Treisinnis, of Ardgour, and of Duart to the great _Hector Roy of the Battles_, who was killed at Harlaw in 1411. But this is a small claim as compared with that advanced by a Dublin schoolmaster, John O’Hart, who, in a pamphlet dedicated to her Majesty Queen Victoria, whom he regards somewhat as a fellow-sovereign, pretends to trace his pedigree to the mighty monarchs of Eire who once reigned in “Tara’s Hall!” MacLean published a collection of poetry, most of the pieces being his own composition, in 1818; another volume of his own poems appeared at Antigonish in 1836. His works complete have since been issued in excellent style under the title of “Clàrsach na Coille” (Harp of the Wood), edited with intelligence and care by the Rev. A. M. Sinclair of Nova Scotia, whose Gaelic scholarship and enthusiasm are well known on this side of the Atlantic. It is said that “in the poet’s younger days the people of Tiree led merry lives; they did not trouble themselves with hard work; they had, however, plenty to eat and drink. The island was full of distilleries, and whisky-drinking was carried on to a very great extent. There were capital dancers in the place, and certainly these men did not allow their legs to become stiff through want of exercise upon the floor.” This picture of island-life suggests the material which was frequently the source of inspiration to bardic lucubrations. After learning the trade of shoemaking, MacLean started for Glasgow, where he married. In 1810 he was drafted into the militia, but was discharged next year. In 1819 he emigrated to Nova Scotia, where he lived till the year 1848, much respected and appreciated by all his countrymen who knew him. It appears that MacLean has composed religious poetry, though little known—some of his hymns being printed in Glasgow in 1835. Here is an account of this side of his nature: “It was not till he had been several years in Barney’s River that he turned his attention to this species of composition. His hard lot in this world no doubt tended to direct his attention to a better world. He had always led a good moral life—a more truthful or a more honest could not be found. He had always observed the worship of God regularly in his family.” MacLean is a bard of considerable powers, but cannot be compared with the bards whose names are known wherever the Gaelic language is spoken. One song of his has been highly popular, mainly because of the sweet air that is attached to it. The following verses will show the manner of the song, _Och a rùin gur tu air m’aire_:—

Each day I sigh here a lonely stranger, I cannot sing with my heart love-laden; I was right foolish to give my promise To her of Canna, the youthful maiden.

It was with gladness I left the island, Home of my childhood and my devotion, To seek the gold here that may be found not In those bare islands amid the ocean.

How proud and happy I was with Allan Beginning work in the gray of morning; ’Twere better far to be there than labour A lonely stranger ’neath Lowland scorning.

I would not stay in my native island, To my ambition the land was narrow; When Lowland lasses inquire in English, I say in Gaelic, “I came from Barra.”

This song is so painfully simple and commonplace, notwithstanding its popularity, that it can scarcely bear translation at all, unless the translator is permitted to introduce some of the stock sentiment and phraseology of the muse. One of MacLean’s best pieces is on the _Laird of Coll’s Boat_. Another of more than average merit was written shortly after his arrival in Nova Scotia. It shows the bard ill at ease in his new surroundings in the _Coille Ghruamach_, or Gloomy Wood. It opens thus:—

I stray alone in these woods of shadows, My thoughts are restless, I feel in pain; This place conflicts with the laws of nature, My strength forsakes me in heart and brain. I cannot sing the old songs of Albin, My bosom saddens to hear their strain; My Gaelic dies since I speak no longer That tongue still cherished beyond the main.

Alas! small wonder although I sorrow Behind the hills in this gloomy wood, In this lone desert by Barney’s River, _With bare potatoes alone for food_. Ere cultivation is seen rejoicing O’er all the land and the trees are cleared, My strength will fail in an arm exhausted While yet the children are left unreared.

MacLean is one of the last of the old order of bards. His poetry shows little or no trace of English reading; and the theme of the majority of his poems is the praise of the Laird of Coll or some kindred chieftain. Very appropriately might the happy couplet of Sir Walter Scott describing the old and infirm minstrels of other days be applied to MacLean—

“A simple race! they waste their toil, For the vain tribute of a smile.”

It ought to be mentioned, however, that the Laird of Coll showed on more than one occasion that he did not forget his enthusiastic senachie.

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