CHAPTER XIII.
BARDS OF THE ANGLO-GAELIC ERA.
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:—
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:—
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:
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:—
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:—
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”:—
“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:—
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:—
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”:—
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—
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:—
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:—
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—
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:—