CHAPTER XV.
BARDS OF THE CELTIC RENAISSANCE.
Before the plough of cruel eviction from their homes cut deep furrows into the Highland heart, the bards, such as Duncan Bàn, loved to sing of the pleasures of the chase; but the second quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed a change in this respect. A new, if not a revolutionary spirit—at least one of discontent—got abroad throughout the land. This “divine discontent” seized upon the Highland bards, and the burning strains of Maclachlan of Morven and William Livingston, no longer ran in the older moulds of Macintyre and others. The extension of the franchise, the study of history and the science of language, the growing sympathy with oppressed nationalities, the revival of Christian forces, and the increasing value attached to human life,—these and many other “cries of the human,” helped forward a movement which may be fitly described as a Celtic Renaissance. This Highland movement was reinforced by kindred and sympathetic influences from Ireland, Wales, and circles of social and linguistic learning on the Continent, until it eventually bore statutory fruit in the Highland Land Act of 1886, which constitutes an Imperial Charter of hereditary right to their native land for the Gaelic-speaking communities of Scotland. This was an achievement which even bards with millennial visions and hopes could scarcely look forward to a generation ago.
The wails of the bards over Highland depopulation, however, nursed the people’s discontent as well as their resolution to assert themselves. A good proportion of the authors whose compositions come under notice in this chapter come under the spell of the Celtic Renaissance. Indeed this spirit of national resurrection is the vital force pervading their productions which would be poor and barren without it.
EVAN MACCOLL.
At the head of the Bards of the Victorian era stands Evan MacColl, who was born in 1808 at Kenmore, Lochfyneside, Argyleshire, where his father was a small farmer. Young MacColl eagerly seized on all the sources of culture within his reach, and at an early age became familiar with some of the chief works of English literature. He was born and educated in the midst of strongly Celtic influences and associations which continued to mould his mind and heart throughout his whole career.
In 1836 he published “The Mountain Minstrel; or, Clarsach nam Beann,” a series of English and Gaelic poems and songs. He is one of the best known of our living Gaelic bards. Fletcher of Dunans and Campbell of Islay, to whom the English and Gaelic parts of his volume are respectively dedicated, befriended the young bard, who had proved himself highly deserving of the patronage they extended to him. The genius of MacColl is entirely lyrical, very few poems of any length having come from his pen. His English songs are generally playful and pleasant, but do not show much depth of passion. His Gaelic poems have the same ring as his English pieces, but are more natural, and show the bard at his ease in the use of language. MacColl is a sweet and intelligent singer, but in real power of thought and expression he is not Livingston’s equal. The following verses show MacColl in his more vigorous style:—
The poet, who entered the Liverpool Custom-House in 1839 through W. F. Campbell of Islay, M.P. then for Argyleshire, removed to Canada in 1850, where in a similar position at Kingston he remained until he was superannuated in 1880. The venerable poet, now in the eighty third year of his age, resides in Canada, where a son of his is an able Congregational minister, and a daughter known as a poetess of much merit.
None of the Gaelic bards had a wider acquaintance, nor a larger outlook of life than MacColl. But in the midst of all new associations and attractions, he remained at heart frankly and even sternly Highland. The following verse of an address (1878), to a well-known Highland patriot, Mr John Murdoch, illustrates this phase of his character:—
Before Celtic things were held in such esteem as they are now, or rather, perhaps, before their value was appreciated as recently, men of Celtic extraction like Macaulay and Charles Mackay wrote of the Highlanders and Highlands, not only without discrimination and sympathy, but without knowledge, and even in a spirit of savage contempt. The latter lived to express regret for his earlier conduct; the former had not the same opportunity of modifying his earlier impressions, and his Highland fellow-countrymen were not slow to declare their minds on the subject. Among those who sought to pay back the illustrious historian in his own coin was Evan MacColl. On the occasion of Macaulay’s death some one had written “Macaulay now is registered among England’s mighty dead!” On this MacColl wrote verses the first and last of which are as follows:—
The warm and generous heart of the bard is revealed in much of his poetry. His little poem, Let us do the best we can, shows his sympathy with the struggling poor:—
One of the best criticisms on MacColl’s poetry comes from the pen of Hugh Miller: “There is more of fancy than of imagination in the poetry of MacColl, and more of thought and imagery than of feeling. In point, glitter, polish, he is the Moore of Highland song. Comparison and ideality are the leading features of his mind. Some of the pieces in this volume are sparkling tissues of comparison from beginning to end.”
JAMES MUNRO.
A little volume, Am Filldh, mostly written by James Munro (1840), author of the “Gaelic Grammar,” contains a great deal of first-class poetry. In the composition of small pieces of the sentimental kind, Munro is scarcely inferior to Livingston in freshness and condensation, and is MacColl’s equal. We have in the “Filidh” several pieces by other hands, as well as excellent translations from the English. Munro was a man of thorough culture, and profoundly acquainted with the extent and idioms of the Gaelic language. Of all this there is undoubted evidence in his poetry. Here is a rendering of one of Munro’s songs, which is attached to a very fine air:—
JOHN MACLACHLAN.
The late Dr Maclachlan of Rahoy, in Morven, stands high as a poet. A little volume of his poems was published in 1868. Like all the singers whose works have become popular in the Highlands, all that he wrote was intended to be sung. He looks at nature as a man of culture and tender sympathies, and with an independent eye; and what he sings comes with all the freshness of the evening breeze as it sweeps o’er the Highland loch. One theme he especially dwells on—the depopulation of the Highlands. His heart is saddened as he sees the Lowland shepherd, who has no sympathy with the place, the people, or their language, treading with his dogs the glens and hillsides where many expatriated Gaels had once their happy homes. He has also written several love lyrics which are admirable in conception and expression. A song on “Drink,” Cha’n òl mi deur tuille, is the best of that sort in the language. Dr Maclachlan lived all his days in Morven, beside his accomplished neighbour, the Rev. Dr John MacLeod, himself a man of no mean poetic powers. Although a skilful practitioner, and possessing considerable talents, he never sought for a more ambitious sphere. He loved the people around—he was widely known—and they loved him in return. He never married, and he lived till he was an old man, not perhaps less liked by his neighbours for his weakness for a dram, which he and they thought a necessary beverage in chill and misty Morven. Here is a translation, well executed by Mr H. Whyte, of one of Maclachlan’s poems:—
A new edition of his poems, with a sketch of his life from the pen of Dr Cameron Gillies, was published some twelve years ago under the auspices of the Glasgow Morven Association, whose members had also in hand the erection of a monument to the bard’s memory.
ANGUS MACDONALD.
The compositions of Angus Macdonald, the Glen-Urquhart Bard, show poetic genius of a high order in the few poems of his which have yet seen the light. He has left some poems in manuscript which it is hoped, will some day be published. The poems in the Gael and in the Inverness Transactions remind us of the productions of very kindred spirits, Livingston and R. Macdougall. He and Livingston seem to have diligently cultivated the style and manner of Ossian, particularly of the Gaelic of 1807. He was a master of rich idiomatic Gaelic, and having also the “accomplishment of verse,” he could make himself terrible or tender, just as his muse was stirred. He had a particularly true eye for the beauties of nature; and was always accurate and graphic in his descriptions. He possessed a keen and cultivated ear—was a teacher of music for some time; so his verse is full of melody and harmonious cadences. He excelled in poetry of the Ossianic type; but, like all masters of the art, he shows also much tenderness in his love lyrics. He was appointed the first bard of the Inverness Gaelic Society, an office filled by Mrs Mackellar afterwards. He received in 1869 a medal for a prize poem from “The Club of True Highlanders,” London. His daughter, Mrs A. Mackenzie of Inverness, has inherited some of her father’s genius, and is herself the author of compositions of considerable excellence.
MARY MACKELLAR.
A volume of goodly size, Poems and Songs: Gaelic and English, by this poetess, was published in 1881. Mary Mackellar has for many years been well-known as a woman of bright poetic powers; and her talents in this respect were some time ago recognised by the Gaelic Society of Inverness, when she was appointed Bard. Her poems are characterised by much vigour and freshness, and evince a subtlety of conception which is quite beyond the ability of the ordinary Gaelic versifiers. It is premature yet to judge what position she may take among the Gaelic bards. Her songs, superior as some of them are, have not yet been accorded much popularity. There is a sort of straining—an occasional abstruse Browning element in her Gaelic pieces—which is probably the cause of this and which has evidently resulted from too close a following of the abstract conceptions of modern English poets, the natural utterance of which Gaelic is somewhat unfitted for. She possesses keen and nervous sensibilities, and looks at nature with a warm, sympathetic, and observant eye. Like the brook from the gully she bursts forth with rich thought and melody; but her poems frequently want breadth of basis. She has generally the true inspiration, but she does not manage sufficiently to lose her self-consciousness—to fall into that state of abandon which is needed for the production of the highest forms of poetry. At the same time she has proved herself one of the best Gaelic poetesses the Highlands has produced. Her English pieces are vigorous and readable. They are not inferior to her Gaelic poems, although occasionally exhibiting want of Wordsworth’s “accomplishment of verse” so keenly felt by Hugh Miller in his own case. All Highlanders welcomed Mary Mackellar’s excellent contribution to their native literature. She died in 1890 in Edinburgh, and members of the Cameron Clan—her maiden name being Cameron—accompanied her remains to their final resting-place in her native Lochaber.
DUGALD MACPHAIL.
This cultivated poet, a native of Mull, author of An t-Eilein Muileach, one of the popular songs in the language, was a man of strong and well-cultivated intellect, who did not at all give us what might be expected from one of his rich poetic endowments. But what he has done is first-class. The most of it will be found in the “Oranaiche.” Macphail was also known as a most effective Gaelic speaker, as well as a clever writer of Gaelic stories. He has done good work in translating religious productions, his translation of MacLaurin’s magnificent sermon on “Glorying in the Cross of Christ” being one of the best little books in the Gaelic language.
There are several minor bards whose names have for a long time been known in different parts of the Highlands—
Robert Macdougall, author of “A Gaelic Guide” to Canada, where he resided for some time, published an interesting volume of poems in 1840. Along with original pieces of great merit he gives a translation of Tam o’ Shanter, and of some poems of Byron, whom he somewhat imitated. He was the first, along with James Munro, of the new school of poetry to which Livingston, Angus Macdonald, and others of the present day belong.
Archibald Campbell, of Kinloch-Earn, brought out a neat volume of songs and poems in 1831. One or two of them have become very popular. His style is unaffected, and the sentiment natural. The whole volume is fully of average merit.
John Cameron, of Ballachulish, author of “Dan Spioradail” (1862), has written several poems and songs of considerable merit. The best-known is Duil ri Bailc-ehaolais fhaicinn. Like Mary Mackellar, Cameron did not continue a worshipper at the shrine of the sacred Muse, to which he seems to have been devoted in his early days.
John Campbell, of Leadaig, is well-known as the author of several excellent poems, one of which has been translated by Professor Blackie. There is much taste as well as evidence of fair culture in all that Campbell has written. His poetry is distinguished by the pastoral sweetness and light of a simple Highland life.
John Mackorkindale, a native of Islay, afterwards in Canada, possesses true poetic insight, and had he continued to cultivate Gaelic poetry he could produce excellent work. Parts of a poetic dialogue on “Dun Bhrusgraidh” by him were reprinted in the first volume of The Gael.
George Campbell, late of Kinabus, in the same island, composed a great deal of poetry of more than average merit, but his compositions were never collected and published. Fuirich a Ribhinn phriseal is to be found in the “Oranaiche.” The maiden addressed is Jean Wodrow, daughter of the Kildalton minister, who published in 1771 a mellifluous rhyming version of Fingal, founded on Macpherson’s English.
The Rev. Donald Macrae, a native of Plockton, late of Ness, Lewis, was a true poet, although he did not produce much. A sweet, pathetic poem, by him, The Emigrant’s Lament, written on the occasion of many of his congregation in Lewis leaving for Canada, has been much admired, and has been translated into English by a daughter of late Rev. Dr Gibson of Glasgow:—
The Emigrant’s Lament.
The bereaved pastor continues the wail further in a more religious strain, hoping—
WILLIAM LIVINGSTON.
The Bard of Lochfyne is probably the best-known hitherto of the Gaelic singers of this century; but his place is disputed by the sweet lyrist of Rahoy. Though not so popular as these two, as a mere singer, because he has produced so few songs suitable for singing, William Livingston must be regarded as the most powerful poetic personality among the Celtic bards of this century. Like Browning among the English poets, Livingston is less known than minor claimants for bardic recognition, because the general reader of Gaelic poetry is not always capable of appreciating anything higher in the poetic scale than smooth-flowing verse and mellifluous rhymes that make no demand on the severer exercise of thought. But his position as a bard among his contemporaries has been more than once recognised by a few of the most distinguished Celtic scholars and critics of his time. In competition for prizes offered by the Glasgow Celtic Society, on three occasions Livingston obtained the first prize, some of the adjudicators being the late Rev. Dr Smith of Inverary; the late Rev. Duncan MacNab of Renfield Free Church, Glasgow; and the late Rev. Duncan MacLean of Glenorchy;—the last being himself a sacred poet of very considerable genius. Many of his competitors on these occasions are authors of very popular songs, but their productions must be credited with more rhyme than poetic power.
William Livingston was born in Gartmain, in Islay, in the year 1808. There are not many of his kith and kin in that island now, nor is there any evidence that his humble progenitors were anything else than some of those nomadic individuals or families, of a Celto-Germanic character, unconnected particularly with any of the well-known clans, but who, in the political economy of the Highlands were ranged under the name of “siol Dhomhnuill,” or some other, and in latter days became more unreasonably Celtic in their race antipathies than the purer Celts themselves. The late notorious Mitchell and the present leaders of the Irish Home Rulers are Irish instances of what has been stated. The bard Livingston is a Scottish instance; and the proximity of his native place to Ireland’s northern coasts may have some suggestive value, especially when his training, or rather no training, and the sources of his historical and social knowledge are taken into consideration. There is another Livingstone of Highland extraction—his family were originally from Mull—who has had some connection with Glasgow like his namesake the bard; but Dr David Livingstone, the devoted and distinguished African traveller, turned his attention and directed his labours to the amelioration of the condition of Africa’s benighted and dusky children. Livingstone, the traveller, regarded all the sons of humanity, whether they were black or white, of whatever race, as the sons of the one great Father, equally good and precious in his sight, and all of one blood; but Livingston the bard devoted all his energies to the patriotic rehearsal, in prose and verse, of the doughty deeds and ancient prowess of our Scottish ancestors; with him the Scotsman alone ought to occupy the position of lord of creation, especially if it could be proved he was a Celt,—and the Englishman especially, on account of his continual oppression of the smaller kingdom of Scotland, he, like Irishmen of a certain order, regarded with intense dislike, as the universal tyrant throughout the civilised world. The bones of the distinguished traveller Dr Livingstone were deposited in their final resting-place in Westminster Abbey amid the sympathetic tears of all civilised nations. He was a cosmopolitan patriot, one of the few extraordinary men whom God vouchsafes in the progress of the ages for the enlightenment of the dark places of the earth and the promotion of the highest interests of universal humanity. Livingston, the bard, whose pursuit after knowledge under unusually unfavourable conditions, and whose indomitable perseverance and fervour of heart were not unlike those of David Livingstone had but a very limited vision of the functions of his mission into the world. The duties which he assigned to himself were the magnifying of Scotland’s fame and glory, the lashing in Wallace and Bruce fashion of the Teutonic intruder from the south of the Tweed, and the special vindication of the Celtic character from the continual aspersions of the uncircumcised Saxon. He did his work with a will, but there was no need for it. It was as uncalled for as Thomson’s work on Liberty, which, undertaken in an unwise moment, notwithstanding its fine poetry, the public, not without reason, condemned to “gather spiders and to harbour dust.” When highly needed work goes without its reward it cannot be a matter of surprise that unnecessary ebullitions of patriotism do not always pay; so poor Livingston, like not a few of the order of Bards, died somewhat neglected in an obscure street of the philanthropic city of Glasgow. But he did not die unknown to a few sympathising friends. The members of the Islay Association and others were always anxious to relieve the necessities of the poet when his temper and ways made it possible to be of some service to him. In some respects his own independence was like that proud independence of his native country, of which he was so fervent a singer. He died in 1870, his wife predeceasing him a few weeks.
Much of the character of Livingston is traceable to his upbringing. In youth he received no education, and his earliest training when a boy was herding cattle. Was not Rob Donn, the Sutherlandshire Bard, also a herd? But it was thought fit to set the embryo herd-poet to learn a trade, and he served his time at tailoring, which he carried on in a desultory fashion all his days, and in which he was intelligently and sympathetically assisted by his frugal wife. He was thus a grown-up man before he got any education, and all he ever got was self-taught; and had his pride permitted him to tell the story of his struggles after knowledge, English, Latin, French, Greek, and a little Hebrew, it would furnish an interesting chapter in the annals of the pursuit of learning under difficulties. The manuscripts of his in possession of the writer show the extraordinary pains he took with his work—his endeavours after a purer English style, even when well-advanced in years—and what a long time he was a wooer of the muses before he arrived at the intensity of poetical conception which distinguished his later poetry. His earlier efforts do not seem to have been very successful, and they are of a somewhat humorous character. He almost stands alone among the prominent Gaelic bards in having given us no love songs. The reason is that he was probably a married man before the dormant powers of his poetic nature awakened. While there is much tenderness in all his descriptions of nature, the reader of his poetry must feel that he is always surrounded by an atmosphere of martial enthusiasm and intense patriotic sentiment. He was too wise to attempt the singing of a passion the power of which did not evidently permeate his nature; but the love of fatherland, the story of the gory struggle of Scottish independence were to him all-absorbing sources of inspiration; and to these he always turns, and finds in them the congenial themes on which he enthusiastically lavishes the rich poetic gifts with which he was endowed.
Livingston published his first volume of poetry in 1858. A smaller volume followed a few years afterwards, in 1865; and in 1868 a few poems in pamphlet form, one of them being a prize production—being the third piece for which he received a prize from the Glasgow Celtic Society. The year before his death he began to arrange his poems with a view to publishing them all in one volume, but before he transcribed more than half a dozen of them his pen was arrested by an invisible Power.
I well remember how the old bard, with his magnificent beard, which he often stroked with evident admiration, and which seemed to be growing up to his very eyes—small piercing eyes that scanned the neighbours suspiciously—emphasised the hope that when the proposed volume would appear, it would contain fully as much first-class poetry as the works of either of the three Gaelic modern bards, Mackay, Macintyre, or Macdonald. It is pleasant to know that the work which the bard had so much at heart has been accomplished under the auspices of the Islay Association, mainly at the suggestion and with the assistance of a patriotic countryman—Mr Colin Hay—who is a great admirer of Livingston’s poetry.
The longest of Livingston’s poems is a dramatic piece entitled The Danes in Islay. It is the only proper dramatic poem in the language. The subject is one that the poet could take up with much enthusiasm, as he pictured to himself the Norse army in a fleet of sixty-three sail entering the spacious Lochindaul, and dropping anchor there with no friendly intent. The bard’s historical and antiquarian knowledge stood him here in good stead. The great Macdonald, Prince of the Isles, is the central figure, and next to him the aged but faithful Mackay of Rhinns, both of whom are immediately informed by their watchful scouts of the advent of those hereditary foes, the Norse invaders, on the green shores of Islay, which was once in their own possession. The fiery cross is sent all over the island to call together the brave subjects of the Macdonald to defend their homes and hearths. A battle takes place; and in the final struggle there are many heroes who do great and incredible deeds, chief among whom are—Nuagan Mor, a Norse prince; Raosbun, Gilleathain Thora, and Donncha Mor Laorain. Though this is one of the most ambitious of Livingston’s productions, yet it is not equal as a whole, and not so finished, nor of so high an order as, for example, his prize poems; but the lyrical portions of it are very fine, the marching song of Mackay of Rhinns, to the tune of Mnathan a’ Ghlinne so, being quite a gem. Here are some verses of a war chant which occurs in the poem. The Norse invaders are supposed to rehearse the following wild and fierce lyric as they drop anchor in the harbour of Lochindaul:—
The Danes in Islay is not the only cath or battle that the bard has sought to immortalise in tough classical Celtic. We have also several vigorous poems on the battles of Scotland’s earlier struggles for independence. Livingston’s muse is nearly wholly of a martial order, which, while it explains his want of popularity among what he would regard as a somewhat effeminate generation, is the more remarkable when it is remembered how purely sentimental the most of his contemporary bards have been. The titles of three other poems are—The Battle of Mona Phraca, The Battle of Dail-righ—regarded as his best—and that of Tra-Ghruinard, where the great Sir Lachlan MacLean of Duart fell, pierced by the fatal shaft of the dwarf Dubh-Shee, who offered services the Knight of Duart despised. The dwarf is described by the bard in pretty expressive terms—“Treoich a ghuir an Diabhul ’san Lag an Diura!” The best of all his poems is the 100 lines (the number was limited) prize poem on the achievements of the Highland regiments in the Crimean war. There is nothing better, and not many poems equal to it in the whole range of Celtic poetry. The best-known of his poems is Fios thun a’ Bhaird, or Word to the Bard, supposed to have been sent to him in Glasgow from a farmer’s wife in Islay, the late Mrs Blair, of Lonban, who showed much kindness to the bard when on a visit to his native island, and whose son is the popular minister, the Rev. Robert Blair, who was a constant friend of Livingston, and who edited the complete edition of his works (1881). In this delightful poem he describes in stanzas of great beauty and tenderness the changes that have taken place, the ruins of the depopulated districts, and the natural scenery of the island. The following are the opening stanzas of the Message to the Bard:—
One of the most admired of Livingston’s poems is that on the achievements of the Highland regiments under Sir Colin Campbell in the Crimean War. As much of its beauty consists in a sort of proverbial form of expression, of which the bard was a consummate master, and in a rhythm of consonantal rhymes, much of what is powerful in the original becomes quite prosaic when rendered literally into English. Here is the first half of the poem, which may indicate something of its manner:—
Alma.