The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. | Page 3

the footsteps of these
exciting subjects of poetry, came the inspiring Montrose wars, which
introduce to our acquaintance the more modern class of bards; of these
the most conspicuous is, Ian Lom[16] or Manntach. This bard was a
Macdonald; he hung on the skirts of armies, and at the close of the
battle sung the triumph or the wail, on the side of his partisans.[17] To
the presence of this person the clans are supposed to have been
indebted for much of the enthusiasm which led them to glory in the
wars of Montrose. His poetry only reaches mediocrity, but the success
which attended it led the chiefs to seek similar support in the Jacobite
wars; and very animated compositions were the result of their
encouragement. Mathieson, the family bard of Seaforth, Macvuirich,
the pensioner of Clanranald, and Hector the Lamiter, bard of M'Lean,
were pre-eminent in this department. The Massacre of Glencoe
suggested numerous elegies. There is one remarkable for pathos by a
clansman who had emigrated to the Isle of Muck, from which
circumstance he is styled "Am Bard Mucanach."
The knights of Duart and Sleat, the chiefs of Clanranald and Glengarry,
the Lochaber seigniory of Lochiel, and the titled chivalry of Sutherland
and Seaforth,[18] formed subjects of poetic eulogy. Sir Hector Maclean,
Ailein Muideartach, and the lamented Sir James Macdonald obtained
the same tribute. The second of these Highland favourites could not
make his manly countenance, or stalwart arm, visible in hall, barge, or
battle,[19] without exciting the enthusiastic strain of the enamoured
muse of one sex, or of the admiring minstrel of the other. In this

department of poetry, some of the best proficients were women. Of
these Mary M'Leod, the contemporary of Ian Lom, is one of the most
musical and elegant. Her chief, _The M'Leod_, was the grand theme of
her inspiration. Dora Brown[20] sung a chant on the renowned
Col-Kitto, as he went forth against the Campbells to revenge the death
of his father; a composition conceived in a strain such as Helen
Macgregor might have struck up to stimulate to some deed of daring
and vindictive enterprise.
Of the modern poetry of the Gael, Macpherson has expressed himself
unfavourably; he regarded the modern Highlanders as being incapable
of estimating poetry otherwise than in the returning harmony of similar
sounds. They were seduced, he remarks, by the charms of rhyme; and
admired the strains of Ossian, not for the sublimity of the poetry, but on
account of the antiquity of the compositions, and the detail of facts
which they contained. On this subject a different opinion has been
expressed by Sir Walter Scott. "I cannot dismiss this story," he writes,
in his last introduction to his tale of the "Two Drovers," "without
resting attention for a moment on the light which has been thrown on
the character of the Highland Drover, since the time of its first
appearance, by the account of a drover poet, by name Robert Mackay,
or, as he was commonly called, Rob Donn, _i.e._, Brown Robert; and
certain specimens of his talents, published in the ninetieth number of
the _Quarterly Review_. The picture which that paper gives of the
habits and feelings of a class of persons with which the general reader
would be apt to associate no ideas but those of wild superstition and
rude manners, is in the highest degree interesting; and I cannot resist
the temptation of quoting two of the songs of this hitherto unheard-of
poet of humble life.... Rude and bald as these things appear in a verbal
translation, and rough as they might possibly appear, even were the
originals intelligible, we confess we are disposed to think they would of
themselves justify Dr Mackay (editor of Mackay's Poems) in placing
this herdsman-lover among the true sons of song."
Of that department of the Gaelic Minstrelsy admired by Scott and
condemned by Macpherson, the English reader is presented in the
present work with specimens, to enable him to form his own judgment.

These specimens, it must however be remembered, not only labour
under the ordinary disadvantages of translations, but have been
rendered from a language which, in its poetry, is one of the least
transfusible in the world. Yet the effort which has been made to retain
the spirit, and preserve the rhythm and manner of the originals, may be
sufficient to establish that the honour of the Scottish Muse has not
unworthily been supported among the mountains of the Gael. Some of
the compositions are Jacobite, and are in the usual warlike strain of
such productions, but the majority sing of the rivalries of clans, the
emulation of bards, the jealousies of lovers, and the honour of the
chiefs. They likewise abound in pictures of pastoral imagery; are
redolent of the heath and the wildflower,