ALEXANDER MACDONALD.
In the seventeenth century we had the silver age, and about the middle of last century the golden age of modern Gaelic poetry. Singers [of original power] appeared in every part of the country. Of these Alexander Macdonald was the first and the greatest. From the wilds of the Ardnamurchan regions he poured forth his imperishable strains. After him Duncan Macintyre comes next, the poet-hunter of Glenorchay. From the heart of central Argyll and Breadalbane he sent forth unique and inimitable songs. In the grand wilds of Perthshire Dugald Buchanan, the sacred bard of Rannoch, was writing his sublime poems on such awful themes as the “Judgement” and the “Passion” of the God-man. In the far North Robert Mackay, the famous Sutherlandshire herd, was gladdening the firesides, of a happy peasantry—whose descendants are now in Canada—with his witty and satiric compositions. In the West the delicate and fine-fibred William Ross began to sing soon after these, his sweet lays of love and sorrow. Jacobite rebellions no doubt stirred up the Highland heart at this period; and in the midst of the political ferment of the times the muse appears to have thrown her choicest mantle on receptive spirits among the people to give song-utterance to their emotional aspirations. In the poetry of Macdonald, Mackay, and Macintyre, we see the greatest bards of modern times. It is difficult to decide which of the first and last mentioned is the greater poet—Mackay is not regarded as equal to either. As far as the works of preceding bards could help their poetic culture their minds were moulded by the same influences.
But in regard to ordinary education it must be remembered that Macdonald was for some time at a University, while Macintyre was never able to write. In their descriptions of outward nature their poetry shows very much like equal power, while the note of the one is not always distinguishable from that of the other. But the passionate depth of the one has no echo in the sweeter and gentler nature of the other. Each in his own way is a mighty singer of whom any country might be proud. And it is remarkable that both should be Argyllshire singers.
Alexander Macdonald, also more frequently called Mac-Mhaighstir Alastair, son of Master Alexander, was born early in the eighteenth century, the exact date and place of his birth being nowhere recorded. His father, Mr Alexander, as he was always styled by the Highlanders, was an Episcopalian clergyman. He resided at Dailea, in Moydart, and is said to have united farming with his ecclesiastical functions. He had several [sons and daughters], and Alexander was his second son. Alexander received his education first under the superintendence of his father, and afterwards for a session or two in the University of Glasgow. His academic career was cut off early by an imprudent marriage. It is not known with certainty whether it was for the Church or for the Bar he was originally intended. It was feared that his general character and conduct would scarcely warrant entrance into the former; while his wild changeableness and irregularities would seriously bar his progress for the latter. He ultimately settled in Ardnamurchan, teaching, farming, and writing poetry. He then changed his ecclesiastical creed, became a Presbyterian and an elder in the Established Church, which he continued to be till the year 1745, when again he changed his creed, became a Roman Catholic, and forsook his all to join Prince Charles. He held a commission in the Highland Army, which he tried to animate by his fiery and warlike songs. For some time after the battle of Culloden he suffered much hardship. One night, while lurking outside somewhere, so intense was the cold that the side of Macdonald’s head, which rested on the ground, was grey when he rose in the morning. Soon after friends in Edinburgh procured teaching for the bard among Jacobite families. But he did not stay long there. He returned to the Highlands, where he died when he had reached a good old age. His life was stormy and checkered, like the historic period which was then also coming to a close.
Macdonald’s first literary work was a Gaelic and English Vocabulary, published in 1741. It was the first attempt of the kind. His poetry was first published in Edinburgh in 1761, and his volume was the first book of original poems ever published in Gaelic. He wrote extensively, but two thirds of his works in MSS. have been lost or destroyed. As we read the works of Macdonald and those of Macpherson’s Ossian—the two highest names in Gaelic poetry—we feel at once that we breathe the air of different regions, or move in the atmosphere of different ages. Between them and the common herd of bards we discern a vast interval in the range of their poetical conceptions. Both breathe the spirit of “Tir nam beann, nan gleann, ’s nan gaisgeach,” but their deep utterances of the soul from the mystic land of fancy and passion are not alike. The inspiration of both is that of the great Bens, the mysterious-seeming valleys, and of deep crying unto deep. Macdonald is wild, picturesque, and gorgeous, ever presenting the dread and sad realities of nature. He loves to picture her coarser characteristics more than her qualities of tenderness. His poetry glows with sensuous imagery, overflows with luxuriance of thought and voluptuousness of feeling, and exhibits much of the animal and material elements of creation. His music is wild, impetuous, and fiery; his metres sometimes smooth, and ruggedly rushing. In accomplishing his more elaborate efforts he shows signs of spasmodic tendencies. He excels in intensity of thought and in fiery vehemence of expression. The force of poetical ardour with which he
Hurls the Birlin through the cold glens,
Loudly snoring,
is deeply absorbing. Natural scenes in the West Highlands he describes with vigour and striking effect. Sometimes he becomes quite majestic, as when he sings of “rain-charged clouds on thick squalls wandering loomed and towered.” Some of the parts of his principal poem, The Birlin, a boat voyage in the Hebrides, are very powerful and sometimes sublime. The unrestrained vehemence and gorgeousness of The Birlin give place to simpler delineations in The Sugar Brook. There is much delicious portraiture in this last poem.
The Praise of the Lion is a fiery appeal to the Scottish nationality. The Jacobite cause is the theme of many of his songs, Prince Charles being sometimes personified under female names, such as “Morag.” In his love songs Macdonald is sweet, tender, and musical, rough though his muse is at other times. His “Praise of Morag,” in a sort of piobrachd measure, is powerful; but composed under such conditions as Burns wrote “Mary in Heaven,” Macdonald’s lawful spouse became alarmed and jealous. At once he turns to “Dispraising Morag,” which he works out elaborately with Mephistophelian ardour and spirit, regardless of all poetic justice and decency. “The Resurrection of the Gaelic Tongue” is a powerful poem, celebrating the antiquity and supreme excellence of the language of the Gael.
As specimens of the sweet and tender in Macdonald’s poetry, let us take a verse or two from his fine piece, The Sugar Brook. He has done for [this insignificant] burn what Burns has done for the Doon and Gray for the Luggie. He describes the different birds tuning their little throats in the morning to take up the several parts assigned to them in the great harmonic chorus of nature. He hears the rich treble of Robin, the deep bass of Richard, the “goo-goo” of the cuckoo; while on a stake apart from the rest the thrush sings lustily, and the blythesome brown wren and the vieing linnet tune up their choicest strings. The blackcock croaks, and the hen sings her hoarse response. Then come the fishes, the bees, and the frisking calves, the milkmaid and the herdsman, to fill up a scene already sufficiently gorgeous. There also—
The wailing swans their murmurs blend
With birds that float and sing;
Where joins the Sugar Brook the sea
Their tuneful voices ring.
Softly sweet they bend and breathe
Through their melodious throat,
Like the crooked bagpipes’ wailing strain,
A sad but pleasing note.
The following two stanzas are very fine in the original, and Pattison has very successfully rendered them into English:—
O! dainty is the graving work
By Nature near thee wrought!
Whose fertile banks with shining flowers
And pallid buds are fraught.
The shamrock and the daisy
Spread o’er thy borders fair,
Like new-made spangles, or like stars,
From out the frosty air.
Ah! what a charming sight display
The ruddy rosy braes,
When sunbeams dye their flowers as bright
As brilliants all ablaze:
And what a civil suit they wear
Of ribgrass and of hay,
And gay-topt herbs, o’er which the birds
Pour forth their pompous lay.
The Birlin has been translated by Sheriff Nicolson, and a part by Professor Blackie. The complete translation of Pattison was the first and is still the best. This poem is a master-piece of Gaelic poetry, and presents peculiar difficulties to the translator. After this “Blessing of the Ship,” the “Blessing of the Arms,” we have in the third part an incitement for rowing to a sailing place. The rowers are asked with a powerful sweep to
Wound the huge swell on the ocean meadow,
Rolling and deep.
With your sharp narrow blades white and slender,
Strike its big breast;
Hirsute and brawny, and rippled and hilly,
And never at rest.
O, stretch, and bend, and draw, young gallants!
Forward going!
Let your fists’ broad grasp be whitening
In your rowing!
Ye lusty, heavy, stalwart youngsters!
Stretch your full length;
With shoulders knotty, nervy, hairy,
Hard with strength;
See you raise and drop together
With one motion.
Your grey and beamy shafts well ordered,
Sweeping ocean.
In this spirit the poem extends to more than 500 lines, divided into 16 parts, until finally the voyage of the Birlin ends somewhat like that of St. Paul.
Till within recent years the practice of walking cloth in peasant homes was a general thing. The writer has often witnessed it in the north as well as in the south Highlands, in places where walking mills did not extinguish the ancient ways of Highland women. The “Morag” of Macdonald was a “Walking Refrain,” or song for a young woman of fair bewitching tresses. In history her alias is Prince Charlie whose adventures touched the hearts of women, bards and weak-minded statesmen. “Ho Morag” in other words is a treasonable prayer, adoration, or incitement for Jacobitically-minded Highlanders and others. The bard’s heart was evidently in this wretched and ill-starred rebellion; but it ought not to be forgotten that if the poet’s heart tended to disloyalty he had thousands of titled traitors and sympathisers close to the Hanoverian throne. The Jacobite bard rushes with inexhaustible enthusiasm into the “walking” labours of the Highland women as their thoughts travel after the fair adventurer:
Bright Morag of my heart’s emotion
I long to see thy yellow tresses.
Yes; and Ho Morag, child of love,
Beloved of many.
If thou art gone across the ocean
Return to help in our distresses.
Yes; and Ho Morag, &c.
Bring back a set of winsome beauties
To walk the red cloth well and tightly.
Yes; and Ho Morag, &c.
O! here at home amid thy duties
Thy linen would be clean and sprightly.
Yes; and Ho Morag, &c.
And thou wouldst never be o’er-laden
In menial office of the servant.
Yes; and Ho Morag, &c.
She, Morag, my own handsome maiden,
With the hair circlets fair and fervent.
Yes; and Ho Morag, &c.
Further on the bard is “enthused” over the deeds of Montrose and Alastair Mac Colla, the brave Sir Alexander Macdonald of Antrim, whose heroism has not yet received its due reward:
On Mainland, Canna, Eigg, they wander,
Brave troops, whom Allan led delighted.
Yes; and Ho Morag, &c.
When great Montrose and Alexander
Proud Lowland hosts had fought and frighted.
Yes; and Ho Morag, &c.
The close of this stirring lyric gives us the warrior-bard, after the ancient manner:
Thick and close, and walked and plaited
Blood-coloured, reddened be the heather.
Yes; and Ho Morag, &c.
Haste with thy walking maidens mated
With our brave girls to march together.
Yes; and Ho Morag, &c.
CHAPTER IX.
MACPHERSON’S OSSIAN.
“That is what I always maintained. He has found names, and stories, and phrases, nay passages in old songs, and with them has blended his own compositions, and so made what he gives to the world as the translation of an ancient poem.”—Samuel Johnson.
Few questions have more deeply disturbed the equanimity of the literary world than the age and authorship of the “Poems of Ossian.” The national antagonism and prejudices of three kingdoms were roused over the name of the poor old bard, when his reputed works first appeared nearly one hundred and thirty years ago. A controversy of exceeding keenness ensued; it has not ended yet; and we may well question whether it will ever be satisfactorily settled. It is proposed here to give the history of the poems and annex the opinions of all those entitled to be heard on the question of authorship.