JOHN SMITH, D.D.
This writer was among the most cultured and distinguished of those who about a hundred years ago devoted time, means, and talent to the study of Gaelic literature. The labours of the Rev. Dr John Smith of Campbeltown, as an author and translator of prose and poetry, were varied and abundant. He produced a Life of Columba the Apostle of the Highlands; a work on The Functions of the Sacred Office, which received the high commendation of Dr Bickersteth; and a work on Gaelic Antiquities and the History of the Druids, which is still sought after, and which exhibits considerable research and good literary powers. These works, in English, enable us to judge of the qualities of the man in general; but it is with his Gaelic works that we have chiefly to deal. He was one of those who helped to translate the Old Testament into Gaelic, edited a version of the Gaelic Psalter, another of the Shorter Catechism; and was the translator of some religious works, such as Alleine’s Alarm. When engaged on the last-mentioned production, which he undertook to translate at the request of a lady, he took portions of the “Appeals to the Unconverted” with him into the pulpit, being too busy to prepare sermons of his own, with the result that a spiritual revival took place in the congregation, and anxious hearers flocked to the pastor for spiritual comfort which he felt himself totally unable to supply. It is said that this experience led to an emphatic spiritual change in himself.
How Smith was moved to interest himself in Gaelic poetry is well described in his own language in a letter to the Highland Society Committee: “(31st January 1798), I can only say that from my earliest years I was accustomed to hear many of the poems of Ossian and many tales respecting Fingal and his heroes. In the parish of Glenurchay, in which I was born, and lived till the age of 17, there were many at that time who could repeat a number of Ossian’s poems; and there was particularly an old man called Doncha (rioch) Macnicol, who was noted for reciting the greatest store of them. That any of them had been translated, I did not know till I became a student in philosophy, when, in the year 1766 or 1767, I read Mr Macpherson’s translation, with which, beautiful as it is, I was by no means so much charmed as I had been with the oral recitation of such as I heard of the poems in the original language. The elegance of the modern dress did not, therefore, in my opinion, compensate for the loss of the venerable and ancient garb.” When it became doubtful whether Macpherson would publish the Gaelic originals, Smith formed the design of publishing as many as he could of the originals, which “at that time would not be a few.” “But,” he proceeds, “finding there was no encouragement to be expected for such a work, and that those which I had already collected would not defray their own expence, nor have been ever published had it not been for the liberal support and patronage of the Highland Society of London, I gave up the pursuit of Gaelic poetry; about which I became so careless that I never took the trouble of transcribing or preserving several pieces that had fallen into my possession.” Smith is not the only one to whom the “pursuit of Gaelic poetry” and Celtic studies became a painful and barren enterprise.
It appears that Duncan Kennedy, a schoolmaster at Lochgilphead, busied himself in collecting, transcribing, and editing in his own peculiar manner all the old Highland lays he could find in Argyllshire, and that some of his materials found their way into Smith’s possession. It is understood that the latter refers to Kennedy in the following sentences: “(1802), I remember well,”—Kennedy was still alive,—“that a man who had given me the use of a parcel of poems, without any restriction, had long threatened a prosecution for publishing what he called translations of his collection of poems, and alleged he had a claim to a share of the profits. I believe, however, upon enquiry, that he understood the profits were only a serious loss, as I had been persuaded to run shares with a bookseller in the publication, which to me turned out so bad a concern (when my income was but thirty pounds a-year), that I could never since think of Gaelic poetry with pleasure or with patience, except to wish it had been dead before I was born.” In this same letter Smith declares that a little while before he had used the last copy he had of his Translations “in papering a dark closet that had not been lathed, in order to derive some small benefit from what had cost” him so much. Macpherson reaped the first crop of the ancient lays of the Celtic world of romance; piled a fortune out of it; became a member of Parliament; bought a Highland estate on which he erected a monument for himself; and arranged for the burial of his body in Westminster Abbey. Some of his imitators found the path of Celtic studies and poetry one of thorns, poverty and misfortune, and obscure graves, without a cairn to mark their resting-place.
Smith’s Collection of Ancient Poems appeared in 1780, subjoined to the Dissertations on Gaelic Antiquities. These poems were translations, it was declared, “from the Gaelic of Ossian, Ullin, Orran, and others;” and in 1787 he published the originals of these poems, the number being fourteen. Their titles are: The Lay of the Red; The Death of Gaul; The Lay of Duhona; Diarmid; Clan-Morni, or Finan and Lorma, from which following lines are taken to show the character of the verse and mode of thought:—
CAOIDH MHUIRNE AIRSON A CHLAINNE.
Och! ’s truaigh mi féin a chlann,
’N ’ur déigh gu fann aosmhor;
Mar dharaig sheargte mi air aonach,
Ris nach pill gu bràth a caoinchruth.
Tha’n dùlach dorcha anns a’ ghleann,
’S gach crann air raoin gun duilleach;
Ach pillidh ’sa’ cheitein am maise,
Ged nach faicear mo sgèimh-sa tuille.
Dh’ fhâilnich sìol Albha nam feachd,
Mar smùid á teach fuaraidh dorcha;
Cha’n iognadh mise bhi trom an nochd
’S tusa Fhionain ’san t-slochd, ’s a Lorma!
Translation.
MORNI’S LAMENT FOR HIS CHILDREN.
O children I am weak and old!
Bereft of you I feel forlorn;
Like oak-tree withered on the height,
Whose leaves shall never more return.
The winter darkens in the vale:
The branches bloom with leaves no more;
The spring their beauty will bring back,
But ah! my strength nought can restore.
The host of Alva has decayed
Like smoke from a cold house of gloom;
This night I grieve for there are left
Finan and Lorma in the tomb.
The above Albha, Alva, is Allen in Ireland, and has no connection with Alban, with which, however, it has been often confounded in the old ballads. Ultra patriotic Scotchmen have frequently, likely in ignorance, rendered the Irish Almhuin into Albin. This mistake occurs in Mr Pattison’s Gaelic Bards. “Once, when the kingly feast was spread on Albin’s golden slope,” p. 148.
The titles of the others in order are: The War of Linne; Cathula; The War of Manus, which includes the highly popular Lay of the Great Fool; Trahul, at the beginning of which there appears the beautiful address to the Rising Sun—
A Mhic na h-ôg mhaidne, ag éiridh,
Son of the young morn that risest;
Dargo; Conn, in which a version of a passage occurs whose equivalent is given in a translation thus:—
See Loda’s gloomy form advance,
On high he lifts his shadowy lance,
Within his hand the tempests lour,
The blast of death his nostrils pour:
Like flames his baleful eyes
Appal the valiant—from the fight
They turn before the blasting light;
His hollow voice like thunder shakes the skies,
Slowly he moves along, exulting in his might.
Vain are thy terrors, dreadful shade!
Lo! Morven’s king defies aloud
Thy utmost force.— His glaring blade
Winds through the murky cloud.
The form falls shapeless into air:
His direful shrieks the billows hear,
And stop their rapid course with fear.
The hundred rocks of Inistore reply,
As roll’d into himself he mounts the darkened sky.
The above is a specimen of Smith’s verse translations. From the same poem is taken the following to show the manner of his prose translation, in which the Old Lays made their first appearance:—
Translation.
But Ossian alone does not experience distress; aged Lugar, thine was part of the trouble. In thy halls were seen the feast, wax candles, and wine; though they be now desolate, they were once the residence of kings! But similar to the revolving year, Lugar and his beloved wife were seen houseless.
Travelling through the vales of beautiful Moialuin, the habitation of Lugar was found desolate, the kid broused on its green surface, stretching itself in sleep in the once joyous dwelling. In its window was the bird of night, and green ivy shaded its desolate walls, the greyhound and dun roe surrounded them, and his hospitable door lies sorrowful under the falling rains.
Sons of the hill, have you seen Lugar? Probably you rejoice that he is no more. But you shall decline like him, and your relations will one day inquire for you. Your children will shake their heads with sorrow, they know not the place of your abode!
The vicissitudes of life are similar to those of the year. I lived void of trouble in the summer of youth, like firs on the green Mor-uth, careless of the storms of winter. I thought my verdant leaves would remain, and that age would not injure my branches. But now I am forlorn like thyself, and my aged locks are on the wings of the wind; our joyful days are both gone on the wings of the blast to the desert.
The passage just given explains Smith’s failure to impress the public with his prose versions of Old Lays. It affords quite a contrast to the style of Macpherson, which was sententious and clarified by a Saxon as simple as that of the English Bible. In his Life of Columba, Smith gave translated specimens of the Saints’ Latin Hymns, of which an extract has been already given (p. 69). He rendered this passage of the Altus prosatur in blank verse—the beginning of the same in rhymed metre by the writer being else where supplied (p. 81). The following lines by Smith, accompanying the Gaelic of Taura, show that he appeared to better advantage in verse than in prose translations:—
OSSIAN.
Malvina, say what now renews thy woe?
Say why thy tears, like rills, incessant flow?
Why heaves thy bosom with the moanful cry,
Like Lego’s reeds when ghosts among them fly?
MALVINA.
And dost thou ask the cause of all my woe,
When yonder Selma’s mossy tow’rs lie low?
When bats and thistles dwell in Fingal’s hall,
And roes bound fearless o’er its mould’ring wall:
—Besides, I heard upon the distant wind
A sound that rous’d my sadly-musing mind;
It is, I fondly said, Cuchullin’s car!
The Chief returning from the roar of war!
—A light had likewise gleam’d on Lena’s heath;
My love, my Oscar! ’tis thy spear of death!
I said: but Oscar’s spear is in the tomb;
His shield, O Selma, in thy empty womb.
I saw its bosses cover’d o’er with rust,
And all its thongs fast-mould’ring into dust.
OSSIAN.
Ev’n so, Malvina, my brave Oscar’s love!
Like those we mourn for, we must soon remove;
No trace of us on Selma shall be found,
Save the green mound that marks our sleep profound.
Soft are the slumbers of that bed of peace:
Let then Malvina’s flowing sorrow cease;
Nor weep for friends whose actions were so bright,
Whose steps were mark’d with beams of heavenly light.
MALVINA.
Now night descends with all her dusky clouds,
And ocean in her sable mantle shrouds;
Yet night will soon resign her place to day,
But my protracted woe must last for aye.
The Gaelic of the last four lines runs thus:—
Dh’aom an òiche le neoil,
Thuit an ceo air an lear;
Sinblaidh an oiche ’s an ceo,
Ach tha mise ri m’ bheo gun ghean.
The remaining poems are: The Burning of Taura; Calava; and The Death of Art. A very much quoted and admired passage which occurs in the lay of Taura is here given:—
AISLING AIR DHREACH MNA.
Innseam pàirt do dreach nan reul:
Bu gheal a deud gu h-ùr dlù:
Mar channach an t-sléibh
Bha cneas fa h-eideadh ùr.
Bha a bràighe cearclach bân
Mar shneachda tlà nam beann;
Bha a dà chich ag eiridh làn:
B’e’n dreach sud miann nan sonn.
Bu shoitheamh binn a gloir;
S’ bu deirge na’n ròs a beul:
Mar chobhar a sios r’a taobh
Sinte gu caol bha gach meur.
Bha a dâ chaol mhala mhine
Dûdhonn air liomh an loin.
A dà ghruaidh dhreachd nan caoran;
’Si gu iomlan saor o chron.
Bha a gnùis mar bharra-gheuga
Anns a cheud-fhâs ûr:
A falt buidhe mar òradh shleibhtean;
’S mar dheârsadh gréine bha sûil.
Translation.
VISION OF A FAIR WOMAN.
Tell us some of the charms of the stars:
Close and well set were her ivory teeth;
White as the cannach upon the moor
Was her bosom the tartan bright beneath.
Her well-rounded forehead shone
Soft and fair as the mountain-snow:
Her two breasts were heaving full;
To them did the hearts of the heroes flow.
Her lips were ruddier than the rose;
Tender and tunefully sweet her tongue;
White as the foam adown her side
Her delicate fingers extended hung.
Smooth as the dusky down of the elk
Appeared her two narrow brows to me;
Lovely her cheeks were like berries red;
From every guile she was wholly free.
Her countenance looked like the gentle buds
Unfolding their beauties in early spring;
Her yellow locks like the gold-browed hills;
And her eyes like the radiance the sunbeams bring.
This Aisling in the original is, like the teeth of its subject so “close and well-set,” that a good translation is not easily executed.
This “Vision of a Fair Woman” has nothing in common with that of the “Fair Women” of Chaucer and Tennyson; but no one reading it can fail to remember the poetry of Moore, and recognise the Celtic source of the bright peculiarity of his melodious muse.