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.