Lachlan MacKinnon, who lived in the seventeenth century, was a native of Strath, Isle of Skye. He was a bard of real power, and a good many of his pieces have come down to us. Mackenzie, collector of “The Beauties of Gaelic Poetry,” who delighted in unearthing and publishing all the moral dirt he could lay his hands on, relates a story about Mackinnon which does not represent the bard’s character in a very attractive light.
Roderick Morrison.—This famous bard, commonly called An Clarsair Dall, or the Blind Harper, was born in the island of Lewis in 1646. He was a descendant of the Brieve Leosach, well known in the annals of the island. Roderick’s father was a man of piety and culture, in Lewis, whose memory is still fragrant among the people. It seems he was a true gospel light amid the half-heathenism which then prevailed in the Western Isles. He sent Rory and his other two sons to be educated at Inverness, intending to educate the three sons for the church. In course of time Angus settled in the parish of Contin, and Malcolm in Poolewe, Ross-shire. Roderick lost his eyesight through the small-pox when receiving his education in Inverness, and then turned his attention to the study of music. He soon became famous not only in Scotland, but also in Ireland. When returning from the latter country it is said that he called at every baronial residence on his way. Before going home to the north he visited Edinburgh, where at the time the Scotch nobility and gentry were met in Holyrood House. There he came across the chief, John Breac MacLeod of Harris, by whom Roderick was at once engaged as his family harper. While with MacLeod he composed many tunes and songs which are yet popular. His patron MacLeod afterwards gave him a rent-free farm at Totamor, in Glenelg. After the death of John Breac he went back to his native Lewis, where he was much respected in his old age. He died in this island, and was buried in the churchyard of I or Hy, near Stornoway. Morrison is a poet of considerable power and culture, although his fame as a harper—he was almost the last of that class so celebrated among the Gaels—has obscured his name as a poet.
John Mackay.—This bard, known as Am Piobaire Dall, or the Blind Piper, whose father was of the Sutherlandshire Mackays, was born in the parish of Gairloch, Ross-shire, in the year 1666. Being born blind he was taught music, first by his father, afterwards he was sent to the College of Pipers, in Skye, which was then presided over by MacCruimein, of world-wide fame. In course of time he became family bard to the chief of Gairloch. While he stayed with this chief he is said to have composed twenty-four piobrachds and many strathspeys, reels, and jigs. He died in 1754 at the great age of ninety-eight, and was buried in Gairloch. The poems of this bard are thoughtful and well finished, but, like many of that period, are scarcely known now.
The learned Edward Lhuyd published his “Archæologia Britannica” in 1704; and the imaginative Celt of the day was delighted that so much of the dying language of his forefathers would be preserved—that so handsome a monument should be reared to its memory. In 1707 a second edition was issued, in which complimentary poetical addresses from Highland ministers were given. There is one from the Rev. James MacPherson, Kildalton, Islay, and another from the Rev. John Maclean of Killninian, Mull. The following stanzas from Maclean’s verses are of considerable merit in the original Gaelic:—
When the grey Gael—Milesian race from Spain—
To green Ierne had crossed the mighty main,
Great was the fame they carried to our shore,
Of skill in arms, of poetry and lore.
When that good seed had spread out far and near,