DUNCAN MACINTYRE.
This bard, Mac-an-t-Saoir—the Irish MacTear—meaning the son of the joiner or carpenter, a recent intruder among the names of the Gaelic clans, is one of the great Highland poets to whom the Gaelic patriot refers with a pardonable measure of pride. Ossian, Macdonald, and he are the chief names on the roll of our bardic annals.
This famous hunter bard, frequently called Duncan Ban, or fair-haired, was born on the 20th of March 1724, at Druimliaghart, in Glenorchay, Argyllshire. His parents lived in an out-of-the-way spot, far from the parish school, so Duncan never learned to read or write. Yet, rising from a humble sphere of life, with only the education that the traditions, the popular poetry and scenery of his native hills could afford, he has left us compositions which we would not willingly allow to perish. Highly cultivated some of his mental powers must have been. His memory was something wonderful; and yet there have been at all times in the Highlands men equally trained like Macintyre to remember and rehearse thousands of lines of poetry. Upwards of six thousand lines of poetry composed by himself have been published. All this he carried about with him for years, along with the poetry of others, an immense mass of which he knew and was able to repeat, until the Rev. Dr Stewart of Luss, one of the translators of the Bible, was at the trouble of taking them down to the poet’s own dictation some time before 1768, when they were first published in one 12mo volume of 162 pages. A second edition appeared in 1799 and a third in 1804. These were all the editions before his death took place in the year 1812. But thousands knew them who never read them; while many of his more popular pieces found their way into other Gaelic collections. There have been several other editions since Macintyre died.
The first song of Duncan Bàn was composed on a sword with which he was armed at the Battle of Falkirk, where he served on the Royalist side as a substitute for Mr Fletcher of Glenorchay. The sword was lost or thrown away in the retreat, and his employer refused to pay the sum for which he had engaged the bard. But Duncan’s song became popular and incensed Fletcher so much that, meeting the poor poet one day, he suddenly struck him on the back with his walking-stick, and bade him “go and make a song about that.” Macintyre appealed to his patron the Earl of Breadalbane, who compelled Fletcher to pay the bard the stipulated sum, 300 merks Scots (£16 17s 6d).
Soon after the noble Earl—always kind to the bard—appointed him forester and gamekeeper in Coire Cheathaich and Ben-Dorain, the subjects of his two chief and finest poems. He was afterwards in the same capacity with the Duke of Argyll at Buachaill-Eite. Then he joined the Fencible Regiment raised in 1793 by the Earl of Breadalbane, where he served as a sergeant until 1799, when it was disbanded. He afterwards served in the City Guard of Edinburgh till 1806, when he was enabled to live comfortably on his own savings and on the profits of the third edition of his poems. He died in Edinburgh in May 1812, in the 89th year of his age, and was buried in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where a monument has been raised for him.
Duncan Bàn, in some respects, is the first of the Gaelic bards; Professor Blackie seems inclined to rank him above Ossian. He is certainly less artificial than the Gaelic Ossian of 1807—more in harmony with the life and sentiments of the Highlanders. He is the natural outcome as well as the true exponent of the spirit and manners of the period of Highland history which was then drawing to a close. His powers as a poet are of the highest order. But the sphere of his life being so circumscribed, and the themes on which his muse was exercised were so temporary and local in their character, that Duncan Bàn can never receive [from the world] that homage to which his wonderful and lofty genius entitles him. He has been called the Burns of the Highlands; and, perhaps, his genius is equal to that of Burns, taking into consideration the difference in their education. Burns, however, shows more intensity of conception and stormy passion; while Macintyre dwells with more luscious delight on the beauties and glories of the external world.
Professor Blackie is a great admirer of Duncan Bàn, and has given us what will always remain a delightful translation of Macintyre’s unique poem, Ben-Dorain. The translator of Goethe’s “Faust”—whose new edition of his translation of the great German bard’s work must ever be regarded as the best—possesses the poetical ingenuity and subtilty, as well as deftness in rhyme, necessary in a translator of Ben-Dorain. Coire Cheathaich is a poem equally celebrated with Ben-Dorain, translated into English by Pattison, whose version has been utilized by Mr Robert Buchanan, the distinguished dramatist and poet, with slight alterations, in one of his works. Through these translators the English reader is put in possession of some fair knowledge of the muse of the Hunter-Bard of Glenorchay.
Here is the first verse of Coire Cheathaich, or The Braes of the Mist:—
My misty Coire! where hinds are roving;
My lovely Coire! my charming dell!