Changèd now my powers be
While death stares me in the face,
As I pray for welfare yonder
Savèd through my Saviour’s grace.
Contemporary with [and immediately] after the great singers Macdonald, Mackay, and Macintyre were many other bards whose inspiration is clearly traceable to their era. Some of them composed very largely, although in many cases not more than one or two of their compositions are remembered. Many of the composers were well educated, and had they written in a language better understood in the world in general, their names would have been better known. The present Highlanders, while frequently singing their songs, do not know so much as the [names of the authors]. The same may be said also of Lowlanders with regard to many of their own songs.
Ronald Macdonald.—The merits of this bard were overshadowed by the great fame of his father, Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair. He was a man of considerable attainments and of undoubted poetic gifts, and published a selection of his own and his father’s poems in 1775. He was to publish more, but did not meet with suitable encouragement.
Lachlan Macpherson.—This writer, probably better known as “Strathmasie,” his territorial designation, and described as a gentleman and a scholar, was born about the year 1723, and died in 1767. He gave able assistance to James Macpherson of Ossianic fame in his translations. The relation of Strathmasie to the work has been a subject of very acrid discussion. His own acknowledged poems are in good idiomatic Gaelic, and in style and metre are quite different from the Gaelic poems of James Macpherson’s Ossian, but quite like the poetry of the other Gaelic bards. In all his published poems there is not a stanza or even a line a la Ossian. In poetic power and originality he is much behind Duncan Bàn and Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, but he has shown that he is quite able to write tolerable poetry. The titles of his poems are—An Elegy on Cluny; The Fellowship of Usquebay; A Marriage; The Dun Breeks; A Hunting Song; The Advice; An Amorous Piece; Satire on Mice.
John Roy Stuart.—Colonel Stuart was a native of Kincardine in Badenoch. He first served in the French army against the British Government. He was afterwards with Prince Charles on the fatal moor of Culloden. After lurking for some time in this country he managed to escape to France, where he died. His signal bravery at Culloden was observed by the Duke of Cumberland, who asked who he was: “Ah, that is John Roy Stuart.” “Good God!” exclaimed the Duke, “the man I left in Flanders doing the butcheries of ten heroes! Is it possible that he could have dogged me here!” Stuart’s Poems—the principal of them is on Culloden Day—are impetuous, racy, and vigorous. An English bit of humorous verses, called Roy Stuart’s Psalm, extemporised where he was hiding on one occasion, runs thus:—
The Lord’s my targe, I will be stout,
With dirk and trusty blade,