William Livingston was born in Gartmain, in Islay, in the year 1808. There are not many of his kith and kin in that island now, nor is there any evidence that his humble progenitors were anything else than some of those nomadic individuals or families, of a Celto-Germanic character, unconnected particularly with any of the well-known clans, but who, in the political economy of the Highlands were ranged under the name of “siol Dhomhnuill,” or some other, and in latter days became more unreasonably Celtic in their race antipathies than the purer Celts themselves. The late notorious Mitchell and the present leaders of the Irish Home Rulers are Irish instances of what has been stated. The bard Livingston is a Scottish instance; and the proximity of his native place to Ireland’s northern coasts may have some suggestive value, especially when his training, or rather no training, and the sources of his historical and social knowledge are taken into consideration. There is another Livingstone of Highland extraction—his family were originally from Mull—who has had some connection with Glasgow like his namesake the bard; but Dr David Livingstone, the devoted and distinguished African traveller, turned his attention and directed his labours to the amelioration of the condition of Africa’s benighted and dusky children. Livingstone, the traveller, regarded all the sons of humanity, whether they were black or white, of whatever race, as the sons of the one great Father, equally good and precious in his sight, and all of one blood; but Livingston the bard devoted all his energies to the patriotic rehearsal, in prose and verse, of the doughty deeds and ancient prowess of our Scottish ancestors; with him the Scotsman alone ought to occupy the position of lord of creation, especially if it could be proved he was a Celt,—and the Englishman especially, on account of his continual oppression of the smaller kingdom of Scotland, he, like Irishmen of a certain order, regarded with intense dislike, as the universal tyrant throughout the civilised world. The bones of the distinguished traveller Dr Livingstone were deposited in their final resting-place in Westminster Abbey amid the sympathetic tears of all civilised nations. He was a cosmopolitan patriot, one of the few extraordinary men whom God vouchsafes in the progress of the ages for the enlightenment of the dark places of the earth and the promotion of the highest interests of universal humanity. Livingston, the bard, whose pursuit after knowledge under unusually unfavourable conditions, and whose indomitable perseverance and fervour of heart were not unlike those of David Livingstone had but a very limited vision of the functions of his mission into the world. The duties which he assigned to himself were the magnifying of Scotland’s fame and glory, the lashing in Wallace and Bruce fashion of the Teutonic intruder from the south of the Tweed, and the special vindication of the Celtic character from the continual aspersions of the uncircumcised Saxon. He did his work with a will, but there was no need for it. It was as uncalled for as Thomson’s work on Liberty, which, undertaken in an unwise moment, notwithstanding its fine poetry, the public, not without reason, condemned to “gather spiders and to harbour dust.” When highly needed work goes without its reward it cannot be a matter of surprise that unnecessary ebullitions of patriotism do not always pay; so poor Livingston, like not a few of the order of Bards, died somewhat neglected in an obscure street of the philanthropic city of Glasgow. But he did not die unknown to a few sympathising friends. The members of the Islay Association and others were always anxious to relieve the necessities of the poet when his temper and ways made it possible to be of some service to him. In some respects his own independence was like that proud independence of his native country, of which he was so fervent a singer. He died in 1870, his wife predeceasing him a few weeks.
Much of the character of Livingston is traceable to his upbringing. In youth he received no education, and his earliest training when a boy was herding cattle. Was not Rob Donn, the Sutherlandshire Bard, also a herd? But it was thought fit to set the embryo herd-poet to learn a trade, and he served his time at tailoring, which he carried on in a desultory fashion all his days, and in which he was intelligently and sympathetically assisted by his frugal wife. He was thus a grown-up man before he got any education, and all he ever got was self-taught; and had his pride permitted him to tell the story of his struggles after knowledge, English, Latin, French, Greek, and a little Hebrew, it would furnish an interesting chapter in the annals of the pursuit of learning under difficulties. The manuscripts of his in possession of the writer show the extraordinary pains he took with his work—his endeavours after a purer English style, even when well-advanced in years—and what a long time he was a wooer of the muses before he arrived at the intensity of poetical conception which distinguished his later poetry. His earlier efforts do not seem to have been very successful, and they are of a somewhat humorous character. He almost stands alone among the prominent Gaelic bards in having given us no love songs. The reason is that he was probably a married man before the dormant powers of his poetic nature awakened. While there is much tenderness in all his descriptions of nature, the reader of his poetry must feel that he is always surrounded by an atmosphere of martial enthusiasm and intense patriotic sentiment. He was too wise to attempt the singing of a passion the power of which did not evidently permeate his nature; but the love of fatherland, the story of the gory struggle of Scottish independence were to him all-absorbing sources of inspiration; and to these he always turns, and finds in them the congenial themes on which he enthusiastically lavishes the rich poetic gifts with which he was endowed.
Livingston published his first volume of poetry in 1858. A smaller volume followed a few years afterwards, in 1865; and in 1868 a few poems in pamphlet form, one of them being a prize production—being the third piece for which he received a prize from the Glasgow Celtic Society. The year before his death he began to arrange his poems with a view to publishing them all in one volume, but before he transcribed more than half a dozen of them his pen was arrested by an invisible Power.
“Death’s subtle seed within,
Sly treacherous miner! working in the dark
Smiled at the well-concerted scheme.”
I well remember how the old bard, with his magnificent beard, which he often stroked with evident admiration, and which seemed to be growing up to his very eyes—small piercing eyes that scanned the neighbours suspiciously—emphasised the hope that when the proposed volume would appear, it would contain fully as much first-class poetry as the works of either of the three Gaelic modern bards, Mackay, Macintyre, or Macdonald. It is pleasant to know that the work which the bard had so much at heart has been accomplished under the auspices of the Islay Association, mainly at the suggestion and with the assistance of a patriotic countryman—Mr Colin Hay—who is a great admirer of Livingston’s poetry.
The longest of Livingston’s poems is a dramatic piece entitled The Danes in Islay. It is the only proper dramatic poem in the language. The subject is one that the poet could take up with much enthusiasm, as he pictured to himself the Norse army in a fleet of sixty-three sail entering the spacious Lochindaul, and dropping anchor there with no friendly intent. The bard’s historical and antiquarian knowledge stood him here in good stead. The great Macdonald, Prince of the Isles, is the central figure, and next to him the aged but faithful Mackay of Rhinns, both of whom are immediately informed by their watchful scouts of the advent of those hereditary foes, the Norse invaders, on the green shores of Islay, which was once in their own possession. The fiery cross is sent all over the island to call together the brave subjects of the Macdonald to defend their homes and hearths. A battle takes place; and in the final struggle there are many heroes who do great and incredible deeds, chief among whom are—Nuagan Mor, a Norse prince; Raosbun, Gilleathain Thora, and Donncha Mor Laorain. Though this is one of the most ambitious of Livingston’s productions, yet it is not equal as a whole, and not so finished, nor of so high an order as, for example, his prize poems; but the lyrical portions of it are very fine, the marching song of Mackay of Rhinns, to the tune of Mnathan a’ Ghlinne so, being quite a gem. Here are some verses of a war chant which occurs in the poem. The Norse invaders are supposed to rehearse the following wild and fierce lyric as they drop anchor in the harbour of Lochindaul:—
Here we come, but we thus will not leave you—
The axe, axe;