Very little is known of this old chronicler, besides his connection with John Knox the Reformer and the fact that he was a man of learning. There are two MSS. of the above-named work—one in the University Library and the other in the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh. From the latter Sir John Graham Dalzell took the volume published in 1806, which excited much interest. Shortly after that time the University MS. was discovered, and the two being collated by Pitcairn, a more complete edition was issued in 1836.
“The Poetical Works of Hector Macneill, Esq. A New Edition, Corrected and Enlarged. Veritatis simplex oratio est. In Two Volumes. Vol. I. Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne and Co., for Mundell and Son, Manners and Miller, and A. Constable and Co., and Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and John Murray, London. 1806.”
Hector Macneill (1746-1818) was a popular poet and song-writer. He had a varied experience in life, and showed his poetic ability by publishing in 1789, “The Harp, a Legendary Tale,” which brought him into favourable notice. His most popular poem, “Scotland’s Skaith, or The History of Will and Jean,” appeared in 1795, and its sequel, “The Waes o’ War,” was almost equally successful. All Macneill’s works are in the Scottish dialect. The copy here noted is the second edition (12mo); the first (8vo) was issued in 1801.
“The moral of Will and Jean was admirable,” says Constable (ii. 235), “and in favour of temperance at a time when such advice was at a discount; but it is rather curious and somewhat inconsistent to find the author in the next poem of the series declaring
“I am resolved, be’t right or sinfu’,
To hae at least,—a decent skinfu’”—
of a large bottle of Jamaica rum, which accompanies a rhyming letter to his friend ‘Canty Chairlie.’”