{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_25952/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_25952","id":"gutenberg_25952","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25952","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Journals","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Celtic Magazine","Clans -- Scotland -- Periodicals","Scotland -- Periodicals"],"text":"Produced by Tamise Totterdell and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/Canadian Libraries)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE CELTIC MAGAZINE.\n\nNo. I.          NOVEMBER 1875.\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\nIN the circular issued, announcing the CELTIC MAGAZINE, we stated that\nit was to be a Monthly Periodical, written in English, devoted to the\nLiterature, History, Antiquities, Traditions, Folk-lore, and the Social\nand Material Interests of the Celt at Home and Abroad: that it would be\ndevoted to Celtic subjects generally, and not merely to questions\naffecting the Scottish Highlands: that it would afford Reviews of Books\non subjects interesting to the Celtic Races--their Literature, questions\naffecting the Land--such as Hypothec, Entail, Tenant-right, Sport,\nEmigration, Reclamation, and all questions affecting the Landlords,\nTenants, and Commerce of the Highlands. We will also, from time to time,\nsupply Biographical Sketches of eminent Celts at Home and Abroad, and\nall the Old Legends connected with the Highlands, as far as we can\nprocure them, beginning with those of Inverness and Ross shires.\n\nWe believe that, under the wiser and more enlightened management now\ndeveloping itself, there is room enough in the Highlands for more Men,\nmore Land under cultivation, more Sheep and more Shepherds, without any\ndiminution of Sport in Grouse or Deer: that there is room enough for\nall--for more gallant defenders of our country in time of need, for more\nproduce, more comfort, and more intelligence. We shall afford a _medium_\nfor giving expression to these views. When submitting the first number\nof the Magazine to the public, we think it proper to indicate our own\nopinion on these questions at greater length than we could possibly do\nin a circular; but, while doing this, we wish it to be understood that\nwe shall at all times be ready to receive contributions on both sides,\nthe only conditions being that they be well and temperately written, and\nthat no side of a question will obtain undue prominence--facts and\narguments alone allowed to work conviction. Thus, we hope to make the\n_Celtic Magazine_ a mirror of the intelligent opinion of the Highlands,\nand of all those interested in its prosperity and progress.\n\nIn dealing with Celtic Literature, Antiquities, Traditions, and\nFolk-lore, we must necessarily be Conservative. It is impossible for a\ngood Celt to be otherwise than conservative of the noble History of his\nAncestors--in love and in war, in devotion and daring. If any should\ndeem this feeling on our part a failing, we promise to have something to\nsay for ourselves in future, and not only give a reason for our faith,\nbut show that we have something in the Highlands worth conserving.\n\nIn dealing with the important question of Sport, we cannot help taking a\ncommon sense view of it. We cannot resist the glaring facts which,\nstaring us in the face, conclusively prove that the enormous progress\nmade in the Highlands during the last half century, and now rapidly\ngoing on, is mainly due to our Highland Sports. A great amount of\nnonsense has been said and written on this question, and an attempt made\nto hold grouse and deer responsible for the cruel evictions which have\ntaken place in the North. Arguments, to be of any force, must be founded\non facts; and the facts are, in this case, that it was not grouse or\ndeer which caused the Highland evictions, but sheep and south country\nsheep farmers. The question must be argued as one not between men and\ndeer, but between men and sheep, and sheep against deer. We believe\nthere is room enough for all under proper restrictions, and, to make\nroom for more men, these restrictions should be applied to sheep or\ndeer.\n\nWe believe that it would be a wise and profitable policy for Landlords\nas well as for Tenants to abolish Hypothec and Entail, and to grant\ncompensation for improvements made by the latter. We are quite satisfied\nfrom experience, that the small crofter is quite incapable of profitably\nreclaiming much of our Highland Wastes without capital, and at the same\ntime bring up a family. If he is possessed of the necessary capital, he\ncan employ it much more advantageously elsewhere. The landlord is the\nonly one who can reclaim to advantage, and he can hardly be expected to\ndo so on an entailed estate, for the benefit of his successors, at an\nenormous rate of interest, payable out of his life-rent. If we are to\nreclaim successfully and to any extent, Entail must go; and the estates\nwill then be justly burdened with the money laid out in their permanent\nimprovement. The proprietor in possession will have an interest in\nimproving the estate for himself and for his successors, and the latter,\nwho will reap the greatest benefit, will have to pay the largest share\nof the cost.\n\nRegarding Emigration, we have a matured opinion that while it is a\ncalamity for the country generally, and for employers of labour and\nfarmers in particular that able-bodied men and women should be leaving\nthe country in their thousands, we unhesitatingly assert that it is far\nwiser for these men and women to emigrate to countries where their\nlabour is of real value to them, and where they can spend it improving\nland which will not only be found profitable during their lives, but\nwhich will be _their own_ and their descendants _freehold_ for ever,\nthan to continue starving themselves and their children on barren\npatches and crofts of four or five acres of unproductive land in the\nHighlands. We have experienced all the charms of a Highland croft, as\none of a large family, and we unhesitatingly say, that we cannot\nrecommend it to any able-bodied person who can leave it for a more\npromising outlet for himself and family. While we are of this opinion\nregarding _voluntary_ emigration, we have no hesitation in designating\n_forced evictions_ by landlords as a crime deserving the reprobation of\nall honest men.\n\nWe shall also have something to say regarding the Commercial Interests\nof the Highlands--its trade and manufactures, and the abominable system\nof long Credit which is, and has proved, so ruinous to the tradesman;\nand which, at the same time, necessarily enhances the price of all goods\nand provisions to the retail cash buyer and prompt payer. On all these\nquestions, and many others, we shall from time to time give our views at\nfurther length, as well as the views of those who differ from us. We\nshall, at least, spare no effort to _deserve_ success.\n\nThe HIGHLAND CEILIDH will be commenced in the next number, and continued\nfrom month to month. Under this heading will be given Highland Legends,\nOld Unpublished Gaelic Poetry, Riddles, Proverbs, Traditions, and\nFolk-lore.\n\n\n\n\nMACAULAY'S TREATMENT OF OSSIAN.\n\n\"IT's an ill bird that befouls its own nest.\" And this is the first\ncount of the indictment we bring against Lord Macaulay for his treatment\nof Ossian. Macpherson was a Highlandman, and Ossian's Poems were the\nglory of the Highlands; Macaulay was sprung from a Highland family, and\nas a Highlandman, even had his estimate of Ossian been lower than it\nwas, he should have, in the name of patriotism, kept it to himself. But\ngreat as was Macaulay's enthusiasm, scarce a ray of it was ever\npermitted to rest on the Highland hills; and glowing as his eloquence,\nit had no colours and no favours to spare for the _natale solum_ of his\nsires. Unlike Sir Walter Scott, it can never be said of him that he\nshall, after columns and statues have perished,--\n\n    A mightier monument command--\n    The mountains of his native land.\n\nThere are scattered sneers at Ossian's Poems throughout Macaulay's\nEssays, notably in his papers on Dryden and Dr Johnson. In the latter of\nthese he says:--\"The contempt he (Dr J.) felt for the trash of\nMacpherson was indeed just, but it was, we suspect, just by chance. He\ndespised the Fingal for the very reason which led many men of genius to\nadmire it. He despised it not because it was essentially common-place,\nbut because it had a superficial air of originality.\" And in his History\nof England occur the following words:--\"The Gaelic monuments, the Gaelic\nusages, the Gaelic superstitions, the Gaelic verses, disdainfully\nneglected during many ages, began to attract the attention of the\nlearned from the moment when the peculiarities of the Gaelic race began\nto disappear. So strong was this impulse that where the Highlands were\nconcerned men of sense gave ready credence to stories without evidence,\nand men of taste gave rapturous applause to compositions without merit.\nEpic poems, which any skilful and dispassionate critic would at a glance\nhave perceived to be almost entirely modern, and which, if they had been\npublished as modern, would have instantly found their proper place in\ncompany with Blackmore's Alfred and Wilkie's Epigoniad, were\npronounced to be fifteen hundred years old, and were gravely classed\nwith the Iliad. Writers of a very different order from the impostor who\nfabricated these forgeries,\" &c., &c. Our first objection to these\ncriticisms is their undue strength and decidedness of language, which\nproclaims prejudice and _animus_ on the part of the writer. Macaulay\nhere speaks like a heated haranguer or Parliamentary partizan, not like\nan historian or a critic. Hood says--\"It is difficult to swear in a\nwhisper\"; and surely it is more difficult still to criticise in a\nbellow. This indeed points to what is Macaulay's main defect as a\nthinker and writer. He is essentially a dogmatist. He \"does not allow\nfor the wind.\" \"Mark you his absolute _shall_,\" as was said of\nCoriolanus. No doubt his dogmatism, as was also that of Dr Johnson, is\nbacked by immense knowledge and a powerful intellect, but it remains\ndogmatism still. In oratory excessive emphasis often carries all before\nit, but it is different in writing--there it is sure to provoke\nopposition and to defeat its own object. Had he spoken of Macpherson's\nstilted style, or his imperfect taste, few would have contradicted him,\nbut the word \"trash\" startles and exasperates, and it does so because it\nis unjust; it is too slump and too summary. Had he said that critics had\nexaggerated Macpherson's merits, this too had been permitted to pass,\nbut when he declared them in his writings to be entirely \"without\nmerit,\" he insults the public which once read them so greedily, and\nthose great men too who have enthusiastically admired and\ndiscriminatingly praised them. Macpherson's connection with these Poems\nhas a mystery about it, and he was probably to blame, but every one\nfeels the words, \"the impostor who fabricated these forgeries,\" to be\nmuch too strong, and is disposed, in the resistance and reaction of\nfeeling produced, to become so far Macpherson's friend and so far\nMacaulay's foe. We regret this seeming strength, but real infirmity, of\nMacaulay's mode of writing--not merely because it has hurt his credit as\na critic of Ossian, but because it has injured materially his influence\nas an historian of England. The public are not disposed, with all their\nadmiration of talents and eloquence, to pardon in an historian faults of\nboyish petulance, prejudice, and small personal or political\nprepossessions, which they would readily forgive in an orator. Macaulay\nhimself, we think, somewhere speaking of Fox's history, says that many\nparts of it sound as if they were thundered from the Opposition Benches\nat one or two in the morning, and mentions this as a defect in the book.\nThe same objection applies to many parts of his own history. His\nsweeping character of Macpherson is precisely such a hot hand-grenade as\nhe might in an excited mood have hurled in Parliament against some\nCeltic M.P. from Aberdeen or Thurso whose zeal had outrun his\ndiscretion.\n\nMacaulay, it will be noticed, admits that Ossian's Poems were admired by\nmen of taste and of genius. But it never seems to have occurred to him\nthat this fact should have made him pause and reconsider his opinions\nere he expressed them in such a broad and trenchant style. Hugh Miller\nspeaks of a critic of the day from whose verdicts when he found himself\nto differ, he immediately began to re-examine the grounds of his own.\nThis is a very high compliment to a single writer; but Macaulay on the\nOssian question has a multitude of the first intellects of modern times\nagainst him. The author of the History of England is a great name, but\nnot so great as Napoleon the First, Goethe, and Sir Walter Scott, nor is\nhe greater than Professor Wilson and William Hazlitt; and yet all these\ngreat spirits were more or less devoted admirers of the blind Bard of\nMorven. Napoleon carried Ossian in his travelling carriage; he had it\nwith him at Lodi and Marengo, and the style of his bulletins--full of\nfaults, but full too of martial and poetic fire--is coloured more by\nOssian than by Corneille or Voltaire. Goethe makes Homer and Ossian the\ntwo companions of Werter's solitude, and represents him as saying, \"You\nshould see how foolish I look in company when her name is mentioned,\nparticularly when I am asked plainly how I like her. How I like her! I\ndetest the phrase. What sort of creature must he be who merely liked\nCharlotte; whose whole heart and senses were not entirely absorbed by\nher. Like her! Some one lately asked me how I liked Ossian.\" This it may\nbe said is the language of a young lover, but all men are at one time\nyoung lovers, and it is high praise and no more than the truth to say\nthat all young lovers love, or did love, Ossian's Poems. _This is true\nfame._ Sir Walter Scott says that Macpherson's rare powers were an\nhonour to his country; and in his Legend of Montrose and Highland Widow,\nhis own style is deeply dyed by the Ossianic element, and sounds here\nlike the proud soft voice of the full-bloomed mountain heather in the\nbreeze, and there like that of the evergreen pine raving in the tempest.\nProfessor Wilson, in his \"Cottages\" and his \"Glance at Selby's\nOrnithology,\" is still more decidedly Celtic in his mode of writing;\nand, in his paper in Blackwood for November 1839, \"Have you read\nOssian?\" he has bestowed some generous, though measured praise, on his\nwritings. He says, for instance--\"Macpherson had a feeling of the\nbeautiful, and this has infused the finest poetry into many of his\ndescriptions of the wilderness. He also was born and bred among the\nmountains, and though he had neither the poetical nor the philosophical\ngenius of Wordsworth, and was inferior far in the perceptive, the\nreflective, and the imaginative faculties, still he could _see_, and\n_feel_, and _paint_ too, in water colours and on air canvass, and is one\nof the Masters.\" Hear next Wilson's great rival in criticism, Hazlitt.\nThey were, on many points bitter enemies, on two they were always at\none--Wordsworth and Ossian! \"Ossian is a feeling and a name that can\nnever be destroyed in the minds of his readers. As Homer is the first\nvigour and lustihood, Ossian is the decay and old age of poetry. He\nlives only in the recollection and regret of the past. There is one\nimpression which he conveys more entirely than all other poets--namely,\nthe sense of privation--the loss of all things, of friends, of good\nname, of country--he is even without God in the world. He converses only\nwith the spirits of the departed, with the motionless and silent clouds.\nThe cold moonlight sheds its faint lustre on his head, the fox peeps out\nof the ruined tower, the thistle waves its beard to the wandering gale,\nand the strings of his harp seem as the hand of age, as the tale of\nother times passes over them, to sigh and rustle like the dry reeds in\nthe winter's wind! If it were indeed possible to shew that this writer\nwas nothing, it would only be another instance of mutability, another\nblank made, another void left in the heart, another confirmation of that\nfeeling which makes him so often complain--'Roll on, ye dark brown year,\nye bring no joy in your wing to Ossian!'\" \"The poet Gray, too,\" says\nWilson, \"frequently in his Letters expresses his wonder and delight in\nthe beautiful and glorious inspirations of the Son of the Mist.\" Even\nMalcolm Laing--Macpherson's most inveterate foe--who edited Ossian for\nthe sole purpose of revenge, exposure, and posthumous dissection, is\ncompelled to say that \"Macpherson's genius is equal to that of any poet\nof his day, except perhaps Gray.\"\n\nIn another place (Bards of the Bible--'Jeremiah') we have thus spoken of\nOssian:--\"We are reminded [by Jeremiah] of the 'Harp of Selma,' and of\nblind Ossian sitting amid the evening sunshine of the Highland valley,\nand in tremulous, yet aspiring notes, telling to his small silent and\nweeping circle, the tale of--\n\n   \"Old, unhappy, far-off things,\n    And battles long ago.\"\n\n\"It has become fashionable (through Macaulay chiefly) to abuse the\nPoems of Ossian; but, admitting their forgery as well as faultiness,\nthey seem to us in their _better passages_ to approach more nearly than\nany English prose to the force, vividness, and patriarchial simplicity\nand tenderness of the Old Testament style. Lifting up, like a curtain,\nthe mist of the past, they show us a world, unique and intensely\npoetical, peopled by heroes, bards, maidens, and ghosts, who are\nseparated by their mist and their mountains from all countries and ages\nbut their own. It is a great picture, painted on clouds instead of\ncanvass, and invested with colours as gorgeous as its shades are dark.\nIts pathos has a wild sobbing in it, an AEolean tremulousness of tone,\nlike the wail of spirits. And than Ossian himself, the last of his race,\nanswering the plaints of the wilderness, the plover's shriek, the hiss\nof the homeless stream, the bee in the heather bloom, the rustle of the\nbirch above his head, the roar of the cataract behind, in a voice of\nkindred freedom and kindred melancholy, conversing less with the little\nmen around him than with the giant spirits of his fathers, we have few\nfiner figures in the whole compass of poetry. Ossian is a ruder\n\"Robber,\" a more meretricious \"Seasons,\" like them a work of prodigal\nbeauties and more prodigal faults, and partly through both, has\nimpressed the world.\"\n\nDr Johnson's opposition to Ossian is easily explained by his aversion to\nScotland, by his detestation of what he deemed a fraud, by his dislike\nfor what he heard was Macpherson's private character, and by his\nprejudice against all unrhymed poetry, whether it was blank verse or\nrhythmical prose. And yet, his own prose was rhythmical, and often as\ntumid as the worst bombast in Macpherson. He was too, on the whole, an\nartificial writer, while the best parts of Ossian are natural. He\nallowed himself therefore to see distinctly and to characterise severely\nthe bad things in the book--where it sunk into the bathos or soared into\nthe falsetto,--but ignored its beauties, and was obstinately blind to\nthose passages where it rose into real sublimity or melted into\nmelodious pathos.\n\nMacaulay has, in various of his papers, shewn a fine sympathy with\noriginal genius. He has done so notably in his always able and always\ngenerous estimate of Edmund Burke, and still more in what he says of\nShelley and of John Bunyan. It was his noble panegyric on the former\nthat first awakened the \"late remorse of love\" and admiration for that\nabused and outraged Shade. And it was his article on Bunyan's Pilgrim's\nProgress which gave it--popular as it had been among religionists--a\nclassical place in our literature, and that dared to compare the genius\nof its author with that of Shakespere and of Milton. But he has failed\nto do justice to Ossian, partly from some early prejudice at its author\nand his country, and partly from want of a proper early Ossianic\ntraining. To appreciate Ossian's poetry, the best way is to live for\nyears under the shadow of the Grampians, to wander through lonely moors,\namidst drenching mist and rain, to hold _trystes_ with thunderstorms on\nthe summit of savage hills, to bathe in sullen tarns after nightfall, to\nlean over the ledge and dip one's naked feet in the spray of cataracts,\nto plough a solitary path into the heart of forests, and to sleep and\ndream for hours amidst the sunless glades, on twilight hills to meet the\napparition of the winter moon rising over snowy wastes, to descend by\nher ghastly light precipices where the eagles are sleeping, and\nreturning home to be haunted by night visions of mightier mountains,\nwider desolations, and giddier descents. A portion of this experience is\nnecessary to constitute a true \"Child of the Mist\"; and he that has had\nmost of it--and that was Christopher North--was best fitted to\nappreciate the shadowy, solitary, and pensively sublime spirit which\ntabernacles in Ossian's poetry. Of this Macaulay had little or nothing,\nand, therefore, although no man knew the Highlands in their manners,\ncustoms, and history better, he has utterly failed as a critic on\nHighland Poetry.\n\nWe might add to the names of those authors who appreciated Ossian, Lord\nByron, who imitates him in his \"Hours of Idleness\"; and are forced to\ninclude among his detractors, Lord Brougham, who, in his review of these\nearly efforts, says clumsily, that he won't criticise it lest he should\nbe attacking Macpherson himself, with whose own \"stuff\" he was but\nimperfectly acquainted, to which Lord Byron rejoins, that (alluding to\nLord Byron being a minor) he would have said a much cleverer and severer\nthing had he quoted Dr Johnson's sarcasm, that \"many men, many women,\nand many _children_ could write as well as Ossian.\"\n\nWe venture, in fine, to predict that dear to every Scottish heart shall\nfor ever remain these beautiful fragments of Celtic verse--verse, we\nscruple not to say, containing in the Combat of Fingal with the Spirit\nof Loda, and in the Address to the Sun--two of the loftiest strains of\npoetic genius, vieing with, surpassing \"all Greek, all Roman fame.\" And\nin spite of Brougham's sneer, and Johnson's criticisms, and the more\ninsolent attacks of Macaulay, Scotchmen both Highland and Lowland will\ncontinue to hear in the monotony of the strain, the voice of the\ntempest, and the roar of the mountain torrent, in its abruptness they\nwill see the beetling crag and the shaggy summit of the bleak Highland\nhill, in its obscurity and loud and tumid sounds, they will recognize\nthe hollows of the deep glens and the mists which shroud the cataracts,\nin its happier and nobler measures, they will welcome notes of poetry\nworthy of the murmur of their lochs and the waving of their solemn\nforests, and never will they see Ben-Nevis looking down over his clouds\nor Loch Lomond basking amidst her sunny braes, or in grim Glencoe listen\nto the Cona singing her lonely and everlasting dirge beneath Ossian's\nCave, which gashes the breast of the cliff above it, without remembering\nthe glorious Shade from whose evanishing lips Macpherson has extracted\nthe wild music of his mountain song.\n\n                                                         GEO. GILFILLAN.\n\n         *         *         *         *         *\n\nALASTAIR BUIDHE MACIAMHAIR, the Gairloch Bard, always wore a \"_Cota\nGearr_\" of home-spun cloth, which received only a slight dip of\nindigo--the colour being between a pale blue and a dirty white. As he\nwas wading the river Achtercairn, going to a sister's wedding, William\nRoss, the bard, accosted him on the other side, and addressing him said,\n\n    'S ann than aoibheal air bard an Rugha\n    'Sa phiuthar a dol a phosadh\n    B-fhearr dhuit fuireach aig a bhaile\n    Mo nach d' rinn thu malairt cota.\n\nTo which _Alastair Buidhe_ immediately replied--\n\n    Hud a dhuine! tha'n cota co'lach rium fhein\n    Tha e min 'us tha e blath\n    'S air cho mor 's gha 'm beil do ruic-sa\n    Faodaidh tusa leigeal da.\n\n\n\n\nMARY LAGHACH.\n\nFROM THE GAELIC, BY PROFESSOR BLACKIE.\n\n\n        Ho! my bonnie Mary,\n        My dainty love, my queen,\n        The fairest, rarest Mary\n        On earth was ever seen!\n        Ho! my queenly Mary,\n        Who made me king of men,\n        To call thee mine own Mary,\n        Born in the bonnie glen.\n\n    Young was I and Mary,\n    In the windings of Glensmoil,\n    When came that imp of Venus\n    And caught us with his wile;\n    And pierced us with his arrows,\n    That we thrilled in every pore,\n    And loved as mortals never loved\n    On this green earth before.\n\n                Ho! my bonnie Mary, &c.\n\n    Oft times myself and Mary\n    Strayed up the bonnie glen,\n    Our hearts as pure and innocent\n    As little children then;\n    Boy Cupid finely taught us\n    To dally and to toy,\n    When the shade fell from the green tree,\n    And the sun was in the sky.\n\n                Ho! my bonnie Mary, &c.\n\n    If all the wealth of Albyn\n    Were mine, and treasures rare,\n    What boots all gold and silver\n    If sweet love be not there?\n    More dear to me than rubies\n    In deepest veins that shine,\n    Is one kiss from the lovely lips\n    That rightly I call mine.\n\n                Ho! my bonnie Mary, &c.\n\n    Thy bosom's heaving whiteness\n    With beauty overbrims,\n    Like swan upon the waters\n    When gentliest it swims;\n    Like cotton on the moorland\n    Thy skin is soft and fine,\n    Thy neck is like the sea-gul\n    When dipping in the brine.\n\n                Ho! my bonnie Mary, &c.\n\n    The locks about thy dainty ears\n    Do richly curl and twine;\n    Dame Nature rarely grew a wealth\n    Of ringlets like to thine:\n    There needs no hand of hireling\n    To twist and plait thy hair,\n    But where it grew it winds and falls\n    In wavy beauty there.\n\n                Ho! my bonnie Mary, &c.\n\n    Like snow upon the mountains\n    Thy teeth are pure and white;\n    Thy breath is like the cinnamon,\n    Thy mouth buds with delight.\n    Thy cheeks are like the cherries,\n    Thine eyelids soft and fair,\n    And smooth thy brow, untaught to frown,\n    Beneath thy golden hair.\n\n                Ho! my bonnie Mary, &c.\n\n    The pomp of mighty kaisers\n    Our state doth far surpass,\n    When 'neath the leafy coppice\n    We lie upon the grass;\n    The purple flowers around us\n    Outspread their rich array,\n    Where the lusty mountain streamlet\n    Is leaping from the brae.\n\n                Ho! my bonnie Mary, &c.\n\n    Nor harp, nor pipe, nor organ,\n    From touch of cunning men,\n    Made music half so eloquent\n    As our hearts thrilled with then.\n    When the blythe lark lightly soaring,\n    And the mavis on the spray,\n    And the cuckoo in the greenwood,\n    Sang hymns to greet the May.\n\n                Ho! my bonnie Mary, &c.\n\n\n\n\nPROFESSOR MORLEY, EDITOR OF \"EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE,\" ON CELTIC\nLITERATURE AND THE CELTIC PROFESSORSHIP.\n\n\nPROFESSOR MORLEY, at a meeting called by the Gaelic Society of London,\nin Willis' Room, spoke as follows, and we think his remarks, being those\nof a great and unprejudiced Englishman of letters, well worth\nreproducing in the _Celtic Magazine_:--\n\nHe said that the resolution, which had a fit proposer in a distinguished\nrepresentative of the north, was seconded by one [himself] who had no\nother fitness for the office than that he was altogether of the south,\nand had been taught by a long study of our literature to believe that\nnorth and south had a like interest in the promotion of a right study of\nCeltic. We were a mixed race, and the chief elements of the mixture were\nthe Celtic and Teutonic. The Teutonic element gave us our strength for\npulling together, the power of working in association under influence of\na religious sense of duty; but had we been Teutons only, we should have\nbeen somewhat like the Dutch. He did not say that in depreciation of the\nDutch. They are popularly associated with Mynheer Vandunck, but are to\nbe associated rather with grand struggles of the past for civil and\nreligious liberty, for they fought before us and with us in the wars of\nwhich we had most reason to be proud, and gave the battle-field upon\nwhich our Sidney fell at Zutphen. Nevertheless, full as Dutch literature\nis of worthy, earnest thought, it is not in man to conceive a Dutch\nShakspere. This was not his first time of saying, that, but for the\nCeltic element in our nation, there would never have been an English\nShakspere; there would never have been that union of bold originality,\nof lively audacity, with practical good sense and steady labour towards\nhighest aims that gave England the first literature in the world, and\nthe first place among the nations in the race of life. The Gael and\nCymry, who represented among us that Celtic element, differed in\ncharacteristics, but they had in common an artistic feeling, a happy\naudacity, inventive power that made them, as it were, the oxygen of any\ncombination of race into which they entered. He had often quoted the\nstatement made by Mr Fergusson in his \"History of Architecture,\" that,\nbut for the Celts, there would hardly have been a church worth looking\nat in Europe. That might be over expressive of the truth, but it did\npoint to the truth; and the more we recognise the truth thus indicated\nthe sooner there would be an end of ignorant class feeling that delayed\nsuch union as was yet to be made of Celt with Saxon--each an essential\npart of England, each with a strength to give, a strength to take. We\nhad remains of ancient Celtic literature; some representing--with such\nvariation as oral traditions would produce--a life as old as that of the\nthird century in songs of the battle of Gabhra, and the bards and\nwarriors of that time, some recalling the first days of enforced fusion\nbetween Celt and Teuton in the sixth century. There were old\nmanuscripts, enshrining records, ancient when written, of which any\nnation civilised enough to know the worth of its own literature must be\njustly proud. Our story began with the Celt, and as it advanced it was\nmost noticeable that among the voices of good men representing early\nEnglish literature, whenever the voice came from a man who advanced\nhimself beyond his fellows by originality of thought, by happy audacity\nas poet or philosopher, it was (until the times of Chaucer) always the\nvoice of a man who was known to have, or might reasonably be supposed to\nhave, Celtic blood in his veins; always from a man born where the two\nraces had lived together and blended, or were living side by side and\nblending. Before the Conquest it was always in the north of England,\nafterwards always along the line of the west, until in the latter part\nof the fourteenth century, London was large and busy enough to receive\nwithin itself men from all parts, and became a sort of mixing-tub for\nthe ingredients of England. From that time the blending has been\ngeneral, though it might even now be said that we are strongest where it\nhas been most complete. With such opinions then, derived by an\nEnglishman who might almost call himself most south of the south, from\nan unbiassed study of the past life of his country, he could not do\nother than support most heartily the resolution--\"That a complete view\nof the character and origin of society, as it exists in these countries,\ncannot be given without a knowledge of the language, literature, and\ntraditions of the Celts.\" He welcomed heartily the design of founding a\nCeltic Chair in the University of Edinburgh as a thing fit and necessary\nto be done, proposed to be done in a fit place, and by a most fit\nproposer. The scheme could not be better recommended than by the active\nadvocacy of a scholar like Professor Blackie, frank, cheery, natural;\nwho caused Mr Brown and Mr Jones often to shake their heads over him,\nbut who was so resolved always to speak his true thought frankly, so\ngenerous in pursuit of worthy aims, with a genial courage, that\nconcealed no part of his individuality, that he could afford to look on\nat the shaking of the heads of Mr Brown and Mr Jones, while there could\nbe no shaking of the public faith in his high-minded sincerity. As to\nthe details of the establishment of the chair there might be\ndifficulties. The two Celtic languages had to be recognised. The ideal\nProfessor whom one wished to put in the new chair should have, with\nscholarly breadth of mind, a sound critical knowledge of the ancient\nforms of both, and of their ancient records, and he would be expected to\ncombine with this a thorough mastery of at least Gaelic, which he would\nhave to teach also as a spoken tongue. Whatever difficulty there might\nbe in this was only so much the more evidence of the need of putting an\nend to the undue neglect that had made Celtic Scholarship so scarce.\nNothing would ever be done by man or nation if we stayed beginning till\nour first act should achieve perfection. He could only say that it was\nfull time to begin, and that the need of a right study of Celtic must be\nfully recognised if the study of English literature itself was to make\nproper advance in usefulness, and serve England in days to come, after\nits own way, with all its powers.\n\n\n\n\nA PLEA FOR PLANTING IN THE HIGHLANDS.--No. I.\n\n\nAS this Magazine is devoted to subjects of interest and importance to\nHighlanders and the Highlands, no more fitting subject could be dealt\nwith in its pages than that of Forestry.\n\nWhatever conduces to the wealth of a district, to the amelioration of\nits climate, and beauty of its scenery, is most praiseworthy. It is\nundeniable that planting extensively and widely will effect these\nobjects, and of this subject it is proposed now to treat.\n\nThat great part of Scotland was at one time forest is universally\nadmitted. The remains of magnificent trees are to be constantly met with\nin the reclamation of land, many of the peat bogs being the formation of\ndecayed vegetation.\n\nIt is frequently asked by the inexperienced, how it is, that while great\ntrees are found in bogs, planted trees will not now grow except in a\ndwarfish degree, but the answer is obvious. These peat bogs are\nthemselves the product of vegetation as before noted, and it is an\nascertained fact that the tendency of these peat bogs and formations is\nto increase both by absorbing the surrounding soil, and by exercising an\nupward pressure. Many theories and allegations have been put forth as to\nthe period or periods when the original forests of Caledonia were burnt.\nIt may be generally admitted in the absence of any authentic\ncontemporaneous record, that three particular periods are commonly\npointed at, first in the time of the Roman occupation, second in the\nreign of Edward the First, and third in the time of Mary, Queen of\nScots.\n\nThe three principal native trees in the Highlands, as now understood,\nwhich grow to any size, are the fir, oak, and ash; and it may be said\nroundly, that few standing trees exist in Scotland of a greater age than\n300 years. No doubt there may be exceptions, but the rise of the\nplantations of beech, sycamore, plane, chestnut, &c., cannot be put\nfurther back than the accession of James VI. to the English throne. That\nScotland was, in the early part of the 17th century, very bare may be\ninferred from the numerous Acts passed to encourage planting, and the\npenalties imposed upon the cutters of green wood. A great part of the\nHighlands must ever lie entirely waste, or be utilized by plantations.\nThe expense of carriage to market was till lately in the inland and\nmidland districts so great, that no inducement was held out to\nproprietors to plant systematically and continuously. The opening up of\nthe Highlands by the Caledonian Canal at first, and now more especially\nby railways, has, however, developed facilities for market which should\nbe largely taken advantage of. The market for soft woods, such as fir,\nlarch, and birch, is ever widening; and great as is the consumption now,\nit cannot be doubted it will still greatly increase.\n\nWhat greater inducement can there be to any exertion whatever, than that\nof pleasure combined with profit? We undertake to show that on this\npoint both co-exist. To an idle man it is pleasant to saunter about and\nobserve the growing of his plants, contrasting their progress from month\nto month, and year after year. The child of tender years, the most\nignorant peasant, have alike their faculties of interest and observation\naroused and excited by the contemplation of the gradual rise and change\nin the progress of the plant. We have heard from those unable to speak\nthe English language, and in the poorest circumstances, poetic\ndescription and the liveliest manifestation of admiration at a thriving\ngrowing wood. Again, to the man who is engrossed with harassing mental\noccupations, what pleasure and satisfaction is this contemplation; and,\nas in the case of our immortal novelist, not only giving immediate\nconsolation and happiness, but powerfully incentive to intellectual\neffort.\n\nLet us turn, however, to the practical bearings of our subject; and we\nshall take the case, say, of an estate of 20,000 acres. Let us suppose\n500 acres to be arable, and 4,500 acres, either from the nature of the\nsoil or its altitude, to be unfit for any improvement whatever. 1000\nacres would be probably required for ordinary pasture lands, and 10,000\nacres for hill pasture. It is far from our wish that any plantations\nshould diminish the already scanty population, or unduly press upon the\npastoral agricultural occupants. We therefore have given roughly what\nmay be held as full souming for stocks upon such an estate. It must\nbe always recollected it is not acres alone that will sustain sheep or\ncattle, or maintain a first-class stock; on the contrary, it is the\nquality of the ground, and whether enclosed and drained. The matter of\nenclosure is one that has long been recognised as most essential in the\ncase of sheep grounds, but the cost until the introduction of\nwire-fencing, was so great, as to be almost prohibitory. Hill pastures\nshould be enclosed just as in the case of arable lands, and with\nefficient drainage and judicious heather burning, it is not too much to\nsay that at least one-third more in number could be pastured on the same\nground, and the stock would be of a higher class than on lands unfenced\nand undrained.\n\nWe have now left 4000 acres or so for plantation. If the proprietor be\nin a position to do so, and do not object to lay out some money\nunproductively, he will cause trees to be planted along all the roads\nthrough the estate, putting clumps and beltings near the farm steadings.\nThis is a matter that is sometimes entirely neglected, rendering the\nbuildings conspicuous, bare and ugly, a blot on the landscape. In other\ncases, the plantations are too near the buildings, making them\nuncomfortable and unhealthy. Two things, viz., shelter and beauty, are\nrequired, which a judicious eye should easily combine. The proprietor,\nwhen there is appearance of a natural growth should select such for\nenclosure, and on such an estate we place this at 500 acres. Only those\nwho have practical knowledge and experience in the matter, can realise\nthe extraordinary vitality of the seeds of birch, fir, oak, and others,\nover a great part of the Highlands. Nothing is required over thousands\nupon thousands of acres, but simple enclosure. These natural trees are\nboth beautiful and valuable, and therefore their encouragement does not\nadmit of question. No tree is more beautiful than the birch, which is\nfound all over the Highlands, makes great annual progress, and commands\na steady price. Blank spaces, &c., may be filled in with other woods for\nthe purposes of adornment.\n\nThere now remains the plantation, properly so called, upon our estate of\n3,500 acres. The selection of this ground is a matter requiring careful\nconsideration, because the land best adapted for planting is generally\nthe best pasture, and every proprietor will, of course, endeavour to do\nhis tenant as little injury as possible. At the same time, he will\nrequire to bear in mind that the too common idea that any ground will do\nfor planting is a serious error. It is not often that the person who\nplants lives to reap the full benefit of his labours, and it would\ntherefore be doubly hard, if these labours were thrown away.\n\nForestry, however, is now so generally understood, that with reasonable\nprecaution no mistake ought to occur in the selection of the ground, or\nthe tree best suited to the soil. Hard wood is of course out of the\nquestion in a great Highland plantation. Time occupied in reaching\nmaturity, and carriage to market unconsidered, iron has entirely\nsuperseded this class of wood. Therefore fir and larch form the staple\nfor Highland plantations. On the other hand, for beltings, roadsides,\nand in the vicinity of houses, hard wood should be planted. Two hundred\nyears ago people generally were wise in this respect, for they planted\nash trees and the like, each of which could stand by itself and bid\ndefiance to the elements. These now form beautiful and picturesque\nobjects round old _duchuses_, where hardly one stone stands on another,\nand thus alas! in many cases alone denoting where respectable families\nonce had their homes; under whose spreading branches stout lads and\nbonnie lasses interchanged love tokens, and went over that old, old\nstory, which will never die.\n\nWith the introduction of larch about the end of last century, which soon\nbecame, and deservedly, a favourite in the Highlands, it unhappily was\nused as a single belting in exposed places near farm houses and\nsteadings. The consequence, as every one who travels through the\nHighlands must be painfully conscious of, has been trees shapeless and\ncrooked, giving no shelter, and unpleasing in view. A ludicrous\nillustration of this may be seen from the Highland Railway between\nForres and Dunphail, the larches having grown up zig-zag, according as\nthe several winds happened to prevail. It is well known that no regular\nplantation can in beauty equal a natural one. There is too much\nstiffness and form, but the man of taste will avoid straight lines, and\nutilize the undulations of the land, blending the landscape as it were\ninto one harmonious whole.\n\nLet us now in the last place look at the pecuniary results. The\nenclosure, drainage, and planting will of course vary according to\nlocality and the nearness to sources of supply and labour, but it may be\nsaid that L3 sterling per acre is a very ample sum for all costs. If\nthere were one great block of plantation, it would not amount to\none-half. Returns, again, must also vary, depending on proximity to\nrailway or sea-board, but we have heard it stated by those well\nqualified to give an opinion, that from 30s to L2 per acre per annum\nwill be an ultimate probable return. When it is considered that the\nlands we have referred to, putting both pastoral and shooting rents\ntogether, will not approach six shillings per acre per annum, the\npecuniary advantages are seen to be enormous.[A]\n\nNo life insurance policy is equal to a large and judicious plantation\nby a proprietor, as a provision for his younger children. The premium in\nthis case will not need to run longer than twenty-five years, and he has\nnot only beautified his estate and made it more valuable, but also\ntransmitted it to his heir without incumbrance.\n\nNo wonder then that in the county of Inverness large proprietors, such\nas the Earl of Seafield, Mackintosh, Sir John Ramsden, and others, have\ntaken this matter up on a great scale. To them large plantations ought\nto be in the same category as minerals are in England; and, unlike their\nEnglish brethren, this source of wealth is not exhaustive but\nre-current.\n\nTo the public these plantations are not only objects of beauty and an\namelioration of climate, but the thereby greatly increased wealth of the\ncountry ensures diminished taxation.\n\nThese remarks are purposely made in the simplest language, because\nchiefly intended to attract the intelligent attention of the commonality\nof the people resident in, or connected with, the Highlands, and the\nsubject will be again brought up.\n\n                                                             C. F.-M.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote A: According to present and approved modes of valuation, no\ngreat time need elapse after planting before the wood becomes of\nadmitted value. Ten years after, the valuation will, if the wood be\nthriving, equal three times the original cost, including interest and\nrent.]\n\n\n\n\nMONTROSE AT INVERLOCHY.\n\n\n    [WE consider ourselves and our readers very fortunate indeed in\n    having procured the following as the first of a series of contributions\n    from Mr William Allan, Sunderland, whose recent publication--\"Heather\n    Bells, or Poems and Songs\"--has been so favourably received by the\n    Reviewers. A prior publication--\"Hame-spun Lilts\"--was also well\n    received. Of the author, the _Inverness Courier_ of 19th August,\n    says--\"You will fail, if you try, to find from first to last the\n    slightest imitation of a single one of the many that, within the last\n    hundred years, have so deftly handled the Doric lyre. Before\n    the appearance of this volume, Mr Allan was already favourably\n    known to us as the author of 'Hame-spun Lilts,' 'Rough\n    Castings,' and by many lively lilts besides in the poets'\n    column of the _Glasgow Weekly Herald_. There is about\n    everything he has written a sturdy, honest, matter-of-fact\n    ring, that convinces you that, whether you rank it high or low,\n    his song--like the wild warblings of the song-thrush in early\n    spring--is from the very heart. All he says and sings he really\n    means; and it is something in these days of so many artificial,\n    lack-a-daisical, 'spasmodic' utterances, to meet with anybody\n    so manifestly honest and thoroughly in earnest as Mr William\n    Allan.\" The _Dundee Advertiser_ of August 17th concludes a long\n    and very favourable review of \"Heather Bells, &c.\"--\"The 'Harp\n    of the North,' so beautifully invoked by Sir Walter in his\n    'Lady of the Lake,' has been long asleep--her mountains are\n    silent--and what if our Laureate of Calydon--our Modern\n    Ossian--were destined to hail from Bonnie Dundee?\" _The\n    Scotsman_ of Oct. 1st, says--\"There is true pathos in many of\n    the poems. Such a piece as 'Jessie's Leavin'' must find its way\n    to the hearts in many a cottage home. Indeed, 'Heather Bells,'\n    both deserves, and bids fair to acquire, popularity.\"]\n\n\n    Dark Winter's white shroud on the mountains was lying,\n    And deep lay the drifts in each corrie and vale,\n    Snow-clouds in their anger o'er heaven were flying,\n    Far-flinging their wrath on the frost-breathing gale;--\n    Undaunted by tempests in majesty roaring,\n    Unawed by the gloom of each path-covered glen,\n    As swift as the rush of a cataract pouring,\n    The mighty Montrose led his brave Highlandmen:--\n              Over each trackless waste,\n              Trooping in glory's haste,\n    Dark-rolling and silent as mist on the heath,\n              Resting not night nor day,\n              Fast on their snowy way\n    They dauntlessly sped on the pinions of death.\n\n    As loud as the wrath of the deep Corryvreckan,\n    Far-booming o'er Scarba's lone wave-circled isle,\n    As mountain rocks crash to the vale, thunder-stricken,\n    Their slogan arose in Glen Spean's defile;--\n    As clouds shake their locks to the whispers of Heaven;\n    As quakes the hushed earth 'neath the ire of the blast;\n    As quivers the heart of the craven, fear-riven,\n    So trembled Argyle at the sound as it passed;--\n              Over the startled snows,\n              Swept the dread word \"Montrose,\"\n    Deep-filling his soul with the gloom of dismay,\n              Marked he the wave of men,\n              Wild-rushing thro' the glen,\n    Then sank his proud crest to the coward's vile sway.\n\n    To Arms! rung afar on the winds of the morning,\n    Yon dread pennon streams as a lurid bale-star:\n    Hark! shrill from his trumpets an ominous warning\n    Is blown with the breath of the demon of war;--\n    Then bright flashed his steel as the eye of an eagle,\n    Then spread he his wings to the terror-struck foe;\n    Then on! with the swoop of a conqueror regal,\n    He rushed, and his talons struck victory's blow:--\n              Wild then their shouts arose,\n              Fled then their shivered foes,\n    And snowy Ben-Nevis re-echoed their wail;\n              Far from the field of dread,\n              Scattered, they singly fled,\n    As hound-startled deer, to the depths of each vale.\n\n    Where, where is Argyle now, his kinsmen to rally?\n    Where, where is the chieftain with timorous soul?\n    On Linnhe's grey waters he crouched in his galley,\n    And saw as a traitor the battle blast roll:--\n    Ungrasped was the hilt of his broadsword, still sleeping,\n    Unheard was his voice in the moment of need;\n    Secure from the rage of fierce foemen, death-sweeping,\n    He sought not by valour, his clansmen to lead.\n              Linnhe, in scornful shame,\n              Hissed out his humbled name,\n    As fast sped his boat on its flight-seeking course;\n              Sunk was his pride and flown,\n              Doomed then his breast to own\n    A coward-scarred heart, ever lashed with remorse.\n\n    SUNDERLAND.                                                WM. ALLAN.\n\n\n\n\nCorrespondence.\n\n\n    [Open to all parties, influenced by none, except on religious\n    discussions, which will not be allowed in these columns under\n    any circumstances.]\n\n\nTO THE EDITORS OF THE CELTIC MAGAZINE.\n\n                         67 Rue de Richelieu, Paris, September 19, 1875.\n\nDEAR SIRS,--I am glad to hear that you contemplate the foundation of a\nCeltic Magazine at Inverness. It is very gratifying for the Celtic\nscholars on the Continent to see that the old spirit of Celtic\nnationality has not died out in all the Celtic countries, and especially\nthat a country like the Highlands of Scotland--that may boast equally of\nthe beauty of her mountains and glens, and of the gallantry of her\nsons--will keep her language, literature, and nationality in honour. The\nGaelic Society of Inverness is doing much good already, but a Magazine\ncan do even more, by its _regularly_ bringing news and instruction.\n\nA wide field is open to you. The Gaelic literature, the history--political,\nmilitary, religious, social, economic, &c.--of the Scottish Gaels at home;\nthe collecting of popular tunes, songs, proverbs, sayings, and even games;\nthe history and the development of Gaelic colonies and settlements abroad;\nthe history of Highland worthies, and also of Foreign worthies who are of\nScotch descent (I think, for instance, of Macdonald, one of the best\n_marechaux_ of Napoleon I.), &c. Although the other branches of the\nCeltic family be separated from the Scotch Gaels--the Irish by their\nreligion, the Welsh by their dialect, the French Bretons by their religion\nand their dialect at the same time,--yet the moral, social, and literary\nstate of these cousins of yours may form, from time to time, interesting\ntopics to patriotic Highland readers. The field of Celtic literature extends\nfar and wide, and awaits yet many reapers. You will not fail to make a rich\nharvest in your poetic and patriotic Scotland; and at Inverness, in the\nmiddle of the Gaelic country, you have the best opportunity of\nsuccess.--I am, Dear Sirs, yours very faithfully,\n\n                             H. GAIDOZ, _Editor of the Revue Celtique_.\n\n\nTHE OSSIANIC QUESTION.\n\n                                    Altnacraig, Oban, September 20, 1875.\n\nSIR,--In the last number of _The Gaedheal_, a Gaelic periodical which\nmay be known to some of your readers, I inserted a translation from the\nGerman of an essay on the authenticity of Macpherson's Ossian, appended\nto a poetical translation of Fingal by Dr August Ebrard, Leipsic, 1868.\nMy object in doing this was to give Highlanders ignorant of German, as\nmost of them unhappily are, an opportunity of hearing what a learned\nGerman had to say on the character of the most famous, though in my\nopinion far from the best, book in their language. I did not in the\nslightest degree mean to indicate my own views as to this vexed\nquestion. I know too well the philological conditions on which the\nsolution of such a question depends to hazard any opinion at all upon\nthe subject in the present condition of my Celtic studies. I am happy,\nhowever, to find that one good result has followed from the publication\nof this translation--a translation which, by the way, only revised by\nme, but made by a young lady of great intellectual promise--viz., the\nreceipt of a letter from the greatest living authority on the Ossianic\nquestion, I mean John Campbell of Islay, traveller, geologist, and good\nfellow of the first quality. This letter, which I enclose, the learned\nwriter authorises me to print, with your permission, in your columns;\nand I feel convinced you have seldom had a more valuable literary\ncommunication.--I am, &c.,\n\n                                                     JOHN S. BLACKIE.\n\n         *         *         *         *         *\n\n                                   Conan House, Dingwall, September, 1875.\n\nMY DEAR PROFESSOR BLACKIE,--In the last number of _The Gael_ I find a\ntranslation by you from a German essay, and a quotation from a German\nwriter who calls Macpherson's Ossian \"the most magnificent mystification\nof modern times.\" The mists which surround this question need the light\nof knowledge to shine from the sitter on that rising Gaelic chair which\nyou have done so much to uplift. In the meantime let me tell you three\nfacts. On the 9th December 1872, I found out that Jerome Stone's Gaelic\ncollection had been purchased by Mr Laing of the Signet Library, and\nthat he had lent the manuscript to Mr Clerk of Kilmallie. On the 25th\nNovember 1872, I found a list of contents and three of the songs in the\nAdvocates' Library, but too late to print them. The learned German\nrelied on Stone's missing manuscript as proof of the antiquity of\nMacpherson's Ossian, because it was of older date. It contains versions\nof ten heroic ballads, of which I had printed many versions in \"Leabhar\nna Feinne.\" There is not one line of the Gaelic printed in 1807 in\nthose songs which I found. I presume that Mr Clerk would have quoted\nStone's collection made in 1755 if he had found anything there to\nsupport his view, which is that Ossian's poems are authentic. Stone's\ntranslation is a florid English composition, founded upon the simple old\nGaelic ballad which still survives traditionally. I got the old music\nfrom Mrs Mactavish at Knock, in Mull, last month. She learned it from a\nservant in Lorn, who sung to her when she was a girl.\n\n2d, The essayist relied upon a lost manuscript which was named \"A Bolg\nSolair\" (the great treasure.) That designation seems to be a version of\na name commonly given by collectors of Scotch and Irish popular lore to\ntheir manuscripts. The name seems rather to mean \"rubbish bag.\" The idea\nwas probably taken from the wallet of the wandering minstrel of the last\ncentury who sang for his supper. A very great number of paper manuscripts\nof this kind are in Dublin and in the British Museum. I own two; but not\none of these, so far as I have been able to discover, contains a line of\nthe Gaelic Ossian printed in 1807, which one learned German believed to be\nold and the other a mystification.\n\n3d, The essayist relies upon the \"Red Book.\" In 1873 Admiral Macdonald\nsent me the book, which he had recovered. Mr Standish O'Grady helped me\nto read it, and translated a great part of it in June and July 1874 in\nmy house. It is a paper manuscript which does not contain one line of\nMacpherson's Ossian. It does contain Gaelic poems by known authors, of\nwhich copies are in other manuscripts preserved in Ireland. I do not\nquestion the merits of Ossian's poems. Readers can judge. They are\nScotch compositions, for the English is Macpherson's, and the Gaelic is\nScotch vernacular. A glance at old Gaelic, of which many samples are\nprinted in late numbers of the Parisian _Revue Celtique_, ought to\nconvince any reader of Ossian that modern Scotch vernacular Gaelic\ncannot possibly represent the language of St Patrick's time. I have\nhunted popular lore for many years, and I have published five volumes. I\nhave gathered twenty-one thick foolscap volumes of manuscript. I have\nhad able collectors at work in Scotland; I had the willing aid of\nStokes, Hennessy, Standish O'Grady, Crowe, and other excellent Irish\nscholars in ransacking piles of Gaelic manuscripts in Dublin, London,\nEdinburgh, and elsewhere. I could never find an uneducated Highlander\nwho could repeat any notable part of the Gaelic poems which were\ncirculated gratis soon after 1807. Nobody ever has found one line of\nthese poems in any known writing older than James Macpherson. I agree\nwith many speakers of Scotch Gaelic who have studied this question. We\nhold that the Gaelic Ossian of 1807 is, on the face of it, a manifest\ntranslation from English; and that the English was founded upon an\nimperfect acquaintance with genuine old Scotch Gaelic ballads. These are\nstill commonly sung. They are founded upon the mythical history which\nstill is traditionally known all over Scotland and Ireland. It was old\nwhen Keating wrote; it was old when the Book of Leinster was written\nabout 1130. It really is a strange thing that so little should be known\nin Great Britain about this curious branch of British literature. I\nsuppose that no other country in Europe can produce uneducated peasants,\nfishers, and paupers, who sing heroic ballads as old as 1130 and 1520,\nwhich have been orally preserved. Some fragments about Cuchullin, which\nI have gathered can be traced in the Book of Leinster. Many ballads\nwhich I have heard sung in the Scotch Isles were written by the Dean of\nLismore in 1520. By travelling to Tobermory, you may still hear Wm.\nRobertson, a weaver there, tell the story of Cuchullin, and sing the\nsong of \"Diarmaid,\" the \"Burning of the Fenian Women,\" and many other\nheroic ballads. I heard him sing them in 1872, when he said that he was\neighty-seven.--I am, yours very truly,\n\n                                                       J. F. CAMPBELL.\n\n         *         *         *         *         *\n\n                                      Kilmallie Manse, September 25, 1875.\n\nSIR,--There is no man living who has done so much for Gaelic literature\nas Mr Campbell, and, just in proportion to my sense of the greatness of\nhis services, is my reluctance to put myself, even for a moment, in\nopposition to him. But his opinion on the Ossianic question, expressed\nin his letter, constrains me to oppose him.\n\nOne word as to what he says about Jerome Stone's MS. Dr Laing kindly\nlent it to me, and it is now in my possession. I referred to it\nfrequently in my edition of Ossian, 1870. Had I known that Mr Campbell\nwished to see it, I would gladly place it at his service. There is no\nmystification about this MS.; and I am sorry to say that it will not\nturn the scale either way in the present controversy.\n\nBut to the main point. Mr Campbell holds \"that the Gaelic Ossian of 1807\nis a manifest translation from English.\" Dr Johnson expressed the same\nopinion more than a hundred years ago; but while Mr Campbell can speak\nwith a thousandfold the authority of the great moralist, who knew\nnothing of Gaelic, yet even Mr Campbell submits no positive proofs to\nsupport his decision--no new fact of any kind. As far as external\nevidence goes, he founds his opinion entirely on what is negative. Now,\nI submit that the history of the case presents many undoubted facts all\ngoing to prove the priority of the Gaelic to the English Ossian, and\nthese facts must be disposed of before Mr Campbell's conclusions can be\nadopted.\n\nLet me say in one word that I do not for a moment pretend to solve the\nOssianic mystery. Any theory which has yet been proposed presents\nserious difficulties, but I maintain that Mr Campbell's presents the\ngreatest of all, and in the present state of our knowledge cannot be\nadopted.\n\nFor proof, I must submit a brief outline of facts certified in the\nreport of the Highland Society on the subject, and which, though they\nare undeniable, are often unaccountably overlooked in the controversy.\n\n1. It is the case that Macpherson, before publishing in English, got\nseveral Gaelic MSS., which he acknowledged in his letters still extant,\nand which he showed to his friends; further, that he asked and obtained\nthe assistance of some of these friends--Captain Morison, Rev. Mr Gallie,\nand, above all, Strathmashie--to translate them into English.\n\n2. It is a most important fact that when challenged to produce his\nGaelic MSS., he advertised that they were deposited at his\nbooksellers--Beckett & De Hondt, Strand, London--and offered to publish\nthem if a sufficient number of subscribers came forward. The booksellers\ncertify that his MSS. had lain for twelve months at their place of\nbusiness.\n\n3. It is a fact that several persons, well able to judge of the matter,\nand of unimpeachable character, such as the Rev. Dr Macpherson, of\nSleat; Rev. Mr Macleod, of Glenelg; Rev. Mr Macneill, &c., &c., did, in\n1763--that is, 44 years before the publication of the Gaelic\nOssian--compare Macpherson's English with Gaelic recited by various\npersons in their respective neighbourhoods. They give the names of these\npersons, and they certify that they found the Gaelic poetry recited by\nthese, who never had any correspondence with Macpherson, to correspond\nin many instances--to the extent of hundreds of lines--with his English.\nOne very significant fact is brought out in these certifications, that\nGaelic was found to agree with Macpherson's English in cases where he\nnever gave Gaelic. The English Ossian contains various poems for which\nhe never gave Gaelic; but here Gaelic, corresponding to his English, is\nfound in the mouths of people with whom he never held any communication.\n\nNow, what are we to say to all these things? Shall we believe that\nMacpherson advertised his MSS. when he had none? The belief implies that\nhe was insane, which we know was not the case. And are we further to\nbelieve that such men as the above deliberately attested what they knew\nto be false, and what, if false, might easily be proved to be so? It is\nimpossible for a moment to receive such a supposition.\n\nBut it is said these, though good men, were prejudiced, spoke loosely,\nand therefore are not to be relied on in this enlightened and critical\nage. This, however, is assuming a great deal, and in so doing is\n_un_critical. Prejudice is at work in the nineteenth century even as it\nwas in the eighteenth. These men had far better opportunities of judging\nthe matter than we have. They give their judgment distinctly and\ndecidedly, and I never yet saw any good reason for setting that judgment\naside.\n\nI must add further, on the historic evidence, that several Gaelic\npieces, and these among the gems of Ossianic poetry, were published by\nGillies in 1786; that some of these are found in the Irvine MS. about\n1800; that there is no proof of Macpherson having furnished any of\nthese; and that the genuineness of one of them, \"The Sun Hymn,\" given\nseem to be beyond the possibility of cavil.\n\nFrom all this it appears to me undoubted that Macpherson began his work\nwith Gaelic MSS., that he founded his English on them, and that various\nportions of his work were known in several quarters of the country forty\nyears before he published his Gaelic. The subsequent disappearance of\nall MSS. containing his Gaelic is very remarkable, and is much founded\non by Mr Campbell. But the history of literature affords various\ninstances of the preservation of a book depending on one solitary MS.\nThe case of the great Niebelungen-Lied--unknown for centuries, and\nbrought to light through the accidental discovery of a MS.--is quite in\npoint; and to come nearer home, two years ago, only one perfect copy of\nthe first Gaelic book ever printed, Bishop Carewell's translation of\nJohn Knox's liturgy, was in existence. It may be, then, that when\nMacpherson destroyed his Gaelic MSS. he destroyed all in which his\npoetry was to be found. Again, it is asked, when Highlanders in the\npresent day recite so many heroic ballads, why do they not recite\nMacpherson's? I answer that there being now forgotten is no proof that\nthey were never remembered. A hundred years may obliterate many things\namong a people. The last hundred years have wrought such obliterations\nin the Highlands of Scotland as to make it no cause of wonder that\nheroic poetry then remembered should now be forgotten.\n\nI must restrict myself to a very few words on the internal evidence--though\nit is on this the question must be finally decided, if it ever is to be\ndecided. As to the inference from comparing the Gaelic and English, I am\nsorry to say that I am entirely at variance with Mr Campbell. The more I\nexamine the subject, the deeper is my conviction that the freeness of the\nGaelic, the fulness of its similes, and its general freshness incontestably\nprove it to be the original. I would refer especially to the sea-pieces\n(_e.g._, Carhon, ll. 48-52.) In Gaelic they are vivid and graphic--in\nEnglish tame, and almost meaningless--a fact such as might naturally be\nexpected from the words of a true mariner being translated by a thoroughly\n\"inland bred man\" like Macpherson, but absolutely irreconcilable with his\nhaving written the Gaelic. Mr Campbell himself in his admirable work of the\n\"West Highland Tales,\" vol. 4, p. 142, _et seq._, has some striking and\nconclusive remarks on the internal evidence of the priority of the\nGaelic to the English; and I sincerely hope, when he considers them\nagain, they will induce him to return to his first faith.\n\nMuch might be said on the structure of the Gaelic--especially the Gaelic\nof the 7th Book of Temora, published by Macpherson in 1763, which\ndiffers widely from any other Gaelic that I have met with; and much of\nthe whole character of Ossian, whether Gaelic or English, being so\nabsolutely unlike all Macpherson's other compositions--many and well\nknown; but I must conclude by repeating that Mr Campbell's theory \"makes\nconfusion worse confounded\"--in asking us to set at nought the various\nfacts which I have stated, demands a moral impossibility; and that\nwhatever light may be thrown on the subject from the new Celtic Chair,\nwe must in the present state of our knowledge admit Gaelic to be the\noriginal, and Macpherson to be the translator of the Ossianic poems.--I\nam, &c.,\n\n                                                ARCHIBALD CLERK, LL.D.\n\n\n\n\nREMNANTS OF GAELIC POETRY.\n\n\nTHE name of Lachlan Macpherson, Esq. of Strathmashie, is well known to\nthose who are conversant with the dissertations on the poems of Ossian.\nAbout the year 1760 he accompanied his neighbour and namesake, James\nMacpherson, Esq. of Belville, in his journey through the Highlands in\nsearch of those poems, he assisted him in collecting them, and in taking\nthem down from oral tradition, and he transcribed by far the greater\npart of them from ancient manuscripts to prepare them for the press, as\nstated by himself in a letter to Dr Hugh Blair of Edinburgh. He was\nbeyond all doubt a man of great powers of mind, and a Celtic poet of no\nmean order. He died at the comparatively early age of forty years,\ngreatly lamented by his contemporaries, leaving behind him no written\nliterary production.\n\nFragments of Mr Lachlan Macpherson's poetry, hitherto unpublished, will\nbe acceptable to those who have done so much of late to promote the\ninterests of Celtic literature. In some of his poems, composed in the\nsportive exercise of his poetic genius, he makes the same objects the\nsubjects of his praise and censure alternately. We give the following\nspecimens:--\n\nOn the occasion of a marriage contract in his neighbourhood, the poet\nhonoured the company with his presence. The important business of the\noccasion having been brought to a close, the bridegroom departed, but\nremembering that he had left on the table a bottle not quite empty, he\nreturned and took it with him. The poet, viewing this as an act of\nextreme meanness, addressed the bridegroom as follows:--\n\n    CAINEADH AN DOMHNULLAICH.\n\n    'S toigh leam Domhnullach neo-chosdail\n    O nach coltach e ri cach.\n    'N uair bhios iadsan ag iarraidh fortain\n    Bidh esan 'n a phrop aig fear cais\n    Ma bha do mhathair 'n a mnaoi choir\n    Cha do ghleidh i 'n leabaidh phosda glan,\n    Cha 'n 'eil cuid agad do Chloinn Domhnuill,\n    'S Rothach no Rosach am fear.\n    'N uair a bhuail thu aig an uinneig\n    Cha b' ann a bhuinnigeadh cliu,\n    Dh' iarraidh na druaip bha 's a' bhotul,\n    Mallachd fir focail a' d' ghiur.\n\nWe give a free translation of the above into English, far inferior,\nhowever, to the Gaelic original:--\n\n    MACDONALD SATIRISED.\n\n    I like to see a niggard man,\n    One of the great Macdonald clan;\n    When others are in quest of gain\n    This man the needy will sustain.\n    Your mother, if an honest dame,\n    Has not retained her wedlock fame;\n    No part is Mac from top to toe,\n    You're either Rose or else Munro.\n    When to the house you turned your face,\n    Let it be told to your disgrace,\n    'Twas for the dregs you had forgot,\n    The Poet's curse be in your throat.\n\nThe bridegroom, as we may well believe, smarted under the chastisement\nadministered to him. He took an early opportunity of putting himself in\nthe poet's way. Seeing Mr Macpherson riding past his place one day, he\nwent to meet him with a bottle and glass, and importunately begged of\nhim that he would have the goodness to say something now in his favour.\nMr Macpherson complied with the request. Sitting on horseback, and\ntaking the glass in his hand, he pronounced the ensuing eulogy on the\nbridegroom:--\n\n    MOLADH AN DOMHNULLAICH.\n\n    Bha na baird riamh breugach, bosdail,\n    Beular sinn, gorach, gun seadh,\n    Lasgair gasd e Chloinn Domhnuill,\n    Mac Ailein Mhoir as a Mhagh.\n    Chuir e botul neo-ghortach a' m' dhorn,\n    A chur iotadh mo sgornain air chul,\n    'S bard gun tur a bh' air a' chordadh\n    Nach do sheinn gu mor a chliu.\n    Ach tha 'n seors' ud uile cho caillteach,\n    Cho mi-thaingeil, 's cho beag ciall,\n    'S ma thig a' chuach idir o 'n ceann,\n    Nach fiach e taing na fhuair iad riamh.\n\nThe above may be thus translated:--\n\n    MACDONALD EULOGISED.\n\n    The bards, as we have ever seen,\n    Liars and flatterers have been;\n    Boasting, with little cause to glory,\n    So empty is their upper storey.\n    Of Clan Macdonald this is one,\n    Of Allan Mor of Moy the son;\n    He brought to me a sonsy vessel\n    To satiate my thirsty whistle.\n    The poet proved himself unwise\n    When him he did not eulogise.\n    The bards--I own it with regret--\n    Are a pernicious sorry set,\n    Whate'er they get is soon forgot,\n    Unless you always wet their throat.\n\nMr Macpherson had a dairymaid of the name of Flora, whom he described in\nabusive language in a poem beginning,--\n\n    Floiri mhugach, bhotach, ghlun-dubh.\n\nHe afterwards made amends for the offence he had given her by commending\nher in very flattering terms. He represents her as a most useful\ndairymaid, and as a young woman of surpassing beauty, who had many\nadmirers, and, according to his description of her, such were her good\nqualities, and her personal attractions, that certain persons whom he\nnames, among others the clergyman of the parish, expressed their desire\nto engage her in their own service. The poet rejects their\nsolicitations, and informs them how unlikely a thing it is that Flora\nshould engage with them, as she was intended for the King:--\n\n    EULOGY ON FLORA.\n\n      Floiri shugach, bhoidheach, shuil-ghorm,\n    A pog mar ubhlan as a' gharadh,\n    'N og bhean, chliuiteach 's comhnaird' giulan,\n    Dh' olainn dubailt a deoch-slainte,\n    Ge do shiubhail sibh 'n Roinn Eorpa,\n    'S na duthchan mor' an taobh thall dith,\n    Cha 'n fhaiceadh sibh leithid Floiri,\n    Cul bachlach, glan, or-bhuidhe na ban-righ.\n\n      Maighdean bheul-dearg, foill cha leir dh' i,\n    'S geal a deud o 'n ceutaich' gaire,\n    Caoimhneil, beusach, trod neo-bheumach,\n    'S ro mhaith leigeadh spreidh air airidh,\n    Clach-dhatha na h-Alba 's na h-Eirinn,\n    Nach saltair air feur a h-aicheadh,\n    Mar dhealt na maidne 'n a h-eirigh,\n    'S mar aiteal na grein a dealradh.\n\n      A leadan dualach sios m' a cluasaibh\n    Chuir gu buaireadh fir a' bhraighe,\n    Fleasgaich uaisl' a' sri mu 'n ghruagaich,\n    'N ti tha 'gruaim ris 's truagh a charamh,\n    Ach b' annsa leath' cuman 'us buarach,\n    'S dol do 'n bhuaile mar chaidh h-arach,\n    Langanaich cruidh-laoigh m' an cuairt di,\n    'S binne sud na uaisle chraiteach.\n\n      'S gniomhach, cairdeil, b' fhearr dhomh radhainn,\n    'S glan a h-abhaist, 's tearc a leithid,\n    Muime shar-mhaith nan laogh aluinn,\n    Im 'us caise theid sud leatha,\n    Banarach fhortain ghabhaidh\n    Nam miosairean lan 's a' cheithe,\n    Dheanadh i tuilleadh air caraid\n    'S a phaidheadh dhomh mal Aonghuis Shaw.\n\n      An t-ait' am faic sibh 'm bi gibht araidh\n    Suilean chaich bidh 'n sin 'n an luidhe,\n    Domhnull Ban o 'm mine Gailig\n    Bhuin rium laidir as an athar;\n    Thuirt e, thoir dhomhs' i gu bealltuinn,\n    Seall an t-earlas tha thu faighinn\n    Uam-sa, buannachd nan damh Gallda,\n    No ma 's fearr leat na sin faidhir.\n\n      Thuirt Domhnull Mac Bheathain 's e 's an eisdeachd,\n    Naile, 's fheudar dhomh-sa labhairt,\n    'S mise 'n t-amadan thar cheud,\n    A bheireadh cead dh' i 'n deigh a gabhail,\n    Ach thoir-se nise dhomh fein i,\n    'S theid ni 'us feudail a' d' lamhaibh,\n    Gu 'n ruig a 's na tha tilgeadh reigh dhomh\n    Ann am Banc Dhun-eidinn fathast.\n\n      'N uair chual am Ministeir an t-sri\n    A bha mu 'n riomhainn thall an amhainn,\n    Chuir e pior-bhuic 'us ad shiod' air,\n    'S chaidh e direach orm a dh' fheitheamh,\n    'S thuirt e, thoir dhomh-s' an ath thiom dhith,\n    'S ni mi tri-fillte cho maith thu,\n    'S ma shearmonaicheas tu fein do 'n sgireachd\n    Gheibh thu 'n stipean 's bean-an-tighe.\n\n      Ge proiseil sibh le 'r n-or, 's le 'r ni,\n    Le 'r moran stipein, 's le 'r cuid mhnathaibh,\n    'S fearr leam Floiri agam fhein\n    Na ge do chit 'iad leis an amhainn,\n    Dheanainn an cordadh cho simplidh\n    'S i dhol cinnteach feadh nan tighean,\n    Cia mar tha i coltach ribh-se?\n    'S gur h-e 'n righ tha dol g' a faighinn.\n\nThe Mashie, a tributary of the Spey, in the parish of Laggan, runs close\nby Strathmashie house. It is a small river, but in harvest time, when in\nflood, it causes considerable damage. The poet takes occasion to censure\nthe Mashie on this account; but he has his pleasant associations in\nconnection with the charming banks of this mountain stream, as expressed\nin the following stanzas:--\n\n    MATHAISITH CENSURED.\n\n      Mhathaisith fhrogach dhubh,\n    Fhrogach dhubh, fhrogach dhubh,\n    Mhathaisith fhrogach dhubh,\n    'S mor rinn thu chall domh.\n\n      Rinn thu m' eorna a mhilleadh,\n    'S mo chuid ghorag air sileadh,\n    'Us cha d' fhag thu sguab tioram\n    Do na chinnich do bharr dhomh.\n                     Mhathaisith, &c.\n\n      Cha robh lochan no caochan,\n    A bha ruith leis an aonach,\n    Nach do chruinnich an t-aon lan\n    A thoirt aon uair do shath dhuit.\n                     Mhathaisith, &c.\n\n      Rinn thu ol an tigh Bheathain\n    Air leann 's uisge-beatha,\n    'S garbh an tuilm sin a sgeith thu\n    'S a' ghabhail-rathaid Di-mairt oirnn\n                     Mhathaisith, &c.\n\n\n    EULOGY ON MATHAISITH.\n\n      Mhathaisith bhoidheach gheal,\n    Bhoidheach gheal, bhoidheach gheal,\n    Mhathaisith bhoidheach gheal,\n    B' ait leam bhi laimh riut.\n\n      'N uair a rachainn a' m' shiubhal\n    B' e sud mo cheann uidhe\n    Na bh' air braigh Choire-bhuidhe\n    Agus ruigh Alt-na-ceardaich.\n                     Mhathaisith, &c.\n\n      Gu 'm bu phailt bha mo bhuaile\n    Do chrodh druim-fhion 'us guaill-fhionn,\n    Mar sud 's mo chuid chuachag\n    Dol mu 'n cuairt dhoibh 's an t-samhradh.\n                     Mhathaisith, &c.\n\n                                        SEANCHAIDH.\n\n\n\n\nHIGHLAND NOTES AND COMMENTS.\n\n\n    [IN this Column we shall, from month to month, notice the most\n    important business coming before our Highland Representative\n    Institutions--such as the local Parliament of the Highland\n    Capital, Gaelic and other Celtic Societies, and passing\n    incidents likely to prove interesting to our Celtic readers. We\n    make no pretence to give news; simply comments on incidents,\n    information regarding which will be obtained through the usual\n    channels.]\n\nWE make no apology for referring to the doings of the Town Council of\nthe Capital of the Highlands. Anything calculated to interest the\nHighlander is included in our published programme; and surely the\ncomposition, conduct, dignity, and patriotism of the local Parliament of\nthe HIGHLAND CAPITAL, and the general ability, eloquence, intelligence,\nand independence of spirit displayed by its members is of more than mere\nlocal interest. We take it that the Scottish Gael, wherever located, is\ninterested in the Capital of his native Highlands, and will naturally\nconcern himself with the history and conduct of those whose duty it is\nas its leading men to shine forth as an example to places of lesser\nimportance.\n\nLast year a Gas and Water Bill was carried through Parliament, involving\nan expenditure of something like L80,000, and at least double taxation.\nWe have no doubt whatever very good and satisfactory reasons will be\ngiven for this large expenditure, but hitherto not the slightest\nexplanation has been vouchsafed to the public, and we are, in common\nwith five-sixths of the community, at present quite ignorant of the\nreasons given for this enormous expenditure: that there must be\nunanswerable reasons we have no doubt whatever, for have not the Council\nbeen unanimous to a man throughout. Not a single protest was entered.\nNot a single speech was publicly made against it. But more wonderful\nstill, not a single speech was made publicly in the Council in its\nfavour. This did not arise from want of debating power on the part of\nthe members. It must have arisen from the unanswerable nature of the\narguments delivered in private committees, where, practically, no one\nheard them, or of them, except the members themselves. The only\nobjection which can be raised to this theory is, that if the matter is\nso very clear and simple, and the expenditure so imperatively called\nfor, it is most wonderful that some ingenuous simple-minded member had\nnot thought of making himself popular at one bound, by giving a little\ninformation to the public as the matter proceeded, and so silence all\nthe grumbling and general dissatisfaction felt outside.\n\n         *         *         *         *         *\n\nTHE Gaelic Society of Inverness entered on its fifth session last month.\nThe Society has of late shown considerable signs of popularity and\nprogress; for close upon fifty members have been added to the roll\nduring the first eight months of the Society's year, while only eighteen\nwere added during the whole of the previous one. In 1873, seventy new\nmembers were elected. The following five Clans are the best\nrepresented--Mackenzies, 23 members; Frasers, 22; Mackays, 19;\nMacdonalds, 18; Mackintoshes, 14. This is not as it should be; for while\nthe Mackays only occupy a little over a page of the Inverness Directory,\nthe Mackintoshes two, and the Mackenzies about three and a-half; the\nMacdonalds occupy over four, and the Frasers seven pages. We would like\nto see the Clans taking their proper places, by the \"levelling-up\"\nprocess of course.\n\n         *         *         *         *         *\n\nWE regret to announce the sudden death, on the 19th of August, of Dr\nHermann Ebel, Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of\nBerlin. He superintended the new edition of Zeuss's _Grammatica\nCeltica_, and was one of the four or five leading Celtic scholars of the\nage.\n\n         *         *         *         *         *\n\nIT will be seen that Logan's \"Scottish Gael\"--a book now getting very\nscarce, and which was never, in consequence of its high price, within\nthe reach of a wide circle of readers--is to be issued by Mr Hugh\nMackenzie, Bank Lane, in 12 monthly parts at 2s each, Edited, with\nMemoir and Notes, by the Rev. Mr Stewart, \"Nether-Lochaber.\" In this way\nthe work will be much easier to get. It only requires to be known to\nsecure the demand such an authority on the Celt--his language,\nliterature, music, and ancient costume--deserves.\n\n         *         *         *         *         *\n\nWE take the following from the late Dr Norman Macleod's \"Reminiscences\nof a Highland Parish\" on Highlanders ashamed of their country. We\nbelieve the number to whom the paragraph is now applicable is more\nlimited than when it first saw the light, but we could yet point to a\nfew of this contemptible tribe, of whom better things might be expected.\nWe wish the reader to emphasize every line and accept it as our own\nviews regarding these treacle-beer would-be-genteel excrescences of our\nnoble race. A wart or tumour sometimes disfigures the finest oak of the\nforest, and these so-called Highlanders are just the warts and tumours\nof the Celtic races--they have their uses, no doubt:--\"One class\nsometimes found in society we would especially beseech to depart; we\nmean Highlanders ashamed of their country. Cockneys are bad enough, but\nthey are sincere and honest in their idolatry of the Great Babylon.\nYoung Oxonians or young barristers, even when they become slashing\nLondon critics, are more harmless than they themselves imagine, and\nafter all inspire less awe than Ben-Nevis, or than the celebrated\nagriculturist who proposed to decompose that mountain with acids, and to\nscatter the debris as a fertiliser over the Lochaber moss. But a\nHighlander born, who has been nurtured on oatmeal porridge and oatmeal\ncakes; who in his youth wore home-spun cloth, and was innocent of shoes\nand stockings; who blushed in his attempts to speak the English\nlanguage; who never saw a nobler building for years than the little kirk\nin the glen, and who owes all that makes him tolerable in society to the\nCeltic blood which flows in spite of him through his veins;--for this\nman to be proud of his English accent, to sneer at the everlasting\nhills, the old kirk and its simple worship, and despise the race which\nhas never disgraced him--faugh! Peat reek is frankincense in comparison\nwith him; let him not be distracted by any of our reminiscences of the\nold country; leave us, we beseech of thee!\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUNSET OF THE YEAR.\n\n(OCTOBER.)\n\n\n    Sweet Summer's scowling foe impatient stands\n      On the horizon near of Nature's view.\n    At the sad sight the sweetly-coloured lands\n      Filled with the glowing woodlands' dying hue,\n    For Winter's darkening reign prepare the way.\n      In the green garden the tall Autumn flowers,\n      Filling with fragrant breath the beauteous bowers,\n    With resignation wait their dying day;\n      Bending their heads submissive to the will\n      Of Him, at whose command the sun stands still,\n    Nor dares to send to earth his gladd'ning ray.\n      Filled with the feeling of the coming doom\n    Of Nature's beauteous deeds, the heavenly hill\n      Hides its sad, shuddering face in cloudy gloom.\n    A whispering silence overhangs the scene,\n      As if awaiting the dark Winter storm\n      That fills with fear Hope's slowly-withering form.\n    Sinking to wintry death--till, pure and green,\n      Spring shall descend in song from sunny skies,\n      Smiling her into life. The sad wind sighs\n      Through flowerless woods, glowing towards their death,\n      In Winter's cruel, poison-breathing breath.\n    Fierce grows the murmur of the woodland rill,\n      Foaming in fury thro' the pensive trees,\n    Down the steep glen of the mist-mantled hill;\n      Deeper the roar of death-presageful seas;\n    While in the changeful woods the rivers seem\n    Wandering for ever in a Winter dream!\n\n    MAIDENKIRK, 1875.                        DAVID R. WILLIAMSON.\n\n\n\n\n_LITERATURE._\n\n\n_TRANSACTIONS OF THE GAELIC SOCIETY OF INVERNESS. Vols. III. and IV.,\n1873-74 and 1874-75 (Bound in one)._\n\nTHIS is the third publication issued by the Gaelic Society since its\nestablishment in 1871. The previous volumes were very creditable,\nespecially the first, but the one now before us is out of sight superior\nnot only in size, but in the quality of its contents. First we have an\nIntroduction of eight pages giving the history of the movement in favour\nof establishing a Celtic Chair in one of our Scottish Universities, and\nthe steps taken by the Gaelic Society of London, who appear to have\nworked single-handed to promote this object since 1835, when they\npresented their first petition to the House of Commons, down to 1870,\nwhen the Council of the Edinburgh University took the matter in hand. In\nDecember 1869 the Gaelic Society of London sent out circulars addressed\nto ministers of all denominations in Scotland asking for information as\nto the number of churches in which Gaelic was preached. The circulars\nwere returned, the result being \"that out of 3395 places of worship of\nall denominations in Scotland, 461 had Gaelic services once-a-day in the\nfollowing proportions--Established Church, 235; Free Church, 166; Catholic\nChapels, 36; Baptists, 12; Episcopalians, 9; Congregationalists, 3.\"\n\nThe first paper in the volume is a very interesting account, by Dr\nCharles Mackay, the poet, of \"The Scotch in America.\" We give the\nfollowing extract:--\n\n    I was invited to dine with a wealthy gentleman of my own name.\n    There were present on that occasion 120 other Scotchmen, and\n    most of them wore the Highland dress. My host had a piper\n    behind the chair playing the old familiar strains of the pipes.\n    The gentleman told me, in the course of the evening, that his\n    father was a poor cottar in Sutherlandshire. \"My mother,\" said\n    he, \"was turned out upon the moor on a dark cold night, and\n    upon that moor I was born.\" My friend's family afterwards went\n    to America, and my friend became a \"dry\" merchant, or as you\n    would say in Scotland, a draper. I said to him, seeing that his\n    position had so improved, \"Well, I suppose you do not bear any\n    grudge against the people by whose agency your family were\n    turned upon the moor.\" \"No,\" he replied, \"I cannot say that I\n    bear them any grudge, but at the same time I cannot say that I\n    forgive them. If my position has improved, it is by my own\n    perseverance, and not by their good deeds or through their\n    agency.\" In every great city of Canada--Toronto, Kingstown,\n    Montreal, New Brunswick, St John's, Nova Scotia, and in almost\n    every town and village, you will find many Scotchmen; in fact,\n    in the large towns they are almost as numerous as in Edinburgh\n    and Inverness. You will see a Highland name staring you in the\n    face in any or every direction. If you ask for the principal\n    merchant or principal banker, you will be almost sure to find\n    that he's a Scotchman; and no matter in what part of the world\n    your fellow countrymen may be cast, they keep up the old\n    manners and customs of their mother country. They never forget\n    the good old times of \"Auld lang syne;\" they never forget the\n    old songs they sung, the old tunes they played, nor the old\n    reels and dances of Scotland.\n\n    The Scotch, especially in Canada, take the Gaelic with them.\n    They have Gaelic newspapers, which have a large\n    circulation--larger, perhaps, than any Gaelic newspaper at\n    home. They have Gaelic preachers. In fact, there is one part of\n    Canada which might be called the new Scotland; and it is a\n    Scotchman who is now at the head of the Canadian\n    Government--John Macdonald.[A]\n\nThe next is a paper by Archibald Farquharson, Tiree, headed \"The Scotch\nat Home and Abroad,\" but really a thrilling appeal in favour of teaching\nGaelic in Highland Schools. It is impossible to give an idea of this\nexcellent paper by quoting extracts. We, however, give the following on\nthe teaching of Gaelic in the schools:--\n\n    Reading a language they do not understand has a very bad effect\n    upon children. It leaves the mind indolent and lazy; they do\n    not put themselves to any trouble to endeavour to ascertain the\n    meaning of what they read; whereas, were they taught to\n    translate as they went along, whenever a word they did not\n    understand presented itself to their minds, they would have no\n    rest until they would master it by finding out its meaning. And\n    I am pretty certain that were the Gaelic-speaking children thus\n    to be taught, that by the time they would reach the age of\n    fourteen years, they would be as far advanced, if not farther,\n    than those who have no Gaelic at all; so that, instead of the\n    Gaelic being their misfortune, it would be the very reverse. It\n    would, with the exception of Welshmen (were they aware of it),\n    place them on an eminence above any in Great Britain, not only\n    as scholars, but as having the best languages for the soul and\n    for the understanding. And should they enter college, they\n    would actually leave others behind them, because, in the first\n    place, they acquired the habit of translating in their youth,\n    which would make translating from dead languages comparatively\n    easy; and in the second place, they would derive great aid from\n    their knowledge of the Gaelic. If Professor Blackie has found\n    500 Greek roots in the Gaelic, what aid would they derive from\n    it in studying that language? and they would find equally as\n    much aid in studying Latin, and even Hebrew.\n\nComparing the melody of the English with that of the Gaelic, Mr\nFarquharson says:--\n\n    Certainly, compared with Gaelic and Broad Scotch, it [English]\n    has no melody. It is true that it may be set off and adorned\n    with artificial melody. What is the difference between natural\n    and artificial melody? Natural melody is the appropriate melody\n    with which a piece is sung which has true melody inherent in\n    itself, and artificial melody is that with which a piece is\n    sung that is destitute of real melody. In the former case the\n    mind is influenced by what is sung, the music giving additional\n    force and power to it; but in the latter case the mind is more\n    influenced by the sound of the music than by what is sung. I\n    may explain this by two young females; the one has, I do not\n    call it a bonny face, but a very agreeable expression of\n    countenance; the other has not. Were the former to be neatly\n    and plainly dressed, her dress would give additional charms to\n    her, but in looking at her you would not think of the dress at\n    all, but of the charms of the young woman. But although the\n    other were adorned in the highest style of fashion, with\n    flowers and brocades, and chains of gold, and glittering\n    jewels, in looking at her you would not think of the charms of\n    the young woman, for charms she had none, your mind would be\n    altogether occupied with what was artificial about her, with\n    what did not belong to her, and not with what she was in\n    herself. Both the natural and artificial melody elevate the\n    mind, the one by what is sung, and the other by the grand sound\n    of the music. There is real melody in \"Scots wha hae,\" which is\n    natural and appropriate, which gives additional power and force\n    to the sentiment of the piece. In singing it the mind is not\n    occupied with the sound, but with proud Edward, his chains and\n    slavery--Scotia's King and law--the horrors of slavery--the\n    blessing of liberty, and a fixed determination to act.\n\nDr Masson's description of \"Tho Gael in the Far West\" is a very readable\npaper, and gives an interesting account of his tour among the Canadian\nGael, where he says, \"the very names of places were redolent of the\nheather--in the land where, alas! the tenderest care has never yet been\nable to make the heather grow--Fingal, Glencoe, Lochiel, Glengarry,\nInverness, Tobermory, St Kilda, Iona, Lochaber, and the rest!\" We part\nwith this paper perfectly satisfied that whether or not the Gael and his\nlanguage are to be extirpated among his own native hills neither the\nrace nor the language will yet become extinct in our British Colonies.\n\nSir Kenneth S. Mackenzie, Bart. of Gairloch, makes the following remarks\non \"The Church in the Highlands.\" He said that if they wished to improve\nthe Highlands:--\n\n    There was no way in which it could be done better than by\n    raising the class from which ministers were drawn. He\n    remembered saying at the opening meeting of this Society, that\n    one of its objects should be to excite the interest of the\n    upper classes in the language of their forefathers, inducing\n    them to retain that language, or acquire it if lost. Because,\n    when the cultivated classes lost their interest in it, the\n    leaven which leavens society ceased to influence the mass of\n    the people; and it was one of the most unfortunate things in\n    regard to a dying language, when the upper classes lost the use\n    of it, and the uneducated classes came to be in a worse\n    condition than in an earlier state of civilisation, when there\n    was an element of refinement among them. It was an understood\n    fact, that the clergy at this moment had a great influence in\n    the Highlands; and although there were persons present of\n    different persuasions, he thought they would all admit that the\n    Free Church was the Church that influenced the great mass of\n    Highlanders. There were Catholics in Mar, Lochaber, the Long\n    Island, and Strathglass, and Episcopalians in Appin; but the\n    people generally belonged to the Free Church, and if they\n    wanted to influence the mass, it was through the clergy of the\n    Free Church they could do it. Now, it was an unfortunate thing,\n    and generally admitted, that the clergy of the Free Church--he\n    believed it was the same in the Established Church--were not\n    rising in intellect and social rank--that there was rather a\n    falling off in that--that the clergy were drawn not so much\n    from the manse as from the cottar's house; and though he knew a\n    number of clergy, very excellent, godly men, and very superior,\n    considering the station from which they had risen, he thought\n    it was not advantageous, as a rule, to draw the clergy from the\n    lower, uneducated classes. They did not start with that\n    advantage in life which their sons would start with. There had\n    been a talk of instituting bursaries for the advancement of\n    Gaelic-speaking students. He did not see why they should not\n    start a bursary or have a special subscription--he would\n    himself contribute to it--a bursary for theological students\n    sprung from parents of education--whose parents had been\n    ministers, or who themselves had taken a degree in arts. That\n    would tend to encourage the introduction of a superior class of\n    clergymen. He wished to say nothing against the present\n    ministers. He knew they were excellent men, but he thought\n    their sons would be, in many cases, superior to themselves if\n    they took to the ministry. He was sorry they did not take to it\n    more frequently, and he would be glad if this Society offered\n    them some encouragement.\n\nTwo learned papers appear from the Rev. John Macpherson, Lairg, and Dr\nM'Lauchlan, Edinburgh--the one on \"The Origin of the Indo-European\nLanguages,\" and the other--\"Notices of Brittany.\" Space will not now\nallow us to give extracts long enough to give any idea of the value and\ninterest of these papers, or of the one immediately following--a\nmetrical translation into English of \"Dan an Deirg\"--by Lachlan Macbean,\nInverness. We shall return to them in a future number.\n\nThe Rev. A. C. Sutherland gives one of the best written and most\ninteresting papers in the volume on the \"Poetry of Dugald Buchanan, the\nRannach Bard.\" The following is a specimen of Mr Sutherland's treatment\nof the poet, and of his own agreeable style:--\n\n    At the time when the great English critic was oracularly\n    declaring that the verities of religion were incapable of\n    poetic treatment, there was a simple Highlander, quietly\n    composing poems, which, of themselves, would have upset the\n    strange view, otherwise sufficiently absurd. But in all\n    justice, we must say that many, very many, both of Gaelic and\n    English poets, who have attempted to embody religious\n    sentiments in poetic forms, have, by their weak efforts,\n    exposed themselves, unarmed, to the attacks of those who would\n    exclude religion from the sphere of the imagination. All good\n    poetry, in the highest sense, deals with, and appeals to, what\n    is universal and common to all men....\n\n    It is frequently charged upon the Celt, that in religion as in\n    other matters, emotion, inward feeling in the shape of awe,\n    adoration, undefined reverence, are more eagerly sought, and\n    consequently more honoured, than the practice of the simple\n    external virtues, of which feeling should be the ministers and\n    fountains. Whether this accusation holds good generally, or\n    whether it applies more particularly to the more recent\n    manifestations of the religious life among us, this is not the\n    time to inquire. One thing we are sure of, that a\n    representative religious teacher like Buchanan never allows\n    that any fulness of inward life can dispense with the duties of\n    every-day life, with mercy, truth, industry, generosity,\n    self-control. The unworthy man who is excluded from the kingdom\n    is not the man of blunt, homely feeling, incapable of ecstatic\n    rapture and exalted emotion, but the man who locks up for\n    himself the gold God gave him for the general good, who shuts\n    his ear to the cry of the poor, who entrenches his heart behind\n    a cold inhumanity, who permits the naked to shiver unclothed,\n    who lessens not his increasing flock by a single kid to satisfy\n    the orphan's want. Indeed, one who reads carefully Buchanan's\n    _Day of Judgment_, with his mind full of the prejudices or\n    truths regarding the place of honour given by the Celt to\n    inward experience and minute self-analysis, cannot fail to be\n    astonished how small a place these occupy in that great poem.\n    There, at least, mental experience is of no value, except in so\n    far as it blossoms into truth, purity, and love. We cannot,\n    however, pause to illustrate these statements in detail. We\n    shall merely refer to the indignation into which the muse of\n    Buchanan is stirred in the presence of pride and oppression.\n    The lowest deep is reserved for these. The poet's charity for\n    men in general becomes the sublime growl of a lion as it\n    confronts the chief who fleeces but tends not his people.\n\n       \"An robh thu ro chruaidh,\n        A' feannadh do thuath,\n    'S a' tanach an gruaidh le mal;\n        Le h-agartas geur,\n        A glacadh an spreidh,\n    'S am bochdainn ag eigheach dail?\n\n        Gun chridhe aig na daoine,\n        Bha air lomadh le h-aois,\n    Le 'n claigeannan maola truagh;\n        Bhi seasamh a' d' choir,\n        Gun bhoineid 'nan dorn,\n    Ge d' tholladh gaoth reota an cluas.\n\n        Thu nise do thraill,\n        Gun urram a' d' dhail,\n    Gun ghearsonn, gun mhal, gun mhod:\n        Mor mholadh do'n bhas,\n        A chasgair thu tra,\n    'S nach d' fhuiling do straic fo'n fhoid.\"\n\nWe part with this paper with an interest in Buchanan's Poems which we\nnever before felt, although we repeatedly read them.\n\nA well written paper, in Gaelic, by John Macdonald, Inland Revenue,\nLanark, brings the session of 1873-74 to an end. Mr Macdonald advocates\nthe adoption of one recognised system of orthography in writing Gaelic,\nand concludes in favour of that of the Gaelic Bible, as being not only\nthe best and purest, but also the best known.\n\nIn the second part of the volume 1874-75 are Professor Blackie's famous\naddress, under the auspices of the Society, his first in favour of a\nCeltic Professor; \"The Black Watch Deserters\" by Alex. Mackintosh Shaw,\nLondon; \"History of the Gaelic Church of Inverness\", by Alex. Fraser,\naccountant; \"Ancient Unpublished Gaelic Poetry,\" \"The Prophecies of\n_Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche_, the Brahan Seer,\" by Alex. Mackenzie,\nSecretary to the Society; and other interesting matter. We shall notice\nthese in our next number. This valuable volume is given free to all Members\nof the Society, besides free Admission to all Lectures and Meetings, while\nthe Annual Subscription for Ordinary Membership is only 5s.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote A: Since the paper was written, the Hon. John Macdonald gave\nplace to another Scottish Highlander, the Hon. Alex. Mackenzie, as Prime\nMinister of Canada.]\n\n\n_SONGS AND POEMS IN THE GAELIC LANGUAGE. By DUNCAN MACKENZIE, \"The\nKenlochewe Bard.\" Written _verbatim_ from the Bard's own Recitation,\nand Edited, with an Introduction in English, by Alexander Mackenzie,\nSecretary to the Gaelic Society of Inverness._\n\nWE have before us part first of the above Songs and Poems, containing\nthirteen pieces, and consisting of 36 pp., crown 8vo, with an\nIntroduction. We have not met with anything to equal them in our\nlanguage for pith, spirit, and poetic genius, since the days of _Rob\nDonn_; and we trust the bard will receive the encouragement he so well\ndeserves with the first part, so as to enable him to give us the second\non an early date. There is a short introduction to each piece, which\ngives them an additional interest. We notice a few unimportant editorial\nerrors which we know Mr Mackenzie would be the first to admit and\ncorrect. The following three verses are from \"Moladh na Gailig\"--air\nfonn _Cabar-feidh_,--and is a fair specimen, although by no means the\nbest in the book:--\n\n    Si Ghailig cainnt as aosda\n    Th' aig daoine air an talamh so,\n    Tha buaidh aic' air an t-saoghal\n    Nach fhaodar a bhreithneachadh,\n    Cha teid i chaoidh air dhi-chuimhn',\n    Cha chaochail 's cha chaidil i,\n    'S cha teid srian na taod innt'\n    A dh' aindeon taobh dha 'n tachair i,\n    Tha miltean feairt, le cliu, 's le tlachd,\n    Dha cumail ceart neo-mhearachdach,\n    'S i treun a neart, le briathran pailt,\n    Cha chrion, 's cha chaith, 's cha theirig i,\n    Tha cuimhne 'us beachd na lorg, 's na taic,\n    'S cha n-iarr i facal leasaichidh.\n    An am sinn na sailm gur binn a toirm\n    Seach ceol a dhealbh na h-Eidailtich.\n\n    Tha fianaisean na Gailig\n    Cho laidir 's cho maireannach\n    'S nach urrainn daoine a h-aicheadh,\n    Tha seann ghnas a leantuinn ri.\n    Tha ciall 'us tuigse nadur,\n    Gach la deanamh soilleir dhuinn,\n    Gur i bu chainnt aig Adhamh\n    Sa gharadh, 's an deighe sin.\n    Gur i bh' aig Noah, an duine coir,\n    A ghleidh, nuair dhoirt an tuil, dhuinn i,\n    'S mhair i fos troimh iomadh seors',\n    'S gun deach a seoladh thugainne,\n    Do thir nam beann, nan stra, 's nan gleann,\n    Nan loch, 's na'n allt, 's na'n struthanan,\n    'S ge lionmhor fine fuidh na ghrein,\n    Se fir an fheilidh thuigeadh i.\n\n    Tha 'n t'urram aig an fheileadh\n    Seach eideadh as aithne dhuinn,\n    'S na daoine tha toir speis dha\n    Gur h-eudmhor na ceatharnaich.\n    A' cumail cuimhn air euchdan,\n    As treuntas an aithrichean,\n    A ghleidh troimh iomadh teimheil,\n    A suainteas fhein, gun dealachadh.\n    Oh! 's iomadh cruadal, cath, 'us tuasaid,\n    'S baiteal cruaidh a choinnich iad;\n    'S bu trice bhuaidh aca na ruaig,\n    Tha sgeula bhuan ud comharricht.\n    'S bu chaomh leo fuaim piob-mhor ri 'n cluais\n    Dha 'n cuir air ghluasad togarrach,\n    Sa dh-aindeon claidheamh, sleagh, na tuadh,\n    Cha chuireadh uamhas eagal orr.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CELTIC MAGAZINE.\n\n\nTHE Promoters of this Magazine will spare no effort to make it worthy of\nthe support of the Celt throughout the World. It will be devoted to\nCeltic subjects generally, and not merely to questions affecting the\nScottish Highlands. It will afford Biographies of Eminent Highlanders at\nhome and abroad--Reviews of all Books on subjects interesting to the\nCeltic Races--their Literature, questions affecting the Land--Hypothec,\nEntail, Tenant-right, Sport, Reclamation--Emigration, and all questions\naffecting Landlords, Tenants, and Commerce of the Highlands. On all\nthese questions both sides will be allowed to present their case, the\nonly conditions being that the articles be well and temperately written.\nCare will always be taken that no one side of a question will obtain\nundue prominence--facts and arguments on both sides being allowed to\nwork conviction.\n\nThe Promoters believe that, under the wiser and more enlightened\nmanagement now developing itself, there is room enough in the Highlands\nfor more Men, more Land under cultivation, and more Sheep, without any\ndiminution of Sport in Grouse or Deer. That there is room enough for\nall--for more gallant defenders of our country in time of need, more\nproduce, more comfort, and more intelligence; and the Conductors will\nafford a _medium_ for giving expression to these views. In order the\nmore successfully to interest the general reader in Celtic questions,\nthe Magazine will be written in English, with the exception of\ncontributions concerning Antiquities and Folk-lore, which may require\nthe native language. It is intended, as soon as arrangements can be\nmade, to have a Serial Highland Story appearing from month to month.\n\nThe following have among others already forwarded or promised\ncontributions:--The Rev. GEORGE GILFILLAN on \"Macaulay's Treatment of\nOssian\"; The Very Rev. ULICK J. CANON BOURKE, M.R.I.A., President of St\nJarlath's College, Tuam, on \"The Relationship of the Keltic and Latin\nRaces\"; CHARLES FRASER-MACKINTOSH, Esq., M.P., on \"Forestry or\nTree-planting in the Highlands\"; The \"NETHER-LOCHABER\" CORRESPONDENT of\nthe _Inverness Courier_, on \"Highland Folk-lore\"; The Rev. JOHN\nMACPHERSON, Lairg, \"Old Unpublished Gaelic Songs, with Notes\"; Professor\nBLACKIE, a Translation of \"Mairidh Laghach\"; Principal SHAIRP, St\nAndrews, on \"Subjects connected with Highland Poetry, and the Poetic\nAspects of the Highlands\"; ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, Secretary of the Gaelic\nSociety, \"Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche--the Brahan Seer's Prophecies\"; \"The\nTraditional History of how the Mackenzies came into possession of Gairloch,\nand drove out the Macleods\"; \"Latha na Luinge\"; \"Freiceadan a Choire\nDhuibh\"; \"Latha Lochan Neatha,\" and other West Highland Folk-lore and\nUnpublished Gaelic Poetry; ALEX. FRASER, Accountant, Inverness, \"Curiosities\nfrom the Old Burgh Records of Inverness\"; The Rev. A. SINCLAIR, Kenmore,\non \"The Authenticity of Ossian\"; WM. ALLAN, Sunderland, author of \"Heather\nBells,\" \"Hame-Spun Lilts,\" and other Poems; Rev. ALEX. MACGREGOR, M.A.,\nInverness, \"Old Highland Reminiscenses\"; The KENLOCHEWE BARD, an Original\nGaelic Poem every month. Contributions are also promised from Dr CHARLES\nMACKAY, the poet; Dr THOMAS M'LAUCHLAN, Sheriff NICOLSON, WM. JOLLY, H.M.'s\nInspector of Schools; ARCHIBALD FARQUHARSON, Tiree, on \"The Songs and Music\nof the Highlands\"; H. GAIDOZ, editor of the _Revue Celtique_, Paris;\nThe Rev. WALTER M'GILLIVRAY, D.D., Aberdeen; The Rev. A. C. SUTHERLAND,\nStrathbraan; KENNETH MURRAY, Esq. of Geanies; JOHN CAMERON MACPHEE,\nPresident of the Gaelic Society of London; Rev. J. W. WRIGHT, Inverness;\nand other well-known writers on Celtic subjects, Traditions, and Folk-lore.\n\nPublished monthly, at 6d a-month, or 6/ per annum _in advance_; per\nPost, 6/6. Credit, 8/; per Post, 8/6.\n\nAll business communications to be addressed to the undersigned ALEX.\nMACKENZIE.\n\n                                                   ALEX. MACKENZIE.\n                                                   ALEX. MACGREGOR, M.A.\n\n    57 Church Street, Inverness,\n    September 1875.\n\n\n\n\nSCALE OF CHARGES FOR ADVERTISEMENTS, &c.\n\n\nA Page, L2 2s. Half a Page, L1 5s. Quarter of a Page, 15s. Ten Lines in\nColumn, 5s. Six Lines in do., 3s 6d. Each additional line, 6d. For\nInsertion of a Bill, L2 2s. Back Page of Cover and pages next matter, L3\n3s.\n\nA liberal Discount allowed on continued Advertisements, paid in advance.\n\n_Advertisements and Bills require to be sent to 57 Church Street,\nInverness, by the 15th of each month at latest._","title":"The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875: A Monthly Periodical Devoted to the Literature, History, Antiquities, Folk Lore, Traditions, and the Social and Material Interests of the Celt at Home and Abroad.","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":17856}