_LITERATURE._
_TRANSACTIONS OF THE GAELIC SOCIETY OF INVERNESS. Vols. III. and IV.,
1873-74 and 1874-75 (Bound in one)._
THIS is the third publication issued by the Gaelic Society since its
establishment in 1871. The previous volumes were very creditable,
especially the first, but the one now before us is out of sight superior
not only in size, but in the quality of its contents. First we have an
Introduction of eight pages giving the history of the movement in favour
of establishing a Celtic Chair in one of our Scottish Universities, and
the steps taken by the Gaelic Society of London, who appear to have
worked single-handed to promote this object since 1835, when they
presented their first petition to the House of Commons, down to 1870,
when the Council of the Edinburgh University took the matter in hand. In
December 1869 the Gaelic Society of London sent out circulars addressed
to ministers of all denominations in Scotland asking for information as
to the number of churches in which Gaelic was preached. The circulars
were returned, the result being "that out of 3395 places of worship of
all denominations in Scotland, 461 had Gaelic services once-a-day in the
following proportions--Established Church, 235; Free Church, 166; Catholic
Chapels, 36; Baptists, 12; Episcopalians, 9; Congregationalists, 3."
The first paper in the volume is a very interesting account, by Dr
Charles Mackay, the poet, of "The Scotch in America." We give the
following extract:--
I was invited to dine with a wealthy gentleman of my own name.
There were present on that occasion 120 other Scotchmen, and
most of them wore the Highland dress. My host had a piper
behind the chair playing the old familiar strains of the pipes.
The gentleman told me, in the course of the evening, that his
father was a poor cottar in Sutherlandshire. "My mother," said
he, "was turned out upon the moor on a dark cold night, and
upon that moor I was born." My friend's family afterwards went
to America, and my friend became a "dry" merchant, or as you
would say in Scotland, a draper. I said to him, seeing that his
position had so improved, "Well, I suppose you do not bear any
grudge against the people by whose agency your family were
turned upon the moor." "No," he replied, "I cannot say that I
bear them any grudge, but at the same time I cannot say that I
forgive them. If my position has improved, it is by my own
perseverance, and not by their good deeds or through their
agency." In every great city of Canada--Toronto, Kingstown,
Montreal, New Brunswick, St John's, Nova Scotia, and in almost
every town and village, you will find many Scotchmen; in fact,
in the large towns they are almost as numerous as in Edinburgh
and Inverness. You will see a Highland name staring you in the
face in any or every direction. If you ask for the principal
merchant or principal banker, you will be almost sure to find
that he's a Scotchman; and no matter in what part of the world
your fellow countrymen may be cast, they keep up the old
manners and customs of their mother country. They never forget
the good old times of "Auld lang syne;" they never forget the
old songs they sung, the old tunes they played, nor the old
reels and dances of Scotland.
The Scotch, especially in Canada, take the Gaelic with them.
They have Gaelic newspapers, which have a large
circulation--larger, perhaps, than any Gaelic newspaper at
home. They have Gaelic preachers. In fact, there is one part of
Canada which might be called the new Scotland; and it is a
Scotchman who is now at the head of the Canadian
Government--John Macdonald.[A]
The next is a paper by Archibald Farquharson, Tiree, headed "The Scotch
at Home and Abroad," but really a thrilling appeal in favour of teaching
Gaelic in Highland Schools. It is impossible to give an idea of this
excellent paper by quoting extracts. We, however, give the following on
the teaching of Gaelic in the schools:--
Reading a language they do not understand has a very bad effect
upon children. It leaves the mind indolent and lazy; they do
not put themselves to any trouble to endeavour to ascertain the
meaning of what they read; whereas, were they taught to
translate as they went along, whenever a word they did not
understand presented itself to their minds, they would have no
rest until they would master it by finding out its meaning. And
I am pretty certain that were the Gaelic-speaking children thus
to be taught, that by the time they would reach the age of
fourteen years, they would be as far advanced, if not farther,
than those who have no Gaelic at all; so that, instead of the
Gaelic being their misfortune, it would be the very reverse. It
would, with the exception of Welshmen (were they aware of it),
place them on an eminence above any in Great Britain, not only
as scholars, but as having the best languages for the soul and
for the understanding. And should they enter college, they
would actually leave others behind them, because, in the first
place, they acquired the habit of translating in their youth,
which would make translating from dead languages comparatively
easy; and in the second place, they would derive great aid from
their knowledge of the Gaelic. If Professor Blackie has found
500 Greek roots in the Gaelic, what aid would they derive from
it in studying that language? and they would find equally as
much aid in studying Latin, and even Hebrew.
Comparing the melody of the English with that of the Gaelic, Mr
Farquharson says:--
Certainly, compared with Gaelic and Broad Scotch, it [English]
has no melody. It is true that it may be set off and adorned
with artificial melody. What is the difference between natural
and artificial melody? Natural melody is the appropriate melody
with which a piece is sung which has true melody inherent in
itself, and artificial melody is that with which a piece is
sung that is destitute of real melody. In the former case the
mind is influenced by what is sung, the music giving additional
force and power to it; but in the latter case the mind is more
influenced by the sound of the music than by what is sung. I
may explain this by two young females; the one has, I do not
call it a bonny face, but a very agreeable expression of
countenance; the other has not. Were the former to be neatly
and plainly dressed, her dress would give additional charms to
her, but in looking at her you would not think of the dress at
all, but of the charms of the young woman. But although the
other were adorned in the highest style of fashion, with
flowers and brocades, and chains of gold, and glittering
jewels, in looking at her you would not think of the charms of
the young woman, for charms she had none, your mind would be
altogether occupied with what was artificial about her, with
what did not belong to her, and not with what she was in
herself. Both the natural and artificial melody elevate the
mind, the one by what is sung, and the other by the grand sound
of the music. There is real melody in "Scots wha hae," which is
natural and appropriate, which gives additional power and force
to the sentiment of the piece. In singing it the mind is not
occupied with the sound, but with proud Edward, his chains and
slavery--Scotia's King and law--the horrors of slavery--the
blessing of liberty, and a fixed determination to act.
Dr Masson's description of "Tho Gael in the Far West" is a very readable
paper, and gives an interesting account of his tour among the Canadian
Gael, where he says, "the very names of places were redolent of the
heather--in the land where, alas! the tenderest care has never yet been
able to make the heather grow--Fingal, Glencoe, Lochiel, Glengarry,
Inverness, Tobermory, St Kilda, Iona, Lochaber, and the rest!" We part
with this paper perfectly satisfied that whether or not the Gael and his
language are to be extirpated among his own native hills neither the
race nor the language will yet become extinct in our British Colonies.
Sir Kenneth S. Mackenzie, Bart. of Gairloch, makes the following remarks
on "The Church in the Highlands." He said that if they wished to improve
the Highlands:--
There was no way in which it could be done better than by
raising the class from which ministers were drawn. He
remembered saying at the opening meeting of this Society, that
one of its objects should be to excite the interest of the
upper classes in the language of their forefathers, inducing
them to retain that language, or acquire it if lost. Because,
when the cultivated classes lost their interest in it, the
leaven which leavens society ceased to influence the mass of
the people; and it was one of the most unfortunate things in
regard to a dying language, when the upper classes lost the use
of it, and the uneducated classes came to be in a worse
condition than in an earlier state of civilisation, when there
was an element of refinement among them. It was an understood
fact, that the clergy at this moment had a great influence in
the Highlands; and although there were persons present of
different persuasions, he thought they would all admit that the
Free Church was the Church that influenced the great mass of
Highlanders. There were Catholics in Mar, Lochaber, the Long
Island, and Strathglass, and Episcopalians in Appin; but the
people generally belonged to the Free Church, and if they
wanted to influence the mass, it was through the clergy of the
Free Church they could do it. Now, it was an unfortunate thing,
and generally admitted, that the clergy of the Free Church--he
believed it was the same in the Established Church--were not
rising in intellect and social rank--that there was rather a
falling off in that--that the clergy were drawn not so much
from the manse as from the cottar's house; and though he knew a
number of clergy, very excellent, godly men, and very superior,
considering the station from which they had risen, he thought
it was not advantageous, as a rule, to draw the clergy from the
lower, uneducated classes. They did not start with that
advantage in life which their sons would start with. There had
been a talk of instituting bursaries for the advancement of
Gaelic-speaking students. He did not see why they should not
start a bursary or have a special subscription--he would
himself contribute to it--a bursary for theological students
sprung from parents of education--whose parents had been
ministers, or who themselves had taken a degree in arts. That
would tend to encourage the introduction of a superior class of
clergymen. He wished to say nothing against the present
ministers. He knew they were excellent men, but he thought
their sons would be, in many cases, superior to themselves if
they took to the ministry. He was sorry they did not take to it
more frequently, and he would be glad if this Society offered
them some encouragement.
Two learned papers appear from the Rev. John Macpherson, Lairg, and Dr
M'Lauchlan, Edinburgh--the one on "The Origin of the Indo-European
Languages," and the other--"Notices of Brittany." Space will not now
allow us to give extracts long enough to give any idea of the value and
interest of these papers, or of the one immediately following--a
metrical translation into English of "Dan an Deirg"--by Lachlan Macbean,
Inverness. We shall return to them in a future number.
The Rev. A. C. Sutherland gives one of the best written and most
interesting papers in the volume on the "Poetry of Dugald Buchanan, the
Rannach Bard." The following is a specimen of Mr Sutherland's treatment
of the poet, and of his own agreeable style:--
At the time when the great English critic was oracularly
declaring that the verities of religion were incapable of
poetic treatment, there was a simple Highlander, quietly
composing poems, which, of themselves, would have upset the
strange view, otherwise sufficiently absurd. But in all
justice, we must say that many, very many, both of Gaelic and
English poets, who have attempted to embody religious
sentiments in poetic forms, have, by their weak efforts,
exposed themselves, unarmed, to the attacks of those who would
exclude religion from the sphere of the imagination. All good
poetry, in the highest sense, deals with, and appeals to, what
is universal and common to all men....
It is frequently charged upon the Celt, that in religion as in
other matters, emotion, inward feeling in the shape of awe,
adoration, undefined reverence, are more eagerly sought, and
consequently more honoured, than the practice of the simple
external virtues, of which feeling should be the ministers and
fountains. Whether this accusation holds good generally, or
whether it applies more particularly to the more recent
manifestations of the religious life among us, this is not the
time to inquire. One thing we are sure of, that a
representative religious teacher like Buchanan never allows
that any fulness of inward life can dispense with the duties of
every-day life, with mercy, truth, industry, generosity,
self-control. The unworthy man who is excluded from the kingdom
is not the man of blunt, homely feeling, incapable of ecstatic
rapture and exalted emotion, but the man who locks up for
himself the gold God gave him for the general good, who shuts
his ear to the cry of the poor, who entrenches his heart behind
a cold inhumanity, who permits the naked to shiver unclothed,
who lessens not his increasing flock by a single kid to satisfy
the orphan's want. Indeed, one who reads carefully Buchanan's
_Day of Judgment_, with his mind full of the prejudices or
truths regarding the place of honour given by the Celt to
inward experience and minute self-analysis, cannot fail to be
astonished how small a place these occupy in that great poem.
There, at least, mental experience is of no value, except in so
far as it blossoms into truth, purity, and love. We cannot,
however, pause to illustrate these statements in detail. We
shall merely refer to the indignation into which the muse of
Buchanan is stirred in the presence of pride and oppression.
The lowest deep is reserved for these. The poet's charity for
men in general becomes the sublime growl of a lion as it
confronts the chief who fleeces but tends not his people.
"An robh thu ro chruaidh,
A' feannadh do thuath,
'S a' tanach an gruaidh le mal;
Le h-agartas geur,
A glacadh an spreidh,
'S am bochdainn ag eigheach dail?
Gun chridhe aig na daoine,
Bha air lomadh le h-aois,
Le 'n claigeannan maola truagh;
Bhi seasamh a' d' choir,
Gun bhoineid 'nan dorn,
Ge d' tholladh gaoth reota an cluas.
Thu nise do thraill,
Gun urram a' d' dhail,
Gun ghearsonn, gun mhal, gun mhod:
Mor mholadh do'n bhas,
A chasgair thu tra,
'S nach d' fhuiling do straic fo'n fhoid."
We part with this paper with an interest in Buchanan's Poems which we
never before felt, although we repeatedly read them.
A well written paper, in Gaelic, by John Macdonald, Inland Revenue,
Lanark, brings the session of 1873-74 to an end. Mr Macdonald advocates
the adoption of one recognised system of orthography in writing Gaelic,
and concludes in favour of that of the Gaelic Bible, as being not only
the best and purest, but also the best known.
In the second part of the volume 1874-75 are Professor Blackie's famous
address, under the auspices of the Society, his first in favour of a
Celtic Professor; "The Black Watch Deserters" by Alex. Mackintosh Shaw,
London; "History of the Gaelic Church of Inverness", by Alex. Fraser,
accountant; "Ancient Unpublished Gaelic Poetry," "The Prophecies of
_Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche_, the Brahan Seer," by Alex. Mackenzie,
Secretary to the Society; and other interesting matter. We shall notice
these in our next number. This valuable volume is given free to all Members
of the Society, besides free Admission to all Lectures and Meetings, while
the Annual Subscription for Ordinary Membership is only 5s.