OLD LAYS.
“Lean gu dlù ri cliù do shinnsear;
’S na dich’nich a bhi mar iadsan.”—SEANN DAN.
ENGLISH:
_Follow thou thy fathers’ fame;_
_Ne’er forget thy country’s claim._
After the Celtic poems and translations of the Bard of Badenoch had
begun to realise fame and fortune for their author, other writers
of varying gifts sought to enter into similar labours. For literary
students the Gaelic realm of letters hitherto had been obscure
and untrodden fields; but now all at once the old Celtic world of
the Scottish past became alive with heroes of magnificent deeds
and bards of illustrious renown. The refinement, the culture, the
heroic courage of grand old Scots, in the environment of the purest
chivalry, kindled everywhere admiration throughout Europe. People
wearied of the artificialities and platitudes of the eighteenth
century, allowed themselves to get into raptures over the healthy
pictures of ancient life which these Celtic compositions unfolded.
The blind old Ossian was then more popular than the blind old
Homer, and all “Old Lays” connected with the Highlands and Islands
acquired a value which they never had before. There was a general
rage for Gaelic old lays and ballads, and a search was instituted
throughout the land for such productions. Bards, senachies, reciters,
and singers of every description and every rank in life were
requisitioned for the supply of ancient Ossianic ballads.
One good result of this was to make the Highlands better known, and
to help in the removal of old race-prejudices which had all along
existed in some quarters, but which had become greatly intensified
through the recent Jacobite rebellions for which the Highlanders as a
people were not primarily responsible. John Knox may be said to have
made the Scotland of his time reforming, radical, and religious, and
Sir Walter Scott the Scotland of the nineteenth century romantic in
verse and story; and James Macpherson may be said with equal force
to have made the Highlands in the eighteenth century. It has been
said that old Celtic lays and ballads became then the fashion. The
pioneer in the field, it ought to be remembered, however, was not the
Badenoch tutor. Three or four years before Macpherson was heard of
there died, in June 1756, in the 30th year of his age,
JEROME STONE,
who was the first to direct public attention to Ossianic ballads. He
was born at Scoonie, Fifeshire, in 1727. His father was a seafaring
man. As a mere lad, Jerome became a packman; but dealing in buckles,
garters, and such small articles not suiting his “superior genius,”
he sold his stock, bought books, and finally struggled into St.
Andrews University, where he graduated in 1750. He soon received
the appointment of assistant in Dunkeld Grammar School, of which
he became Rector two or three years afterwards. In this position,
acquiring knowledge of the Gaelic language and of the people, along
with his other duties, he remained until struck down of fever, as
already stated, in 1756. At that time Dunkeld, an ancient home of
Celtic activity, learning, and enterprise, was more of a Gaelic
district than it is now and Stone found himself in social and
intellectual surroundings which were new to him. He had probably more
racial kinship, with the people than he himself knew or acknowledged,
or than even Professor Mackinnon, who has edited his collection, has
thought of. For centuries Gaidel and Brython lived and fought in his
native Fifeshire, and their fervid life-blood has never ceased to
run in the veins of Fife men. Probably the eloquent Thomas Chalmers
received much of the inspiration of his genius from this Celtic
source. Stone left a collection of Gaelic ballads which was for some
time regarded as lost. The MS., after passing through various hands,
passed two years ago into the possession of Edinburgh University
on the death of Dr Clerk, to whom it was given when preparing his
edition of Ossian, by David Laing. Professor Mackinnon has published
the collection of ballads in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society
of Inverness, 1887-88, occupying fifty pages of the volume, and
accompanied with an interesting biographical note, to which the
writer is indebted for some of the particulars given above. These
ballads are of exactly the same character as those of the Feinne
already considered. They are merely other versions of the same poems
dealing with the same themes of the Finnic environment of the old
Gaelic national life.
The first translator of Gaelic poetry deserves a memorial cairn in
any book devoted to the interests of our Anglo-Gaelic literature.
Jerome Stone gave the first translation of the old Gaelic Lays to
the world in 1756 four years before the appearance of Macpherson’s
_Fragments_. It appears that a St. Andrews Professor was the first to
interest young Stone in Gaelic poetry, and the best of his efforts
at translation was his free rendering of “Fraoch’s Death,” or as he
entitles it, “Albin and the Daughter of Mey”:—
A thousand graces did the maid adorn:
Her looks were charming, and her heart was kind;
Her eyes were like the windows of the morn,
And Wisdom’s habitation was her mind.
A hundred heroes try’d her love to gain;
She pity’d them, yet did their suits deny;
Young Albyn only courted not in vain,
Albyn alone was lovely in her eye:
Love filled their bosoms with a mutual flame;
Their birth was equal, and their age the same.
Her mother Mey, a woman void of truth,
In practice of deceit and guile grown old,
Conceived a guilty passion for the youth,
And in his ear the shameful story told;
But o’er his mind she never could prevail,
For in his life no wickedness was found;
With shame and rage he heard the horrid tale,
And shook with indignation at the sound;
He fled to shun her; while with burning wrath
The monster, in revenge, decreed her death.
Amidst Lochmey, a distance from the shore,
On a green island, grew a stately tree,
With precious fruit each season cover’d o’er,
Delightful to the taste and fair to see.
This fruit more sweet than virgin honey found,
Serv’d both alike for physic and for food:
It cured diseases, heal’d the bleeding wound,
And hunger’s rage for three long days withstood,
And precious things are purchas’d still with pain,
And thousands try’d to pluck it, but in vain.
For at the root of this delightful tree,
A venomous and awful dragon lay,
With watchful eyes, all horrible to see.
Who drove th’ affrighted passengers away;
Worse than the viper’s sting its teeth did wound
The wretch who felt it soon behov’d to die;
Nor could physicians ever yet be found
Who might a certain antidote apply:
Even they whose skill had sav’d a mighty host,
Against its bite no remedy could boast.
Revengeful Mey, her fury to appease,
And him destroy who durst her passion slight,
Feign’d to be stricken with a dire disease,
And call’d the hopeless Albin to her sight:
“Arise, young hero! skill’d in feats of war,
On yonder lake your dauntless courage prove,
To pull me of the fruit, now bravely dare,
And save the mother of the maid you love;
I die without its influence divine,
Nor will I taste it from a hand but thine.”
With downcast look the lovely youth reply’d,
“Though yet my feats of valour have been few,
My might in this adventure shall be try’d;
I go to pull the healing fruit for you.”
With stately steps approaching to the deep
The hardy hero swims the liquid tide:
With joy he finds the dragon fast asleep,
Then pulls the fruit, and comes in safety back;
Then with a cheerful countenance, and gay,
He gives the present to the hands of Mey.
“Well have you done to bring me of this fruit;
But greater signs of prowess must you give:
Go pull the tree entirely by the root,
And bring it hither, or I cease to live.”
Though hard the task, like lightning fast he flew,
And nimbly glided o’er the yielding tide;
Then to the tree with manly steps he drew,
And pull’d it hard from side to side:
Its bursting roots his strength could not withstand;
He tears it up, and bears it in his hand.
But long, alas! ere he could reach the shore,
Or fix his footsteps on the solid sand,
The monster follow’d with a hideous roar,
And like a fury grasped him by the hand.
Then, gracious God! what dreadful struggling rose:
He grasps the dragon by th’ invenom’d jaws,
In vain; for round the bloody current flows,
While his fierce teeth his tender body gnaws.
He groans through anguish of the grievous wound,
And cries for help; but, ah! no help was found!
The hero’s death is a tragic one; and the life of the “helpless
maid!” vanishes in the usual tender regrets of bards. Our great
interest in the production, apart from the early death of the
gifted and sympathetic Stone, lies in the fact that he was the
first English-speaking man of letters who attempted to deal fairly
with the products of the Gaelic muse. To students of Macpherson’s
Ossian and Ossianic ballads it will be apparent that the Badenoch
tutor merely imitated Stone in the English productions; he gave
the spirit, not the letter of Gaelic poetry. Macpherson’s trouble
lay in the originally unexpected necessity of providing Gaelic
originals which would be fair equivalents for his published English
versions. The bitter assaults made on his works naturally led to
his manner of self-defence. As an illustration of how _poetical_
translators deal with the original materials placed in their hands,
nothing better could be found than this Gaelic ballad which Stone
published in English dress in the “Scots Magazine.” In “Mackenzie’s
Report,” the original Gaelic, Stone’s rendering, and a literal
version are supplied. The second is described as a “Translation of
the foregoing,” as published by Stone in the “Scots Magazine” for
1756. In order to show how a “translation” was regarded in the age of
Macpherson, it may be well to give the last three verses of “Fraoch’s
Death” in the original, then the “Report’s” literal version, and
lastly Stone’s poetic translation. Here are the last three verses of
the Gaelic ballad:—
Thogamar anois an cluin Fhraoich,
Corp an laoich an Caiseal Chrò.
On Bhas ud a fhuair am fear,
Mairg is mairion na dheigh beo.
Gu mhi sud an tuabhar Mna,
Is mo chonairceas air mo dha Roisg,
Fraoch a chur a bhuain a Chrainn,
An deis an Caoran a bhi bhos.
Air a cluain thughte an t’ainm,
Loch meidhe raite ris an Loch,
Am biodh a Bheist anns gach uair,
Is a Craos a suas an Dos.
This is the “Report’s,” literal translation of these verses:
We bore to the grove of Fraoch,
The body of the hero to its circular pale;
After the worthy has died,
To be alive is our regret.
Cruelest of woman was she,
That ever was seen by eyes,
Who sent Fraoch to tear the branch,
After the fruit had been torn away.
The grove bears his name,
Loch Meyo is the name of the lake,
Where the monster kept watch,
And its open jaw to the tree.
This is the original material out of which Jerome Stone wrought his
translation as follows:—
But now he’s gone and nought remains but woe
For wretched me; with him my joys are fled;
Around his tomb my tears shall ever flow,
The rock my dwelling, and the clay my bed!
Ye maids and matrons, from your hills descend,
To join my moan and answer tear for tear;
With me the hero to the grave attend,
And sing the songs of mourning round his bier,
Through his own grove his praise we will proclaim,
And bid the place forever bear his name.
The idea may come to many readers as a surprise that if Jerome Stone
had been spared to perform the part of translator of the Gaelic
ballads and small epics of the Finnic mythus, he would probably
furnish the world with “translations” which would not be nearer the
“originals” than Macpherson’s have been. The reference here is not
to Macpherson’s Gaelic published subsequently, but to the Ossianic
compositions which became such a source of general Celtic inspiration
during the latter half of the eighteenth century.
JOHN SMITH, D.D.
This writer was among the most cultured and distinguished of those
who about a hundred years ago devoted time, means, and talent to the
study of Gaelic literature. The labours of the Rev. Dr John Smith
of Campbeltown, as an author and translator of prose and poetry,
were varied and abundant. He produced a Life of Columba the Apostle
of the Highlands; a work on The Functions of the Sacred Office,
which received the high commendation of Dr Bickersteth; and a work
on Gaelic Antiquities and the History of the Druids, which is still
sought after, and which exhibits considerable research and good
literary powers. These works, in English, enable us to judge of the
qualities of the man in general; but it is with his Gaelic works that
we have chiefly to deal. He was one of those who helped to translate
the Old Testament into Gaelic, edited a version of the Gaelic
Psalter, another of the Shorter Catechism; and was the translator
of some religious works, such as _Alleine’s Alarm_. When engaged
on the last-mentioned production, which he undertook to translate
at the request of a lady, he took portions of the “Appeals to the
Unconverted” with him into the pulpit, being too busy to prepare
sermons of his own, with the result that a spiritual revival took
place in the congregation, and anxious hearers flocked to the pastor
for spiritual comfort which he felt himself totally unable to supply.
It is said that this experience led to an emphatic spiritual change
in himself.
How Smith was moved to interest himself in Gaelic poetry is well
described in his own language in a letter to the Highland Society
Committee: “(31st January 1798), I can only say that from my earliest
years I was accustomed to hear many of the poems of Ossian and many
tales respecting Fingal and his heroes. In the parish of Glenurchay,
in which I was born, and lived till the age of 17, there were many at
that time who could repeat a number of Ossian’s poems; and there was
particularly an old man called Doncha (rioch) Macnicol, who was noted
for reciting the greatest store of them. That any of them had been
translated, I did not know till I became a student in philosophy,
when, in the year 1766 or 1767, I read Mr Macpherson’s translation,
with which, beautiful as it is, I was by no means so much charmed as
I had been with the oral recitation of such as I heard of the poems
in the original language. The elegance of the modern dress did not,
therefore, in my opinion, compensate for the loss of the venerable
and ancient garb.” When it became doubtful whether Macpherson would
publish the Gaelic originals, Smith formed the design of publishing
as many as he could of the originals, which “at that time would not
be a few.” “But,” he proceeds, “finding there was no encouragement
to be expected for such a work, and that those which I had already
collected would not defray their own expence, nor have been ever
published had it not been for the liberal support and patronage of
the Highland Society of London, I gave up the pursuit of Gaelic
poetry; about which I became so careless that I never took the
trouble of transcribing or preserving several pieces that had fallen
into my possession.” Smith is not the only one to whom the “pursuit
of Gaelic poetry” and Celtic studies became a painful and barren
enterprise.
It appears that Duncan Kennedy, a schoolmaster at Lochgilphead,
busied himself in collecting, transcribing, and editing in his
own peculiar manner all the old Highland lays he could find in
Argyllshire, and that some of his materials found their way into
Smith’s possession. It is understood that the latter refers
to Kennedy in the following sentences: “(1802), I remember
well,”—Kennedy was still alive,—“that a man who had given me the use
of a parcel of poems, without any restriction, had long threatened
a prosecution for publishing what he called translations of his
collection of poems, and alleged he had a claim to a share of the
profits. I believe, however, upon enquiry, that he understood the
profits were only a serious loss, as I had been persuaded to run
shares with a bookseller in the publication, which to me turned out
so bad a concern (when my income was but thirty pounds a-year), that
I could never since think of Gaelic poetry with pleasure or with
patience, except to wish it had been dead before I was born.” In this
same letter Smith declares that a little while before he had used
the last copy he had of his Translations “in papering a dark closet
that had not been lathed, in order to derive some small benefit from
what had cost” him so much. Macpherson reaped the first crop of the
ancient lays of the Celtic world of romance; piled a fortune out of
it; became a member of Parliament; bought a Highland estate on which
he erected a monument for himself; and arranged for the burial of his
body in Westminster Abbey. Some of his imitators found the path of
Celtic studies and poetry one of thorns, poverty and misfortune, and
obscure graves, without a cairn to mark their resting-place.
Smith’s Collection of Ancient Poems appeared in 1780, subjoined
to the Dissertations on Gaelic Antiquities. These poems were
translations, it was declared, “from the Gaelic of Ossian, Ullin,
Orran, and others;” and in 1787 he published the originals of these
poems, the number being fourteen. Their titles are: _The Lay of
the Red_; _The Death of Gaul_; _The Lay of Duhona_; _Diarmid_;
_Clan-Morni_, or _Finan and Lorma_, from which following lines are
taken to show the character of the verse and mode of thought:—
CAOIDH MHUIRNE AIRSON A CHLAINNE.
Och! ’s truaigh mi féin a chlann,
’N ’ur déigh gu fann aosmhor;
Mar dharaig sheargte mi air aonach,
Ris nach pill gu bràth a caoinchruth.
Tha’n dùlach dorcha anns a’ ghleann,
’S gach crann air raoin gun duilleach;
Ach pillidh ’sa’ cheitein am maise,
Ged nach faicear mo sgèimh-sa tuille.
Dh’ fhâilnich sìol Albha nam feachd,
Mar smùid á teach fuaraidh dorcha;
Cha’n iognadh mise bhi trom an nochd
’S tusa Fhionain ’san t-slochd, ’s a Lorma!
_Translation._
MORNI’S LAMENT FOR HIS CHILDREN.
O children I am weak and old!
Bereft of you I feel forlorn;
Like oak-tree withered on the height,
Whose leaves shall never more return.
The winter darkens in the vale:
The branches bloom with leaves no more;
The spring their beauty will bring back,
But ah! my strength nought can restore.
The host of Alva has decayed
Like smoke from a cold house of gloom;
This night I grieve for there are left
Finan and Lorma in the tomb.
The above Albha, Alva, is Allen in Ireland, and has no connection
with Alban, with which, however, it has been often confounded in the
old ballads. Ultra patriotic Scotchmen have frequently, likely in
ignorance, rendered the Irish Almhuin into Albin. This mistake occurs
in Mr Pattison’s _Gaelic Bards_. “Once, when the kingly feast was
spread on Albin’s golden slope,” p. 148.
The titles of the others in order are: _The War of Linne_; _Cathula_;
_The War of Manus_, which includes the highly popular _Lay of the
Great Fool_; _Trahul_, at the beginning of which there appears the
beautiful address to the Rising Sun—
A Mhic na h-ôg mhaidne, ag éiridh,
_Son of the young morn that risest_;
_Dargo_; _Conn_, in which a version of a passage occurs whose
equivalent is given in a translation thus:—
See Loda’s gloomy form advance,
On high he lifts his shadowy lance,
Within his hand the tempests lour,
The blast of death his nostrils pour:
Like flames his baleful eyes
Appal the valiant—from the fight
They turn before the blasting light;
His hollow voice like thunder shakes the skies,
Slowly he moves along, exulting in his might.
Vain are thy terrors, dreadful shade!
Lo! Morven’s king defies aloud
Thy utmost force.— His glaring blade
Winds through the murky cloud.
The form falls shapeless into air:
His direful shrieks the billows hear,
And stop their rapid course with fear.
The hundred rocks of Inistore reply,
As roll’d into himself he mounts the darkened sky.
The above is a specimen of Smith’s verse translations. From the
same poem is taken the following to show the manner of his prose
translation, in which the _Old Lays_ made their first appearance:—
_Translation._
But Ossian alone does not experience distress; aged Lugar, thine
was part of the trouble. In thy halls were seen the feast, wax
candles, and wine; though they be now desolate, they were once the
residence of kings! But similar to the revolving year, Lugar and
his beloved wife were seen houseless.
Travelling through the vales of beautiful Moialuin, the habitation
of Lugar was found desolate, the kid broused on its green surface,
stretching itself in sleep in the once joyous dwelling. In its
window was the bird of night, and green ivy shaded its desolate
walls, the greyhound and dun roe surrounded them, and his
hospitable door lies sorrowful under the falling rains.
Sons of the hill, have you seen Lugar? Probably you rejoice that he
is no more. But you shall decline like him, and your relations will
one day inquire for you. Your children will shake their heads with
sorrow, they know not the place of your abode!
The vicissitudes of life are similar to those of the year. I lived
void of trouble in the summer of youth, like firs on the green
Mor-uth, careless of the storms of winter. I thought my verdant
leaves would remain, and that age would not injure my branches. But
now I am forlorn like thyself, and my aged locks are on the wings
of the wind; our joyful days are both gone on the wings of the
blast to the desert.
The passage just given explains Smith’s failure to impress the public
with his prose versions of Old Lays. It affords quite a contrast to
the style of Macpherson, which was sententious and clarified by a
Saxon as simple as that of the English Bible. In his Life of Columba,
Smith gave translated specimens of the Saints’ Latin Hymns, of which
an extract has been already given (p. 69). He rendered this passage
of the _Altus prosatur_ in blank verse—the beginning of the same
in rhymed metre by the writer being else where supplied (p. 81).
The following lines by Smith, accompanying the Gaelic of _Taura_,
show that he appeared to better advantage in verse than in prose
translations:—
OSSIAN.
Malvina, say what now renews thy woe?
Say why thy tears, like rills, incessant flow?
Why heaves thy bosom with the moanful cry,
Like Lego’s reeds when ghosts among them fly?
MALVINA.
And dost thou ask the cause of all my woe,
When yonder Selma’s mossy tow’rs lie low?
When bats and thistles dwell in Fingal’s hall,
And roes bound fearless o’er its mould’ring wall:
—Besides, I heard upon the distant wind
A sound that rous’d my sadly-musing mind;
It is, I fondly said, Cuchullin’s car!
The Chief returning from the roar of war!
—A light had likewise gleam’d on Lena’s heath;
My love, my Oscar! ’tis thy spear of death!
I said: but Oscar’s spear is in the tomb;
His shield, O Selma, in thy empty womb.
I saw its bosses cover’d o’er with rust,
And all its thongs fast-mould’ring into dust.
OSSIAN.
Ev’n so, Malvina, my brave Oscar’s love!
Like those we mourn for, we must soon remove;
No trace of us on Selma shall be found,
Save the green mound that marks our sleep profound.
Soft are the slumbers of that bed of peace:
Let then Malvina’s flowing sorrow cease;
Nor weep for friends whose actions were so bright,
Whose steps were mark’d with beams of heavenly light.
MALVINA.
Now night descends with all her dusky clouds,
And ocean in her sable mantle shrouds;
Yet night will soon resign her place to day,
But my protracted woe must last for aye.
The Gaelic of the last four lines runs thus:—
Dh’aom an òiche le neoil,
Thuit an ceo air an lear;
Sinblaidh an oiche ’s an ceo,
Ach tha mise ri m’ bheo gun ghean.
The remaining poems are: _The Burning of Taura_; _Calava_; and _The
Death of Art_. A very much quoted and admired passage which occurs in
the lay of _Taura_ is here given:—
AISLING AIR DHREACH MNA.
Innseam pàirt do dreach nan reul:
Bu gheal a deud gu h-ùr dlù:
Mar channach an t-sléibh
Bha cneas fa h-eideadh ùr.
Bha a bràighe cearclach bân
Mar shneachda tlà nam beann;
Bha a dà chich ag eiridh làn:
B’e’n dreach sud miann nan sonn.
Bu shoitheamh binn a gloir;
S’ bu deirge na’n ròs a beul:
Mar chobhar a sios r’a taobh
Sinte gu caol bha gach meur.
Bha a dâ chaol mhala mhine
Dûdhonn air liomh an loin.
A dà ghruaidh dhreachd nan caoran;
’Si gu iomlan saor o chron.
Bha a gnùis mar bharra-gheuga
Anns a cheud-fhâs ûr:
A falt buidhe mar òradh shleibhtean;
’S mar dheârsadh gréine bha sûil.
_Translation._
VISION OF A FAIR WOMAN.
Tell us some of the charms of the stars:
Close and well set were her ivory teeth;
White as the cannach upon the moor
Was her bosom the tartan bright beneath.
Her well-rounded forehead shone
Soft and fair as the mountain-snow:
Her two breasts were heaving full;
To them did the hearts of the heroes flow.
Her lips were ruddier than the rose;
Tender and tunefully sweet her tongue;
White as the foam adown her side
Her delicate fingers extended hung.
Smooth as the dusky down of the elk
Appeared her two narrow brows to me;
Lovely her cheeks were like berries red;
From every guile she was wholly free.
Her countenance looked like the gentle buds
Unfolding their beauties in early spring;
Her yellow locks like the gold-browed hills;
And her eyes like the radiance the sunbeams bring.
This _Aisling_ in the original is, like the teeth of its subject so
“close and well-set,” that a good translation is not easily executed.
This “Vision of a Fair Woman” has nothing in common with that of the
“Fair Women” of Chaucer and Tennyson; but no one reading it can fail
to remember the poetry of Moore, and recognise the Celtic source of
the bright peculiarity of his melodious muse.
JOHN CLARK,
a land-surveyor in Badenoch, the county of James Macpherson,
published in 1780 a small volume of translations of ancient Gaelic
poetry under the title of “Caledonian Bards.” Among other pieces is a
poem entitled _Mordubh_, whose history is even more mysterious than
that of the work of “Ossian.” The translations in this volume are the
most unreadable stuff that one could imagine. Clark, and even Smith,
failed to catch the secret that enabled Macpherson to pour forth his
inimitable prose epics. Clark’s prose is frequently turgid nonsense,
and it is rendered ridiculous by his coining of proper names out of
unnatural collocations of adjectives. The “ingenious Mrs Grant of
Laggan” put some of the surveyor’s poetry into verse, and thought she
was handling ancient poetic material instead of eighteenth-century
stuff, which might be creditable enough were it not presented to the
public under a false garb. She knew the “gentleman’s character,” and
“the circumstance of his father and grandfather being great Gaelic
scholars and collectors, who most probably had an opportunity of
obtaining such poems which were not within her reach.” The pious and
honest Mrs Grant never fancied that this family of Clarks and others
at that time might spin out such stuff as they palmed on the public,
with or without ancient lays to help them. It is the volume of this
Badenoch surveyor that finally and fully opened the eyes of the
writer to the truth respecting the Ossianic productions of the last
century. Clark and Kennedy were men of considerable gifts;—if they
had used them with greater honesty the cause of Gaelic literature
would not have been so involved in suspicion a hundred years ago.
Their labours, however, have not been lost. Kennedy’s manuscript
collections of poetry, safely deposited in Edinburgh, have great
value, and Clark may be said to have produced a Gaelic composition
of some ability. Special efforts seem to have been made to get this
conglomerate of _Mordubh_ into appreciative circulation. It imposed
on Mrs Grant, as we have seen. In a stray number of the “General
Chronicle” for February 1811, which the writer found in London a
few years ago, part of _Mordubh_, with a literal translation, is
published; and the clever editor of “The Beauties of Gaelic Poetry”
commenced his splendid volume with this poem of _The Great-Black_,
with a foot-note which says: “The author of this poem, whose name is
Douthal, was both a chief and a bard of great repute. The accounts
which tradition gives of him are various, but the most probable makes
him the Poet of Mordubh, King of the Caledonians.” This was a more
ancient and illustrious ancestry for the author of the poem than the
genuine producer, John Clark of Badenoch, could boast of.
The Gaelic fragment, as given in the “General Chronicle,” begins thus
in Gaelic:—
A’ bheil thūs’ air sgiathan do luathas,
A ghaoth, gu triall le d’uile neart?
Thig le cairdeas a dh’ionsuidh m’aois,
Thoir scriòb eatrom thar mo chraig!
Englished in the same as follows:—
Art thou on the wings of thy swiftness,
O wind, travelling with all thy strength?
Come to my age with kindness;
Brush lightly over my rock!
John Clark was a third-rate imitator, whose imitations were almost
parodies. He had neither the learning nor the genius of either
Smith or Macpherson, who must henceforth be regarded as great
Highland bards. These two, no doubt, caused much confusion among
our heroic lays. James Macpherson and Dr John Smith helped to give
fresh currency to many of the false etymologies and Druidical
ideas that have afflicted the Gaelic world for the last century.
They have mystified our Ossianic poems and ballads, as well as the
pre-Christian religion of the Caledonians. They turned upside down
our early history, and placed our relations to the Irish on a false
basis, creating unnecessary antagonism between the Celts of the two
countries. But honour to whom honour is due. If no James Macpherson
had ever appeared, our Highland Ossian would have been as obscure,
perhaps, as the extant Oisins of Ireland. In some respects he was
the greatest genius that the Highlands ever produced, and ought not
to be regarded with so much contemptuous indifference. He had a most
peculiar gift for executing prose translation, notwithstanding the
failure of his Homer. In this one respect he was much superior to Dr
Smith, who, however, had the advantage of Macpherson in greater power
of sweet Gaelic versification. Smith was a born poet; all his works
are evidences. The two did their best to show forth the historic,
linguistic, and poetic glories of the Gael and his country; so let us
drop a tear on their cairns and pass on.
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