SACRED BARDS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
“Land where Religion paves her heavenward road!
Land of the temple of the living God!
Yet, dear to feeling, Scotland, as thou art,
Shouldst thou that temple e’er desert,
I would disclaim thee, seek the distant shore
Of Christian isle, and thence return no more.”
The subject of the ancient hymns and religious poetry of the
ancient Gaels was discussed in earlier chapters, as also the
religious compositions of mediæval times. After the stormy era of
the Reformation and the Jacobite period, the sacred muse of the
Highlands began to make her voice heard once more. The sacred bards
of the Early and Mediæval times have thus received attention; it
now remains to treat of those of Modern days. The light of the
Reformation movement failed for some generations to reach the masses
of the people in many districts of the Highlands. The hindrances were
many: the want of suitable earnest pastors, and the large extent
of the districts assigned to each. It ought also to be remembered
that the complete translation of the Bible into Gaelic is not yet a
century old; and even although there had been a translation earlier
there were not many who were able to read it. The Highlanders then
were also in the first stages of a transition state. They felt the
system of clanship crumbling under their feet. Quarrels were easily
fomented. The strong and sagacious took advantage of the times,
and took care to adjust themselves to the developing circumstances
of the future. Jacobitism found a strong-hold in the Highlands,
not because the people were Papists or religiously indifferent or
fervent lovers of the Stuarts, but because they had a strong sense of
justice and loyalty, sore as they had frequently suffered for their
fidelity. Jacobite adventurers regarded the Highlands and Islands
as a suitable field for their treasonable operations—isolated from
the mighty stirring current of the kindling spirit of the times—a
spirit that began to question the right divine of kings to govern
wrong. The conflict between the enlightened Protestant mind and the
enslaving spirit of Jacobitism came to an end on Culloden Moor. Many
of the Highlanders forsook the Stuart cause earlier. Argyllshire in
the west, and almost whole counties in the north and north-east, did
not either stir for Prince Charles or espoused the opposite side.
Evangelical religion had turned the current of the people’s thoughts
in those districts. Especially was this the case in the north, where
able and godly ministers—some of them Lowland ministers, who found
asylum there from persecution—brought back the clans to the knowledge
of the true religion.
Yet even in the north there were many inaccessible glens and corners
where many—often desperate men—made for themselves a home, and where
they lived in a state of heathenism. And in this state they continued
almost down to our own time. Uncomplimentary as they were in many
respects to the religious character of his countrymen, there is no
doubt the following lines were very applicable last century. The
author—Dr Macgregor, the Gaelic apostle of Nova Scotia—laments that
the Highlanders were ignorant and blind, and that learning was rare
among them:—
“Bha na Gaidhil ro aineolach dhall,
Bha ionnsachadh gann nam measg:
Bha ’n eòlas co tana ’s co mall,
’S nach b’aithne dhaibh ’n call a mheas.
’Se b’annsa leo ’n arigiod ’s an òr
A chaitheadh go gòrach truagh,
Ri amaideachd, òranaibh, ’s òl,
Ri bannsaibh, ’s ri ceòl da’n cluais.”
This description of Macgregor was perfectly true, and applicable
to the Highlanders at the close of the great Jacobite struggle—so
absorbed were Highland energies with the social and political
enterprises of that disastrous period that the education and
religious training of the people were quite neglected. At the same
time there were many quiet corners north and south in which the
Gospel muse found an asylum, and one of these we find in Glendaruel,
Argyllshire, a spot closely associated with the early Celtic romances
and our ancient Gaelic manuscripts.
DAVID MACKELLAR.
The date of this author’s birth is unknown, but he appears to have
flourished in Glendaruel early in the eighteenth century. Among the
traditions preserved of him is the account that he was blind, and
that after the celebrated Hymn or Holy Lay associated with his name
was composed, his sight was restored.
_Laoidh Mhic-Ealair_, or Mackellar’s Hymn, was greatly prized among
religious people, and became very popular before Buchanan began to
tune his sacred lyre in Rannoch. His fame rests chiefly on this one
production, although it is declared that in his youth he indulged
in the composition of profane pieces. According to Reid, his hymn
was first published in Glasgow about the year 1750. It had, however,
an earlier publication among the people through many persons that
learned it by heart and loved to repeat it on account of its helpful
statements of Gospel truths. It consists of thirty-three stanzas or
quatrains, and furnishes a Scriptural exposition of the theme he took
up. The date of his death is as uncertain as that of his birth, but
one authority tells us that a granddaughter of his lived in Glasgow
in the second quarter of this century. The following verses remind us
of the manner of Buchanan, in whom we detect traces of Mackellar’s
muse:—
’N uair chaidh Criosd gu péin a bhàis
’Sa dh’uiling e air son an t-sluaigh,
Sgoilt brat an teampuil sios gu làr,
’S dhùisg na mairbh an aird o’n uaigh.
Chreathnaich an talamh trom le crith,
Air a’ ghréin gu’n tainig smal;
Le feirg Dhé do chrath e ’n sin;
Dh’fhuiling Criosd an bàs re seal.
ENGLISH:
When Christ endured the pain of death,
For men Himself a Victim gave,
The temple’s veil was rent in twain
As forth the dead came from the grave.
With heavy thunder shook the earth,
The sun endured a darkening cloud;
Beneath God’s wrath he trembled then
Awhile Christ lay within the shroud.
JOHN MACKAY.
This sacred bard is supposed to have been born about 1690, and
has been described as “a poet, a scholar, and a gentleman,” and
as of Mudale, parish of Farr, Sutherlandshire. He belonged to the
Clan-Abrach Mackays. A son of his, William, married and resided
at Knockfin, in the parish of Kildonan, and is said to have been
a contemporary of Rob Donn Mackay. He was a man of deep religious
spirit; and attained considerable local distinction among the people
of his district on account of the saintliness of his character. In
his “Metrical Reliques” John Rose describes Mackay as “an eminently
pious man,” and gives the following account of the conditions under
which one of the poems was composed: “The first of these poems
was composed by him on a fine moonlight night in harvest while he
happened to be out in the fields, lying on his back, contemplating
the glory and majesty of the heavenly luminaries.”
Some men of the Sutherlandshire Militia stationed in 1746 at Dunkeld,
immediately after the Rebellion, are represented as pious soldiers,
who, having sought out Dugald Buchanan of Rannoch, used to sing to
him the religious poems of Mackay of Mudale. The Sutherlandshire men
used to relate that Buchanan sang Mackay’s hymns “with great glee,”
and that it was the latter’s compositions that moved the former
to sing in sacred strains himself. There is probably little or no
foundation for this last statement. Mackellar had far more influence
on Buchanan’s mind than Mackay; but at the same time the story of the
“Men” of the far north is very instructive as indicating how readily
men of Evangelical sympathies and genuine Christian life understood
one another.
Five of Mackay’s compositions are preserved in Rose’s collection.
They are fair expositions of the pulpit themes with which the “Men”
of the north in those days were familiar, and appear to have been
well appreciated by the author’s religious contemporaries, by whom
they were orally preserved. The last, from which the following
two verses are taken, is composed in a simple easy measure, and
is entitled “_The Complaint_” in which we have early indications
of that Christian experience,—of the painful self-analysis and
introspection,—for which the “Men” subsequently became so remarkable:—
’S moch a thréìg mi do shlighe,
’S gu bheil m’ fhiachan gun áireamh;
Gabh ri toillteannas Chriosda,
’S na iarr aig mo lămh-s’ iad.
Dean mi réidh ris na phearsa,
Thoir gu comunn a ghraidh mi;
Cuir an àireamh na treud me,
’S mise chaora bha caillte.
ENGLISH:
I early wandered from thy path,
My debts I ne’er can reckon o’er;
The worth of Christ accept for me
And at my hand seek them no more.
In Him atonement let me find,
Me in his love’s communion keep;
Give me a place among the flock,
Though I have been so lost a sheep.
DONALD MATHESON.
Matheson, a sacred bard of considerable originality and spiritual
insight, was born in the parish of Kildonan, Sutherlandshire, in
1719. At that time there was much religious fervour and feeling in
that part of the country as well as throughout the north in general.
So the “Sacred Poetry of the North” towards the end of last century
makes a pretty large volume. While Buchanan was tuning his sacred
harp in the central Highlands, Matheson began his religious strains
in the far north. Matheson cultivated a small farm, and lived to the
age of sixty-three, his death taking place in 1782. He exercised
great religious influence in his own parish—his power of satire
contributing much towards this influence. A single poem of his was
declared by the parish minister to have done more good than all his
own preaching for a series of years. As a poet he stands as high as
his countryman Rob Donn, with whom he has many points in common,
although Matheson’s poetry is decidedly sacred, which Rob Donn’s is
as decidedly not. His Gaelic is frequently unintelligible to the
western and southern Gael, which is one reason why his poems have not
been in greater request among them. The following verse shows his
manner in Gaelic:—
Ar sinnsear o thùs,
’Nuair chaill iad an lùth’s,
Gùn mhill iad an cùis
Air sùsdanan àill;
Tha’n truailleadh so lionmhor,
Dh’fhag mis ’anns an fhionan,
Mar chraobh a th’ air crionadh
Gun fhiogais gun bhlath.
ENGLISH:
Our ancestors marred
At the very beginning,
Their strength and their case
In old ways of sinning;
The corruption widespread
In the vineyard has left me,
Like a poor withered tree—
Of all bloom it bereft me.
When Matheson’s Poems were first published early in this century,
they were accompanied with a preface from the hands of the Rev. Dr
Macdonald of Ferintosh and the Rev. John Kennedy of Killearnan,
in which the natural gifts of the poet, and his great Christian
graces are referred to in very high terms: “Though destitute of the
advantages of education,” say the writers of the joint preface, “he
was one of the most celebrated Christians in that or perhaps any
other country. He possessed a clear and comprehensive view of Divine
truth, and discovered a deep and practical experience of its power
on the heart and life.” In the imperfect sketches of Matheson’s
life which have been preserved there are strong indications of the
religious and ecclesiastical discontent which prevailed among the
laity in those northern districts at the time, and of the latent
dissent which subsequently developed. It is interesting to read
that “at one time the parish church being vacant, Matheson headed
a deputation from the people to their Presbytery in quest of a
minister. Finding the Presbytery stiff to move, ‘I could sooner
accomplish my errand with the great Hearer of prayer,’ he said, ‘than
with the Presbytery.’ One member, a clergyman of the unmitigated
old Moderate school, or as our Anglican friends would express it,
of the extreme High Church party, ridiculed him as not possessed of
education or influence entitling him to be heard. ‘You may mock,’ he
replied, but I can tell you the word of Scripture by which the Lord
first wounded my conscience. I can also tell the word by which Christ
was made precious to my soul;—I suspect that is more than _you_,
sir, can say.’” If poor Burns had been fortunate enough to have a
little of this spirit his contact with the graceless members of the
Presbytery of Ayr might have had a happier issue for himself.
There were clergymen of considerable culture in Caithness and
Sutherland in the days of Matheson. Interesting sketches of some
of them will be found in local religious histories such as Auld’s
“Ministers and Men in the Far North.” Kennedy’s “Days of the Fathers
in Ross-shire” is another pleasant, gossipy work, in which the
struggle of light with darkness is vividly pourtrayed. At the same
time there were many spots in the central and western Highlands where
the truths of Christianity were scarcely known. Among these places
was Abriachan, on the north-west bank of the romantic Lochness, some
ten miles west of Inverness. To this day it is difficult of access,
notwithstanding the recently well-made winding road from the level
of the loch to the villages. It is a wild and barren-like gorge,
surrounded east and west by hills of a similar character. To the
north lies a dreary moor, which declines in the direction of Beauly.
The character and habits of the people at the beginning of the
eighteenth century harmonised well with the nature of the place
where they fixed their habitations. From this rather inaccessible
nest they carried on for years with impunity a regular system of
smuggling. They had every natural advantage on their side; they were
reluctant to give up a profitable though nefarious traffic, with the
lawfulness of which their consciences were not much concerned; and so
hitherto they had refused to submit themselves to the more civilised
conditions under which the people around them began to settle. This
was the sphere of labour assigned by the Society in Scotland for
Promoting Christian Knowledge to the poet-evangelist MacLauchlan,
who was virtually the first to preach the Gospel to the people of
Abriachan.
LAUCHLAN MACLAUCHLAN.
This bard-evangelist was born about the year 1729. He came of
a family who occupied for generations a portion of the farm of
Kinmylies, called Balmaclauchlan, near the town of Inverness. He
was about sixteen years of age when the Rebellion of 1745 broke
out, and remembered well seeing the wretched fugitives from that
disastrous field of battle being cut down in their flight by the
English soldiery. While quite a young man he was selected by the
society already mentioned to be one of their evangelist-teachers
at Culduthel, some three miles from Inverness. After a few years
of successful labour there he was sent to Abriachan, where by the
weight and general excellence of his character and the judicious
exercise of his talents, the people soon became quite transformed.
It is said that the godly people of the district used to travel ten
and even twenty miles to hear the bard MacLauchlan exhort. He was
twice married, but had no family by his first wife. In his second
wife he found a truly congenial companion. While he was an admirer
of the famous Hector Macphail, minister of Resolis, she was equally
devoted to the no less famous James Calder, minister of Croy, the two
being, along with Mr Alexander Fraser of Kirkhill, the most eminent
ministers in the north at that time. The poet died in the year
1801, and his remains lie interred in the churchyard of Kirkhill.
MacLauchlan was evidently a remarkable man in his day, and appears to
have possessed very fair culture. An English letter of his addressed
to his son, a divinity student, afterwards the Rev. James MacLauchlan
of Moy, shows how well he could write English, and how well versed
he had been in evangelical theology—“I say when two things are
awanting, to go along with either the doctrines of law or gospel has
little or no effect; _i.e._, when either wants a homely or particular
application. It may be sound morality or sound gospel (even when
both differ), yet so general that attentive hearers may hear, and
never be made to cry out, _What shall we do to be saved?_ Secondly,
when law or gospel is not attended with the operation of the Spirit
of Christ, what can be expected to be the consequence?... There is
no wind so proper to winnow Christ’s corn as that of the gospel....
I might say a great deal on this subject, but one thing I find is,
when some would maintain that never man spake like this Man, yet when
Christ would address Himself with particular homeliness the very same
lips would cry out, _Crucify Him! Crucify Him!_ And this is come on
the Church of Scotland, that she is now filled with a silly general
strain of preaching when and where soundest fearing if truth is told
so homely as to say like Nathan to David ‘Thou art the man,’ the
speaker would become a prey; and if such is the case with such as can
preach orthodox law and gospel, what can be said of such as can but
lecture out harangues that are neither true morality nor gospel?...
I think some, and no small part, of the distinction between a
picture and the real being of grace is first in the begetting, next
in the birth, then in the feeding, next in the growth, &c.” This
letter, like his poetry, shows what a keen insight into human nature
the bard possessed, and how well he understood the causes of the
religious deadness of his day throughout the Church of Scotland. The
poet makes here the “silly general strain of preaching” the cause
of this deadness; elsewhere, in one of his poems he attributes the
sad state of things in the Church to patronage. He was right in
both cases. It was the patron that forced on the people preachers
of the “silly general strain” stamp. The revival of religion in the
first quarter of this century owes much to the good seed sowed by
such earnest, faithful men, as MacLauchlan; and not a few of our
ablest ministers of the present day have descended from such worthy
ancestry. The late Rev. Dr Thomas MacLauchlan of Edinburgh, the
eminent Celtic scholar and eloquent preacher, was a grandson of the
poet-evangelist of Abriachan; and one of the doctor’s sons, Hugh, is
possessed of poetical endowments and literary talents worthy of his
great-grandfather.
It is very difficult to give satisfactory translations of any
poetry, but Gaelic measures and turns of expression present peculiar
difficulties. I have endeavoured in what follows to give renderings
of some verses of all the poems of MacLauchlan that have come down to
us. The longest is the “Elegy” on Macphail of Resolis; but much of
his poetry is said to have been lost. After committing several of his
poems to writing, the author, forming but a low estimate of his own
abilities, committed the MS. to the flames.
We first give a few verses of the “Elegy” above referred to, although
it cannot be said to be the best specimen of the poet’s productions—
MACPHAIL’S “ELEGY.”
Well may Resolis deeply mourn;
We share her sorrow o’er his urn;
Our holy feasts shall ne’er henceforth
Enjoy the great Light of the North.
No more we see that guiding Light;
Oft did he tell in words of might
The danger great to Albin nigh
In clouds of gloom athwart our sky.
Well in our slumber may we start:
He warned, ere hence he did depart,
That from the ominous day to come
He would be taken to his home.
As Lot was saved from Sodom’s fate
Ere God poured out His fury great,
So judgment from the Lord we dread
Since good Macphail, our guide, is dead!
In the “Elegy” we find several good verses bearing on the subject
of patronage in the Church of Scotland. They show us how galling
that yoke of Parliament was always felt to be; and how clearly
Bible-cultured people, of no pretence to a knowledge of the mysteries
of statecraft, discern the radical ills by which communities and
individuals are fatally afflicted. It was only in 1874 that statesmen
legislatively acknowledged the evils which were so patent to the
poetic eye of MacLauchlan of Abriachan a century before:—
PATRONAGE.
Our Mother, by State’s wiles untaught,
A thoughtless slumber low has brought;
Dark perils grew before her face,
In watchless and unfaithful days.
Her true-soul’d witnesses are rare;
The gospel now so few declare;
Our secret griefs we cease to hide
Since conscience everywhere has died.
Though Patronage had her interred,
Like Lazarus unsepulchered,—
Forsaken in the bonds of death,
All stinking with corruption’s breath;
Yet when her Head the word has spoken
The stone is raised; Death’s power is broken;
The Patron’s power disappears,
And we’ll have praise instead of tears.
The “State of the World,” or the worldly, is another poem of
considerable merit. It not unlikely represents much of the style
of thinking and manner of the bard in his preaching addresses.
Indeed our religious bards in general give us a good deal of general
preaching and exhortation in their productions. Buchanan has done
so; so has Macgregor; while Grant’s hymns, as well as those of Dr
Macdonald, are very much evangelical sermons in verse. The following
translation is as literal as the exigencies of rhyme and metre can
admit:—
THE WORLDLY.
When proudly they stand
On the heights of the world
The storm then descends
And below they are hurled!
When they are least anxious
They’re hurried away,
For iron misfortune,
Will brook no delay.
When life’s breath is going,
At grim Death’s command,
Think not thine own power
Had helped thee to stand,
Think not those weak hands
Had preserved thee thy strength;
Thy frail members yield
To Death’s summons at length.
Of better blood boast not,
Vain child of the sod;
We are all from that Adam
First fashioned by God,
We are all from that Adam,
In him our life lay;
And all have to carry
These bodies of clay.
In this clay, soul-fashioned,
We march to the tomb,
Leaving loved ones behind us
When entering its gloom.
How much, then, thou takest
Of all this world’s good?
Some few yards of linen,
Some few deals of wood.
There are eight lines of a little poem called “An Samhla,” or _The
Comparison_, which reminds us of the generally subjective state of
mind which the Highland men were wont to cultivate so assiduously.
In Morrison of Harris and in Macrae of Petty we see the extreme
spiritual self-analysis which they carried on. I also give a
rendering of a few verses of a fair poem on those given to riches. It
has the same preaching ring that we find in the one on the state of
the world:—
THE COMPARISON.
I’m like a barrel sealed,
Whose stores the others cannot see;
The gazer scans in vain;
Good wine or poison it may be:
But strike thou in some spot
Where all the staves are not so sound,
Soon thou shalt see the stuff
Outpouring on the ground.
THE TRUE RICHES.
I mourn for you that follow ill,
Ye who misspend the days of youth;
The cup of sin you daily fill,
And grieve afar the God of Truth:
He keeps you while you fast advance
In fleshly pleasures’ passing train;
But yours will be inheritance
With heirs of everlasting pain.
If thou wouldst follow Him each day,
Be meek and mild—extinguish pride;
To sinful lusts do not give way,
And all dark habits cast aside.
Though great thy faith be and thy pray’r,
They cannot ease thy grievous load,
Unless thine be a covenant share
In the soul-sealing work of God.
Behold her of Samaria:
Deep in her soul the poison flowed;
But when the face of Christ she saw
Her heart turned from the guilty road.
A drink before that spring supernal
She sought with lips all parched and sore;
He gave her of the life eternal,
Which slaked her thirst for evermore.
Though MacLauchlan has not left much to prove that he possessed
the gift of satire, yet it seems that some of his poems helped his
preaching considerably in extirpating the habit of card-playing
once so universal in the Highlands—it used to be carried on at
baptisms, weddings, and even late wakes. Highlanders have had a
terrible dread of being satirised by the bards. To have come under
the satiric tongue of the poet acted like a social excommunication;
and bards frequently availed themselves of this power to accomplish
ends different from that to which MacLauchlan had set himself in the
following verses:—
CARD-PLAYING.
Oft I gazed with saddened feeling
On the weak that went astray;
Men of outward name and promise
Whom I sought to teach the way.
When I entered they were sitting
The enjoyment to begin,
At the table where the Christian
Cannot shun committing sin.
They would rather have my absence
For they felt a glow of shame:
Stopping then they promised never
To take up the godless game.
With a pack of Satan’s leaflets
There the husband’s hands between,
They lost time and vainly wasted
Light at wicked work, I ween.
MacLauchlan’s poems have been considered at greater length than the
mere quality of his poetry might warrant because they shed light on
the life and manners of the Highlanders during a particular time in
a circumscribed district, and because hitherto they, in common with
those of several other religious bards, have received no attention
whatever. On the other hand, the great bards of the secular life have
been very abundantly written upon and their merits exhibited.
DUGALD BUCHANAN.
The Highlands produced several religious poets of considerable merit
during the eighteenth century, although the areas of living religious
activities were undoubtedly very limited. Chief among them was
Dugald Buchanan, whose hymns have taken a very high place. He has
been compared to Cowper, but he reminds us more of the celebrated
Welsh bard Goronwy Owen, who has much in common with Buchanan. It
is curiously suggestive that the sacred bard of Anglesea and the
sacred bard of Rannoch, the religious representative poets of their
respective countries, should be found composing highly spiritual
poems, and at the same period writing elaborate ones on the awful
theme of the “Day of Judgment,” while the polished Addison and
ethical Johnson were delivering their well-finished articles on mere
moral platitudes to a highly conventional generation. Perhaps the
Highlanders have received, apart from the Bible, no greater gift than
the holy and sublime strains of the muse of Buchanan, who impressed
his personality and character on all the Gaelic-speaking portion
of his countrymen who in his days were in the throes of painful
political changes, and about to enter on a new era of severe trial
and uncertainty. Much of what the world has admired in the Highland
character since is due to the formative and healthy influence of
Dugald Buchanan’s hymns.
Dugald Buchanan was born in 1716 on the farm of Ardoch, Perthshire,
where his father rented a farm and was the owner of a small meal
mill the remains of which are still standing. His people were deeply
religious people, of whom he speaks with much affection and respect
in the autobiographical sketch which he left written in English. It
is remarkable to find such people in Balquidder at that period—in
the country of Rob Roy, who the year before the poet was born had
marshalled his men on the field of Sheriffmuir under the banner of
the Pretender.
Young Buchanan was educated in one of the schools belonging to the
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which was formed in 1701.
There he received a good education, which was afterwards supplemented
by attendance on some classes in Edinburgh University, while he was
superintending the printing of the Gaelic New Testament. And this
last fact reminds me that I have recently counted more than twenty
well-known Gaelic bards who received University education; so the
general cry of illiteracy is not applicable to the majority of them
who at least were trained in the rudiments of learning.
Buchanan was afterwards appointed by the Presbytery of the bounds
to be catechist and evangelist in the district of Rannoch, where
he laboured with much acceptance and success. He died of virulent
fever in June 1768, when he was fifty-two years of age. His death
was profoundly mourned by every family in the district. His widow
survived till 1824, and one of his daughters died as recently as 1854.
It is said that Buchanan composed a good deal of poetry that has
never been published. He published his religious poems or hymns
in 1767. They are eight in number, the longest, “The Day of
Judgment,” is 408 lines in length. This poem is also his best. It is
dramatically vivid and very sublime. Indeed, Buchanan is the only
Gaelic bard that exhibits much sublimity. He was a man of culture,
of even judgment, and of true insight into human nature. There are
many evidences of his acquaintance with the literature of his own and
other times. While he knew something of Shakespeare and other masters
of English literature, he became especially a student of the living
religious thought of the England of his day. The writings of such
men as Philip Doddridge and Isaac Watts helped to feed his spiritual
needs and to colour the products of his own genius.
The works of Buchanan have maintained their popularity to the present
day. In 1875 the twenty-first edition of his poetry appeared,
accompanied by a new sketch of his life by the Rev. Allan Sinclair,
late Free Church minister of Kenmore. In November of the same year, a
monument, in the form of an obelisk of Peterhead granite, was erected
to commemorate his name and genius at Kinloch-Rannoch.
The poems of Buchanan, in whole or in portions, have been frequently
brought before the English-speaking world. Macgregor, Maclachlan
of Canada, Pattison, Sinclair, Blackie, and Macbean have attempted
translations with varying successes. As in the case of the finest
lyrics on less sacred themes, the translation of these hymns
presents peculiar difficulties which can only be fairly overcome by
translators whose own spirits are in holy unison with the language
and sentiments of the author. It is quite evident that such a
master-translator as Professor Blackie cannot feel at home among
religious truths and experiences, with which his sympathies are not
very warm. What Buchanan calls “conversion” Blackie would describe
as a new point of “ethical departure,”—a cold and philosophical
conception of an all-important event which could scarcely charm the
hearts of religious folks of the poet’s type. Only the pens of a
Mason Neale and like-minded men can glide along sympathetically on
these sacred heights of holy thought and life.
The first of the hymns is called _The Majesty of God_, which begins
in octosyllabic verse as follows:—
O what is God! or what His name!
Angels in glory cannot know;
Where he is veiled in dazzling light
No thought or eye can ever go.
This is one of the less popular of his hymns, the theme being of a
more abstract nature than that on which he dwells generally.
The hymn which stands second in the order of publication is called
_The Sufferings of Christ_. This beautiful production has greatly
impressed Highland religious thought, and that before the Gaelic
Scriptures were yet entirely translated or in the hands of the
people. The form of verse chosen is very happy, and one into which
the Gaelic language flows with liquid ease and beauty. Its spirit and
manner may be imperfectly gathered from the following lines:—
It is my Saviour’s sufferings
My song will now proclaim,
That High King’s life of humbleness
In birth and death of shame;
The miracle most wonderful
That e’er to men was told:
God who was from eternity—
An infant born behold!
The poet then rehearses in tender and mellifluous strains the more
suggestive events of the Lord’s earthly life, and ends in a few
verses of extreme beauty, pathos, and simplicity, detailing the
agonizing circumstances of His death and crucifixion. The air to
which the hymn is usually sung is very pretty and plaintive, and is
a great favourite in the Highlands. At a time when living Gospel
preaching was far from general, the rehearsal of this and other
similar productions on Sunday in many humble Highland homes, helped
to keep alive the flame of spiritual life.
The next is the greatest of his poems or hymns—_The Day of Judgment_.
The poet begins in his usual Scriptural simple style, but as he
proceeds the treatment and the language become elevated and majestic.
We seem to see the _dramatis personæ_ acting their gorgeous parts on
the canvass of the poet’s grand conceptions. The verses beginning
with “’N sin fàsaidh rudhadh anns an speur,” are regarded as very
sublime. But there is no translation of this poem that will convey
anything like a fair impression of the original. The following verses
may give some idea of the manner of the poem:—
Then, like the morn enkindling red,
A glowing spreads throughout the skies;
Where Jesus comes a glare is shed
By heaven’s burning tapestries.
The clouds all suddenly unfold
To make for the High King a door;
And we the Mighty Judge behold,
Whose glory streams forth evermore.
The rainbow glows around his form,
His voice resounds like mountain-floods;
Outflashing o’er the sullen storm,
His lightning eye pours from the clouds.
The sun, great lustre of the skies,
Before His glorious Person pales;
At length her failing brightness dies
Before the light His face unveils.
Her robes of gloom she will uptake,
The blood-red moon drops down in space;
The mighty heavenly powers shall shake,
Outcasting planets from their place.
Like tempest-shaken fruit on trees,
So shall they tremble in the skies;
Like heavy rain-drops on the breeze,
Their glory like a dead man’s eyes.
The poetical conceptions of Buchanan on this subject have woven
themselves into the theological ideas of the Highlander, like those
of Milton into the religious thought of England.
_The Skull_ is well-rendered by Professor Blackie, whose version
begins thus:—
I sat all alone
By a cold grey stone,
And behold a skull lay on the ground!
I took in my hand,
And pitiful scanned
Its ruin, all round and round.
Without colour or ken,
Or notice of men,
When a footstep may trample the ground;
A jaw without tooth,
And no tongue in the mouth,
And a throat with no function of sound.
In thy cheek is no red,
Smooth and cold is thy head,
Deaf thine ear when sweet music is nigh;
In thy nostrils no breath,
And the savour of death
In dark hollow where beamed the bright eye.
No virtue now flashes
’Neath eyelids and lashes,
No message of brightness is sped;
But worms to and fro
Do busily go
Where pictures of beauty were spread.
And the brain that was there
Into ashes or air
Is vanished, and now hath no mind
To finish the plan
It so boldly began
And left—a proud folly—behind.
From that blank look of thine
I gather no sign
Of thy life-tale, its shame or its glory;
Proud Philip’s great son
And his slave are as one
When a skull is the sum of their story.
The poem called _Winter_ begins in this manner:—
The summer has ended,
The winter is nigh us;
The foe of all living
Comes to spoil and to try us;
Mars all that is lovely,
And tramples it under—
Full ruthless to all things,
He rages for plunder.
His wings he spreads o’er us,
The sun behind pushing;
While fiercely to scourge us
His brood is forth rushing;
The white-pinioned snow from
The sky is forth flying,
The hailstones like shot
From the stormy north hieing.
When he breathes upon it,
Its soul leaves the flow’r;
His lips the proud bloom
Of the garden devour;
The robes of the uplands
And forests he tears them;
His ice-flags of azure—
The choked streamlet wears them.
His breast’s frozen whistle
Wakes loud the commotion
Of the waves as they surge
O’er the barm-swollen ocean!
The sleet he congeals
O’er the moors in their whiteness,
Clean scouring the stars
Till they dazzle with brightness.
The poet, after this introduction, goes on to moralise at great
length, drawing his lessons from the seasons and their changes. His
poems are eight in number, and altogether constitute but a very small
volume.
The titles of the other poems not referred to above are—_The Dream_,
_The Hero_, and _Prayer_. An excellent sketch of his life and
conversion written by the author himself in good English, has been
translated into Gaelic, and is found frequently prefixed to the
Hymns. This account the author solemnly signs, and prays that this
transaction of his signing himself as the Lord’s consecrated servant
on earth may be ratified in heaven. Buchanan tells us that he was
an anxious hearer at one of the sermons which the distinguished
evangelist George Whitefield preached at Cambuslang on the occasion
of the latter’s visit to Scotland.
Buchanan, in conception and utterance, shows more than the other
Gaelic bards the effects of his acquaintance with English literature.
The religious subjects which were the theme of his poetry partially
account for this. When in Edinburgh Buchanan became acquainted with
several distinguished men in the Scottish capital—among others, the
celebrated David Hume, who was much impressed by the culture and
character of the Sacred Bard of Rannoch.
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