Search -
The Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands
The Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands Author:John Stuart Blackie Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. FROM THE REFORMATION TO MACPHERSON. TiVa 6(dv, riv rjpaa, Tiva 8' avdpa Xa8qro/' ; — PlNDAR. Between the poetry of the Dean of Lismore's... more » Book and that which we are now about to consider there is a wide gap. I cannot tell how it is, — perhaps it is not wise always to demand reasons for the sudden rise of poetical or artistic schools, — but somehow or other, even in the furthest west and most thoroughly Popish of the Western Highlands, the spirit of intellectual individualism seems to have infected the atmosphere ; and an army of Celtic poets comes into view, in whom the elements of family-genealogy and clan-eulogy, though in no wise extinct, are subordinated to the personal character and genius of the bard. This is a thoroughly modern element ; an element, however, which in the Highland poets never thrusts the workman with undue prominence — as in the case of Lord Byron — into the foreground of his work. The Celtic bard of this epoch, though no longer the mere spokesman of the clans, is thoroughly popular not only in the character of his environment and in the tone of his treatment, but generally in the choice of his subject. He does not compass heaven and earth, like some of our modern poets, to find a subject, and find a bad one after all. If he does not find it in his own bosom, he will certainly find it among his own hills. Among the most ancient of these poems—no person seems to know the date exactly—is one made known to the general British public three-quarters of a century ago by the accomplished Highland lady, Mrs. Grant of Laggan.1 The name in Gaelic is, Miann 'a bhaird aosda, that is, " The Aged Bard's Wish." It is the third in Mackenzie's collection, and starts thus :— 0 cairaibh mi ri taobh nan edit A shiubhlas mall le ceumaibh ciiiin Fo s...« less