Explained." It has seemed somewhat strange that no name conveying the idea of size has presented itself. We read in Holy Scripture of the great river, and in Spanish and Portuguese Colonies we frequently find Rio Grande. A volume just published, however, "The Gentleman's Magazine Library -dialects, proverbs, and word-lore-contains a paper on river names which, amongst other interesting matter, gives Al Aune as meaning the Great River. I do not know whether the writer is correct, but the name Alum occurs in Cornwall; Allen, in Dorset; Alon, and Alanus, or Alen, in Northumberland; and Alen in Warwickshire; besides similar names in Wales and Scotland.

I have been anxious to find the derivation of the name of England's noblest river, the Severn, but with no satisfactory result. The termination Ern or Erne occurs in the Erne in Scotland; the Tern in Shropshire, and I think there is a Terne in the Lake district, but beyond this I have been unable to go.

18TH FEBRUARY 1885.

On this date Mr William Mackay, solicitor, Inverness, read a paper on the Ardnamurchan Bard-Mac Mhaighstir Alastair. Mr Mackay's paper was as follows:

PRESBYTERIAL NOTICES OF MAC MHAIGHSTIR ALASTAIR, AND SOME OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES IN ARDNAMURCHAN AND MORVEN.

Through the courtesy of the reverend members of the Presbytery of Mull, I was recently enabled to peruse the earlier records of that Court; and I propose this evening to give you a few gleanings from them concerning our great Gaelic bard, Alexander Macdonald (better known as Mac Mhaighstir Alastair), and some of his associates, and throwing considerable light on the state of society in the Western Highlands during the first half of last century.

Macdonald is first mentioned in these records in September 1729, when he appears as teacher and catechist in the service of the Society for Propogating Christian Knowledge, and the Committee for managing the Royal Bounty, in his native parish of Ardnamurchan. This post he has apparently occupied for some time. His father was minister of Ardnamurchan in the days of Episcopacy, but refusing to conform when Presbyterianism was established, he was deprived of his living in 1697. He still continued to labour in the parish, however, and the bard was born there about the year 1700. The child early displayed signs of that intellectual vigour which distinguished him in after life; and,

as he approached manhood, his father dreamed of future eminence for him in the Church, while his chief, Clanranald, harboured the more worldly intention of educating him for the Scottish bar. The youth was sent to the University of Glasgow, which he attended for some sessions; but an early marriage made it difficult for him to prosecute his studies, and, like many another poor Highland student, he lapsed into a charity-teacher, supported by the Society and Committee which I have mentioned.

The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge had its origin in the design of a few private gentlemen, who met in Edinburgh in the year 1701, to establish charity schools in the Highlands. Their first school was started at Abertarff, which was then "the centre of a country where ignorance and popery did greatly abound;" but the teacher was so harsbly treated by the people, that he fled the parish in less than two years, and no successor was appointed. The Edinburgh philanthropists were, however, not discouraged. They planted schools in other parts of the Highlands, secured the co-operation of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, collected money throughout the kingdom, and, in 1709 obtained letters-patent from Queen Anne, erecting certain of their number into a corporation under the title which it still bears.

In 1725 King George the First gave a donation of £1000 to the General Assembly, "to be employed for the reformation of the Highlands and Islands, and other places where popery and ignorance abound." This donation, being annually repeated by the First George and his successors, was placed under the control of a Committee nominated by the General Assembly, and called the Committee for managing the Royal Bounty; and it was this Committee that joined, as we have seen, with the Society in supporting the teacher and catechist of Ardnamurchan.

The times in which Macdonald lived were wild and unsettled, and the people among whom he laboured prone to war and factious disputation; but catechist and teacher, and elder though he was, he was no peace-at-any-price man, and into the quarrels and disputes of his time he threw himself with all the energy of which his fiery spirit was capable.

Early in 1732 Mr James Stevenson, the minister of Ardnamurchan, was (to quote from the Presbytery records) "carried off by the Presbytery of Lorn to the parish of Ardchattan, within the bounds of the said Presbytery, and fixed minister there, without ever acquainting the Presbytery of Mull or parish of Ardnamurchan, to both which he was related." The Presbytery of Mull and parishioners of Ardnamurchan were naturally indignant; but the latter

speedily recovered their equanimity and looked round for another parson, and at a meeting of the Presbytery held at Tayinlone, in Mull, on 6th December 1732, the bard appeared as Commissioner from said parish, with a petition signed by the gentlemen, heritors, and elders of said parish, directed to the Presbytery of Mull, craving one of their number to moderate a call for a minister to them." The Presbytery granted the prayer of the petition, and appointed Mr Archibald Campbell, minister of Morven, to supervise a call. This duty was performed, however, not by Mr Campbell, but by the Rev. John Maclean, of Kilninian and Kilmore; and on 9th May 1733, the bard appeared before the Presbytery in order to prosecute a call to Mr Daniel Maclachlan, a probationer. Mr Maclachlan being present, and the call having been offered to him, "he submitted himself to the Presbytery," who forthwith ordered him to be prepared at next meeting with an exegesis on the Infalibility of the Church, and a sermon on the text, "Not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men, that turn from the truth." The probationer passed these "trials" to the satisfaction of the Presbytery, and the 15th of August was appointed for his ordination; but before that day arrived rumours reached the Synod of Argyll that the young man's moral character was not of a particularly high order, and the Presbytery was requested not to proceed with the ordination until the truth of these reports was inquired into. A libel, charging him with the odious crimes of drunkenness, swearing, and singing of indecent songs, was duly drawn up, and on 25th April 1734, the case came on for trial at Knock, in Morven, the principal witness being John Richardson, accountant to the York Buildings Company, who, at the time, were working the lead mines of Strontian; and among the other witnesses being "Collector Campbell," and "Robert Bowman, Officer of Excise ". -names proving that even at that early period wild Ardnamurchan was not beyond the reach of the “ resources of civilisation."

The case against Maclachlan broke down through insufficiency of evidence; and on 18th September 1734 he became minister of Ardnamurchan, to the great satisfaction, no doubt, of MacMhaighstir Alastair, the Commissioner who prosecuted his call.

But, alas for the poor parish! In less than two months the new incumbent applied to the Presbytery for permission to go to Edinburgh for the purpose, as he alleged, of obtaining a Decreet for his stipend, and arranging for the erection of a second charge within his extensive bounds. Leave of absence was cordially granted. "The Presbytery having much at heart the desolate

condition of that spacious parish, and highly approving the design, did not scruple to allow Mr Maclachlan sufficient time for that purpose, even the whole winter session." The winter session, however, passed away, and Mr Maclachlan did not return. After a time reports reached the Presbytery that he left Edinburgh without making any attempt to get the Decreet, or arrange for the new erection; and that, after visiting Ireland, he made his way to London, where he filled the cup of his iniquity, by "writing and publishing a profane and scandalous pamphlet intituled, 'An Essay upon Improving and Adding to the Strength of Great Britain and Ireland by Fornication."" Enquiry was set on foot; the reports were found to be too true; and the ambitious Essayist was deposed, and "excommunicated from the fellowship and society of Christians, as one unworthy to be counted a member thereof, to the example and terror of others." In these circumstances, the Presbytery, on 16th July 1735, appointed a Committee to visit the Charity School of Ardnamurchan, "and to recommend earnestly to Alexander Macdonald, schoolmaster and catechist there, to be more than ordinary painful in catechising the people in the different corners of the said parish, and report his diligence by certificates from the places where he was employed." It is possible that Macdonald had incurred the suspicion, if not the displeasure, of the Presbytery in connection with the Maclachlan fiasco.

In addition to the loss of his living in Scotland, and his excommunication, Maclachlan's pamphlet brought him into trouble in Englaud, where he was arrested, prosecuted at the King's instance before the Lord Chief-Justice, and imprisoned. Having, however, renounced and recanted his extraordinary doctrines before the Bishop of Rochester, he was in 1737 dismissed from prison, and allowed to go over seas to Jamaica," where, a few years afterwards, he died.

The call to Maclachlan, and the subsequent proceedings against him, give rise to another fama clamosa in the neighbouring parish of Morven that "Highland parish which has become so famous for its clerical race of Macleods, and whose "Annals" have been so charmingly recorded by one of them. We have seen that the Rev. Archibald Campbell of Morven, was appointed to supervise the Ardnamurchan call, but that he failed to do so. Campbell, it was suspected, was opposed to Maclachlan's settlement, and rumour pointed to him as the one who reported the young probationer's drunkenness, swearing, and singing of indecent songs, to the Synod. The latter resolved to have his

revenge by fighting the minister of Morven with his own weapons, and at his instigation his relative, Alexander Maclachlan, tacksman of Lawdell, appeared before the Presbytery on 27th June 1733, and lodged an "information" against Mr Campbell, “charying him with the odious crime of intemperate drinking, swearing, and squabbling, and the neglect of his ministerial functions -charges wonderfully like those preferred against Maclachlan himself, only that Campbell apparently had not the gift of singing. These charges could not be ignored, and on 15th August, the Presbytery met at Kill in Morven, and opened a preliminary enquiry which extended over three days, and ended in the following libel being given in at the instance of the said Alex. Maclachlan, and of Dugald Maclachlan in Glen, and Archibald Cameron in Rahuoy:

"Forasmuch as we are well assured from undoubted evidence, that upon the 21st of April, or the first Wednesday after Easter last, betimes in the morning, the Rev. Mr Archibald Campbell, minister of the gospel in Morven, in company with John Maclean, Esquire, in Achaforce, and Mr Charles Campbell, now preacher in Ardnamurchan, set himself down to drink at the Change House of Knock, in Morven, after having drank a considerable quantity of cold drams and ale, they got some punch. Mr Campbell, being toast master, called for Mr Maclean's toast, who answered, sir, I give you your Lady-Mistress, which Mr Archibald taking amiss, told him he was impertinent, and gave him some very bad language. To this Mr Maclean answered he would take no notice of him, as he was but a silly fellow. Upon this Mr Archibald struck him violently upon the breast with his fist. Mr Maclean returned the blow; and they were then separated from one another by Mr Charles and his servant. Mr Maclean fancying himself affronted by this ungentlemanly treatment, told Mr Archibald if he was not a minister he should know how to use him, and get satisfaction. Upon this Mr Archibald said, God damn you, sir, if you let anything pass with me on that score; and God damn me if I let anything pass with you upon that consideration; for, by God, I am ready to fight you by to-morrow morning, anyhow you will. The sederunt having continued from about eight o'clock in the morning till six in the afternoon, the gentlemen were all very merry, especially Mr Archibald, who exposed himself quite drunk, to Allan McIan vic Ewen vic Alastar and Donald Bane his brother; John Macintyre, servant to Lachlan Maclean, Esquire, in Kinlochalin; and John Macwilliam, now beadle to the said Mr Archibald, As he attempted to make the best of his way home