-

Next year the Committee-" because the funds are exhausted"give £11 only, and in November 1744 their contribution is further reduced to £9, making the total salary £12. That this remuneration did not keep the wolf from the door appears evident from the Presbytery's minute of 28th April 1741-the very year in which Macdonald gave to the world his Gaelic and English Vocabulary. "The visitors of the Charity School of Ardnamurchan report that when they attended there in order to visit said school, Alexander Macdonald, schoolmaster thereof, sent an apology to them for absence, viz., that through the great scarcity of the year he was under immediate necessity to go from home to provide meal for his family. The appointment is therefore renewed upon said visitors."

In the Beauties of Gaelic Poetry, as well as in the sketches of Macdonald's life prefixed to the recent editions of his poems, he is said to have been parochial schoolmaster of Ardnamurchan. This, however, is not correct. In his day there was no parochial school in that parish, and throughout his teaching career he was in the service of, and exclusively supported by, the Society and Committee. On account of the great extent of the parish, his school was, as it was termed, "transported" from time to time. For the first few years he taught at Eilean Finnan; in March 1738, he was ordered to "set-up his school with his first conveniency, and as soon as may be at Killechoan;" and next year he and his school were transported" to Corryvullin, where he closed his pedagogic career in 1745. Hitherto he has been supposed to have given up his school after the landing of Prince Charles; but at a meeting of Presbytery held on 15th July, four days before the Prince cast anchor in Lochnanuagh-the minister of Ardnamurchan reported "that the charity school in this parish has been vacant since Whitsunday last by the voluntary desertion of Alexander Macdonald, the former schoolmaster of this country." In the same way it has been assumed that he joined the Church of Rome to please the Prince; but the part he took with prominent Roman Catholics against the ex-priest in 1744, seems to indicate that secretly, if not openly, he believed in the doctrines of that Church even before he ceased to be catechist and teacher. At the same time it is right to note that in the preface to the Gaelic and English Vocabulary, published in 1741, he speaks in the highest terms of the work of the Protestant Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, and places "Popish Emissaries" among the evils from which the Highlands then suffered.

"In the Highland army Macdonald held a commission, and

was looked upon as a kind of poet-laureate to the Prince. "He was," observes Mackenzie of the Beauties, "the Tyrtæus of his army. His spirit-stirring and soul-inspiring strains roused and inflamed the breasts of his men. His warlike songs manifested how heartily he enlisted in, and how sanguine he was of the success of the undertaking." After Culloden he concealed himself for a time in the recesses of his country; and on the passing of the Indemnity Act, he received from Clanranald the office of Bailie of the Island of Canna-a position which he occupied when, in 1751, he published the first edition of his poems. He subsequently resided in Knoidart, and thereafter in Arisaig, where he is said to have closed his mortal career at a good old age. we may credit Dr Scott's Fasti Ecclesia Scoticana (part V. p. 81), he was addicted to the use of opium, and died in a lunatic asylum; but in his day neither opium nor lunatic asylums were plentiful in the Highlands, and this story is highly improbable.

If

I have now fulfilled the object which I placed before me in commencing this paper; and if some of the circumstances which, in the interests of truthful historical enquiry, I have considered it necessary to relate, are unsavoury and unpleasant, they throw considerable light on the state of society in the Western Highlands during the first half of the eighteenth century; and for that reason, if for no other, they ought not to be suppressed. But in considering them we must keep in view that these presbyterial records, however accurate, only exhibit the worst phases of life. So long as a man lived without reproach no notice was taken of him; but if he chanced to lapse from the paths of rectitude, he was cited before the Church Courts, which faithfully chronicled the particulars of his sin. And that there was much goodness, and kindliness, and true chivalry within the bounds of the Presbytery of Mull, even in the stormy times of which I have been speaking, is not difficult to prove. When, for instance, the Church of Scotland was in the heat of that ecclesiastical conflict with Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, the most momentous event of which was the secession of 1733, the Presbytery of Mull showed an example of Christian charity and tolerance which it is unfortunate others did not follow they instructed their Commissioners to the General Assembly to "side the most moderate party with respect to Mr Erskine's affair, as it is our opinion that if he be chargeable with nothing but defending the rights of the Christian people in the choice of their pastor, he ought to be treated with all tenderness and charity by such as differ from him and his adherents."

Then the Laird of Kinlochmoidart, who prosecuted Mr

Francis Macdonald, and who, in 1746, laid down his life for Prince Charles, on the Gallows Hill of Carlisle, was the hero of the beautiful story thus told by Sir Walter Scott in his first note to the "Monastery." "In the civil war of 1745-6, a party of Highlanders, under a chieftain of rank, came to Rose Castle, the seat of the Bishop of Carlisle, but then occupied by the family of Squire Dacre of Cumberland. They demanded quarters, which, of course, were not to be refused to armed men of a strange attire and unknown language. But the domestic represented to the captain of the mountaineers, that the lady of the mansion had been just delivered of a daughter, and expressed her hope that, under these circumstances, his party would give as little trouble as possible. "God forbid," said the gallant chief, "that I or mine should be the means of adding to a lady's inconvenience at such a time. May I request to see the infant?" The child was brought, and the Highlander, taking his cockade out of his bonnet, and pinning it on the child's breast: "That will be a token," he said, "to any of our people who may come hither, that Donald Macdonald of Kinlochmoidart has taken the family of Rose Castle under his protection." "The lady," adds Sir Walter, "who received, in infancy, this gage of Highland protection, is now Mary, Lady Clark of Pennycuik; and on the 10th of June still wears the cockade, which was pinned on her breast, with a white rose as a kindred decoration."

And, without further multiplying examples, you will find in the poems which Mac Mhaigstir Alastair wrote amid the hardships and distractions of his life, a grandeur of conception, a nobleness of sentiment, a power and felicity of language, and a richness of description, which would do credit to any nation in any age.

After the above paper was read before the Society, Mr Colin Chisholm communicated with the Rev. Charles Macdonald, C.C., Moidart, regarding the bard's place of burial, &c., and in reply he received the following letter :

MINGARRY, MOIDART, 1st June 1885.

My Dear Sir,-The constant tradition here, and in Arisaig, is that the bard, Alastair Mac Mhaighstir Alastair, was buried in Arisaig. After leaving Knoydart he settled in Arisaig. some time he was living at Strath-Arisaig; then at a place between

For

Camus-an-talamhainn and Rhu; finally he removed to Sanntaig, and it was at Sanntaig that he died. His remains were buried in the Arisaig Church-yard, close by the present Catholic Church of St Mary's.

John Macdonald, an old man, living near me, tells me that he was born on the very spot where the bard died, but not in the same house. This house, being probably a turf one, had fallen down, but John's grandfather, or father, built another of the same kind on the identical spot. I have examined into this account, and find that there is no reason to doubt it.

The old people add that on the night preceding the bard's death, two young men, belonging to Arisaig, had been sent to watch by his bedside, and to assist him in his last moments. These young persons were rather disappointed at the duty imposed upon them, because it prevented them from taking part in the rejoicings connected with a wedding which was taking place that night at Strath-Arisaig, and at which most of the country people were present. To relieve the monotony of their duty, they began reciting songs, and made an attempt at composing something of their own. The bard, who had been listening to their efforts, made some remarks upon their want of success. Fearing, however, that they might feel hurt or ashamed at what he had said, he helped them with a few verses of his own making. He had scarcely done this when he fell back on the pillow and expired.

The bard's father, Maighstear Alastair, is buried at Eilean Fhionan. Miss Bell Macdonald, Dalelea, who lived at Dalelea House before the Rhu Family came to Moidart, used to tell the younger people that the minister's body was under a monument having a skeleton (hideous enough) sculptured on it. This Miss Bell knew more of our local traditions than any other person in

her time, and I have no doubt that she was correct in this.— Yours faithfully,

CHARLES MACDONALD.

25TH FEBRUARY 1885.

On this date Mr John Macdonald, merchant, The Exchange, read a paper on the Social Condition of the Highlands. It was as follows:

THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE HIGHLANDS— SECOND PAPER.*

He knows but little, I think, of Highland history who does not admit and deplore the absence in our day of some of those splendid elements of character, the kindly feelings of mutual confidence that bound the people to each other and all to their chiefs, the conditions of life and surroundings under which the people lived, so favourable as these were to the strengthening of those ties and the development of those traits of character for which our ancestors were distinguished. Contrast those times with the present, and look upon the almost distracted condition of the Highlands-agricultural and almost every other industry on the verge of ruin; and instead of the old feelings of mutual confidence and attachment to their chiefs, you have almost everywhere a discontented people, in some districts at open variance with their proprietors, the natural successors of those to whom in a former age they were so firmly attached. Look at the wilderness aspect of those straths and glens, which even in times and under circumstances less favourable to agriculture and stock-rearing in the Highlands, supported thriving contented communities. Look at the uncomfortable condition of the landless masses, who either struggle on patches of unsuitable soil or form the unproductive populations of the towns and sea-coast villages; and I think it must be admitted that whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the causes and remedies, there can be no difference of opinion as to the fact that the social condition of the Highlands is not satisfactory, and contrasts unfavourably with the past, in days not long gone by.

PAST GRIEVANCES AND WRONGS.

It is sometimes said that the mere rehearsal of grievances and wrongs, which, to say the least, originated in a past age, and for which a past and departed generation is mainly responsible, is neither fair nor of much practical effect towards having those grievances remedied. To this it may be replied that could there now be traced on the part of the Highland landowners, or that section of the public press which supports their past policy, symptoms of a generous acknowledgment of those wrongs, and a desire to trace the present agitated state of the Highlands to something

* For the first paper on the same subject by Mr Macdonald, see Trans. actions, Volume X., p. 239,