The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875

LITERATURE

TRANSACTIONS OF THE GAELIC SOCIETY OF INVERNESS.Vols. III. and IV., 1873-74 and 1874-75 (Bound in one)

This is the third publication issued by the Gaelic Society since its establishment in 1871. The previous volumes were very creditable, especially the first, but the one now before us is out of sight superior not only in size, but in the quality of its contents. First we have an Introduction of eight pages giving the history of the movement in favour of establishing a Celtic Chair in one of our Scottish Universities, and the steps taken by the Gaelic Society of London, who appear to have worked single-handed to promote this object since 1835, when they presented their first petition to the House of Commons, down to 1870, when the Council of the Edinburgh University took the matter in hand. In December 1869 the Gaelic Society of London sent out circulars addressed to ministers of all denominations in Scotland asking for information as to the number of churches in which Gaelic was preached. The circulars were returned, the result being "that out of 3395 places of worship of all denominations in Scotland, 461 had Gaelic services once-a-day in the following proportions—Established Church, 235; Free Church, 166; Catholic Chapels, 36; Baptists, 12; Episcopalians, 9; Congregationalists, 3."

The first paper in the volume is a very interesting account, by Dr Charles Mackay, the poet, of "The Scotch in America." We give the following extract:—

I was invited to dine with a wealthy gentleman of my own name. There were present on that occasion 120 other Scotchmen, and most of them wore the Highland dress. My host had a piper behind the chair playing the old familiar strains of the pipes. The gentleman told me, in the course of the evening, that his father was a poor cottar in Sutherlandshire. "My mother," said he, "was turned out upon the moor on a dark cold night, and upon that moor I was born." My friend's family afterwards went to America, and my friend became a "dry" merchant, or as you would say in Scotland, a draper. I said to him, seeing that his position had so improved, "Well, I suppose you do not bear any grudge against the people by whose agency your family were turned upon the moor." "No," he replied, "I cannot say that I bear them any grudge, but at the same time I cannot say that I forgive them. If my position has improved, it is by my own perseverance, and not by their good deeds or through their agency." In every great city of Canada—Toronto, Kingstown, Montreal, New Brunswick, St John's, Nova Scotia, and in almost every town and village, you will find many Scotchmen; in fact, in the large towns they are almost as numerous as in Edinburgh and Inverness. You will see a Highland name staring you in the face in any or every direction. If you ask for the principal merchant or principal banker, you will be almost sure to find that he's a Scotchman; and no matter in what part of the world your fellow countrymen may be cast, they keep up the old manners and customs of their mother country. They never forget the good old times of "Auld lang syne;" they never forget the old songs they sung, the old tunes they played, nor the old reels and dances of Scotland.

The Scotch, especially in Canada, take the Gaelic with them. They have Gaelic newspapers, which have a large circulation—larger, perhaps, than any Gaelic newspaper at home. They have Gaelic preachers. In fact, there is one part of Canada which might be called the new Scotland; and it is a Scotchman who is now at the head of the Canadian Government—John Macdonald.[2 - Since the paper was written, the Hon. John Macdonald gave place to another Scottish Highlander, the Hon. Alex. Mackenzie, as Prime Minister of Canada.]

The next is a paper by Archibald Farquharson, Tiree, headed "The Scotch at Home and Abroad," but really a thrilling appeal in favour of teaching Gaelic in Highland Schools. It is impossible to give an idea of this excellent paper by quoting extracts. We, however, give the following on the teaching of Gaelic in the schools:—

Reading a language they do not understand has a very bad effect upon children. It leaves the mind indolent and lazy; they do not put themselves to any trouble to endeavour to ascertain the meaning of what they read; whereas, were they taught to translate as they went along, whenever a word they did not understand presented itself to their minds, they would have no rest until they would master it by finding out its meaning. And I am pretty certain that were the Gaelic-speaking children thus to be taught, that by the time they would reach the age of fourteen years, they would be as far advanced, if not farther, than those who have no Gaelic at all; so that, instead of the Gaelic being their misfortune, it would be the very reverse. It would, with the exception of Welshmen (were they aware of it), place them on an eminence above any in Great Britain, not only as scholars, but as having the best languages for the soul and for the understanding. And should they enter college, they would actually leave others behind them, because, in the first place, they acquired the habit of translating in their youth, which would make translating from dead languages comparatively easy; and in the second place, they would derive great aid from their knowledge of the Gaelic. If Professor Blackie has found 500 Greek roots in the Gaelic, what aid would they derive from it in studying that language? and they would find equally as much aid in studying Latin, and even Hebrew.

Comparing the melody of the English with that of the Gaelic, Mr Farquharson says:—

Certainly, compared with Gaelic and Broad Scotch, it [English] has no melody. It is true that it may be set off and adorned with artificial melody. What is the difference between natural and artificial melody? Natural melody is the appropriate melody with which a piece is sung which has true melody inherent in itself, and artificial melody is that with which a piece is sung that is destitute of real melody. In the former case the mind is influenced by what is sung, the music giving additional force and power to it; but in the latter case the mind is more influenced by the sound of the music than by what is sung. I may explain this by two young females; the one has, I do not call it a bonny face, but a very agreeable expression of countenance; the other has not. Were the former to be neatly and plainly dressed, her dress would give additional charms to her, but in looking at her you would not think of the dress at all, but of the charms of the young woman. But although the other were adorned in the highest style of fashion, with flowers and brocades, and chains of gold, and glittering jewels, in looking at her you would not think of the charms of the young woman, for charms she had none, your mind would be altogether occupied with what was artificial about her, with what did not belong to her, and not with what she was in herself. Both the natural and artificial melody elevate the mind, the one by what is sung, and the other by the grand sound of the music. There is real melody in "Scots wha hae," which is natural and appropriate, which gives additional power and force to the sentiment of the piece. In singing it the mind is not occupied with the sound, but with proud Edward, his chains and slavery—Scotia's King and law—the horrors of slavery—the blessing of liberty, and a fixed determination to act.

Dr Masson's description of "Tho Gael in the Far West" is a very readable paper, and gives an interesting account of his tour among the Canadian Gael, where he says, "the very names of places were redolent of the heather—in the land where, alas! the tenderest care has never yet been able to make the heather grow—Fingal, Glencoe, Lochiel, Glengarry, Inverness, Tobermory, St Kilda, Iona, Lochaber, and the rest!" We part with this paper perfectly satisfied that whether or not the Gael and his language are to be extirpated among his own native hills neither the race nor the language will yet become extinct in our British Colonies.

Sir Kenneth S. Mackenzie, Bart. of Gairloch, makes the following remarks on "The Church in the Highlands." He said that if they wished to improve the Highlands:—

There was no way in which it could be done better than by raising the class from which ministers were drawn. He remembered saying at the opening meeting of this Society, that one of its objects should be to excite the interest of the upper classes in the language of their forefathers, inducing them to retain that language, or acquire it if lost. Because, when the cultivated classes lost their interest in it, the leaven which leavens society ceased to influence the mass of the people; and it was one of the most unfortunate things in regard to a dying language, when the upper classes lost the use of it, and the uneducated classes came to be in a worse condition than in an earlier state of civilisation, when there was an element of refinement among them. It was an understood fact, that the clergy at this moment had a great influence in the Highlands; and although there were persons present of different persuasions, he thought they would all admit that the Free Church was the Church that influenced the great mass of Highlanders. There were Catholics in Mar, Lochaber, the Long Island, and Strathglass, and Episcopalians in Appin; but the people generally belonged to the Free Church, and if they wanted to influence the mass, it was through the clergy of the Free Church they could do it. Now, it was an unfortunate thing, and generally admitted, that the clergy of the Free Church—he believed it was the same in the Established Church—were not rising in intellect and social rank—that there was rather a falling off in that—that the clergy were drawn not so much from the manse as from the cottar's house; and though he knew a number of clergy, very excellent, godly men, and very superior, considering the station from which they had risen, he thought it was not advantageous, as a rule, to draw the clergy from the lower, uneducated classes. They did not start with that advantage in life which their sons would start with. There had been a talk of instituting bursaries for the advancement of Gaelic-speaking students. He did not see why they should not start a bursary or have a special subscription—he would himself contribute to it—a bursary for theological students sprung from parents of education—whose parents had been ministers, or who themselves had taken a degree in arts. That would tend to encourage the introduction of a superior class of clergymen. He wished to say nothing against the present ministers. He knew they were excellent men, but he thought their sons would be, in many cases, superior to themselves if they took to the ministry. He was sorry they did not take to it more frequently, and he would be glad if this Society offered them some encouragement.

Two learned papers appear from the Rev. John Macpherson, Lairg, and Dr M'Lauchlan, Edinburgh—the one on "The Origin of the Indo-European Languages," and the other—"Notices of Brittany." Space will not now allow us to give extracts long enough to give any idea of the value and interest of these papers, or of the one immediately following—a metrical translation into English of "Dan an Deirg"—by Lachlan Macbean, Inverness. We shall return to them in a future number.

The Rev. A. C. Sutherland gives one of the best written and most interesting papers in the volume on the "Poetry of Dugald Buchanan, the Rannach Bard." The following is a specimen of Mr Sutherland's treatment of the poet, and of his own agreeable style:—

At the time when the great English critic was oracularly declaring that the verities of religion were incapable of poetic treatment, there was a simple Highlander, quietly composing poems, which, of themselves, would have upset the strange view, otherwise sufficiently absurd. But in all justice, we must say that many, very many, both of Gaelic and English poets, who have attempted to embody religious sentiments in poetic forms, have, by their weak efforts, exposed themselves, unarmed, to the attacks of those who would exclude religion from the sphere of the imagination. All good poetry, in the highest sense, deals with, and appeals to, what is universal and common to all men....

It is frequently charged upon the Celt, that in religion as in other matters, emotion, inward feeling in the shape of awe, adoration, undefined reverence, are more eagerly sought, and consequently more honoured, than the practice of the simple external virtues, of which feeling should be the ministers and fountains. Whether this accusation holds good generally, or whether it applies more particularly to the more recent manifestations of the religious life among us, this is not the time to inquire. One thing we are sure of, that a representative religious teacher like Buchanan never allows that any fulness of inward life can dispense with the duties of every-day life, with mercy, truth, industry, generosity, self-control. The unworthy man who is excluded from the kingdom is not the man of blunt, homely feeling, incapable of ecstatic rapture and exalted emotion, but the man who locks up for himself the gold God gave him for the general good, who shuts his ear to the cry of the poor, who entrenches his heart behind a cold inhumanity, who permits the naked to shiver unclothed, who lessens not his increasing flock by a single kid to satisfy the orphan's want. Indeed, one who reads carefully Buchanan's Day of Judgment, with his mind full of the prejudices or truths regarding the place of honour given by the Celt to inward experience and minute self-analysis, cannot fail to be astonished how small a place these occupy in that great poem. There, at least, mental experience is of no value, except in so far as it blossoms into truth, purity, and love. We cannot, however, pause to illustrate these statements in detail. We shall merely refer to the indignation into which the muse of Buchanan is stirred in the presence of pride and oppression. The lowest deep is reserved for these. The poet's charity for men in general becomes the sublime growl of a lion as it confronts the chief who fleeces but tends not his people.

"An robh thu ro chruaidh,
A' feannadh do thuàth,
'S a' tanach an gruaìdh le màl;
Le h-agartas geur,
A glacadh an spréidh,
'S am bochdainn ag eigheach dail?

Gun chridhe aig na daoine,
Bha air lomadh le h-aois,
Le 'n claigeannan maola truagh;
Bhi seasamh a' d' chòir,
Gun bhoineid 'nan dòrn,
Ge d' tholladh gaoth reota an cluas.

Thu nise do thràill,
Gun urram a' d' dhàil,
Gun ghearsonn, gun mhàl, gun mhod:
Mor mholadh do'n bhàs,
A chasgair thu trà,
'S nach d' fhuiling do straíc fo'n fhòid."

We part with this paper with an interest in Buchanan's Poems which we never before felt, although we repeatedly read them.

A well written paper, in Gaelic, by John Macdonald, Inland Revenue, Lanark, brings the session of 1873-74 to an end. Mr Macdonald advocates the adoption of one recognised system of orthography in writing Gaelic, and concludes in favour of that of the Gaelic Bible, as being not only the best and purest, but also the best known.

In the second part of the volume 1874-75 are Professor Blackie's famous address, under the auspices of the Society, his first in favour of a Celtic Professor; "The Black Watch Deserters" by Alex. Mackintosh Shaw, London; "History of the Gaelic Church of Inverness", by Alex. Fraser, accountant; "Ancient Unpublished Gaelic Poetry," "The Prophecies of Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche, the Brahan Seer," by Alex. Mackenzie, Secretary to the Society; and other interesting matter. We shall notice these in our next number. This valuable volume is given free to all Members of the Society, besides free Admission to all Lectures and Meetings, while the Annual Subscription for Ordinary Membership is only 5s.

SONGS AND POEMS IN THE GAELIC LANGUAGE. ByDuncan Mackenzie, "The Kenlochewe Bard." Written verbatim from the Bard's own Recitation, and Edited, with an Introduction in English, by Alexander Mackenzie, Secretary to the Gaelic Society of Inverness

We have before us part first of the above Songs and Poems, containing thirteen pieces, and consisting of 36 pp., crown 8vo, with an Introduction. We have not met with anything to equal them in our language for pith, spirit, and poetic genius, since the days of Rob Donn; and we trust the bard will receive the encouragement he so well deserves with the first part, so as to enable him to give us the second on an early date. There is a short introduction to each piece, which gives them an additional interest. We notice a few unimportant editorial errors which we know Mr Mackenzie would be the first to admit and correct. The following three verses are from "Moladh na Gailig"—air fonn Cabar-feidh,—and is a fair specimen, although by no means the best in the book:—

Si Ghailig cainnt as aosda
Th' aig daoine air an talamh so,
Tha buaidh aic' air an t-saoghal
Nach fhaodar a bhreithneachadh,
Cha teid i chaoidh air dhi-chuimhn',
Cha chaochail 's cha chaidil i,
'S cha teid srian na taod innt'
A dh' aindeon taobh dha 'n tachair i,
Tha miltean feairt, le cliu, 's le tlachd,
Dha cumail ceart neo-mhearachdach,
'S i treun a neart, le briathran pailt,
Cha chriòn, 's cha chaith, 's cha theirig i,
Tha cuimhne 'us beachd na lorg, 's na taic,
'S cha n-iarr i facal leasaichidh.
An am sinn na sailm gur binn a toirm
Seach ceol a dhealbh na h-Eidailtich.

Tha fianaisean na Gailig
Cho laidir 's cho maireannach
'S nach urrainn daoine a h-aicheadh,
Tha seann ghnas a leantuinn ri.
Tha ciall 'us tuigse nadur,
Gach la deanamh soilleir dhuinn,
Gur i bu chainnt aig Adhamh
Sa gharadh, 's an deighe sin.
Gur i bh' aig Noah, an duine coir,
A ghleidh, nuair dhoirt an tuil, dhuinn i,
'S mhair i fos troimh iomadh seors',
'S gun deach a seoladh thugainne,
Do thir nam beann, nan stra, 's nan gleann,
Nan loch, 's na'n allt, 's na'n struthanan,
'S ge lionmhor fine fuidh na ghrein,
Se fir an fheilidh thuigeadh i.