A

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

OF THE AUTHOR.*

VAN MACCOLL was born on the 21st September, 1808, at Kenmore, Lochfyne-side-a farm situated on the banks of that famous Loch, about five miles west from Inveraray, Argyleshire, and at the time in the joint occupation of several tenants, the poet's father, Dugald MacColl, being one of them. The bard, who was the youngest but one of a family of six sons and two daughters, was fortunate in having for his father one who, in addition to many other excellent qualities, was famed far and near for the richest store of Celtic song of any man living in his part of the country. His home became, in consequence, the common resort of those in the district who delighted in such things; and long and frequent were the winter ceilidhs at his house to listen to

*Written for the Celtic Magazine of 1880, by its editor, Alexander Mackenzie, F.S.A., Inverness, Scotland.

him singing Gaelic song after song-especially the Jacobite lays of such favourite minstrels as Mairi nighean Alastair Ruaidh, Alexander Macdonald, and Duncan Bàn Macintyre, every line of whose compositions he could repeat from memory, and in a manner well calculated to attract and captivate the rustic audience congregated round his hospitable fireside. He had a keen and genuine appreciation of the beautiful and the grand in the natural scenery which adorned his native land, and it was charming to hear the bard relating his recollections of how, when a mere boy, his father had made him familiar with the best positions in the neighbourhood of his home from which to view to advantage any scene of more than ordinary attraction-a circumstance which, no doubt, tended to implant in the mind of the future poet that love of Nature which afterwards found such mellifluous expression in his "Address to Loch Lomond;" his "Sonnets descriptive of Lochawe," which appeared in these pages; his "Loch Duich," and many more of his most beautiful and best descriptive poems.

Dugald MacColl, possessed of a manly presence, fine personal appearance and great natural intelligence, was received among, and lived on close terms of intimacy with, men who moved in a sphere of social life far above his own, and was in consequence able to procure the use of books, otherwise quite inaccessible, for his children; for parish libraries in those days were things undreamt of. Nothing delighted him more than to see the patriot flame fanned in the bosom of his young family by the perusal

of such books as Blind Harry's Metrical Life of Sir William Wallace, the Life of Hannibal, Baron Trenck's Autobiography, and other works of a similar character. He was descended from an old family—the MacColls of Glasdrum -a family in which resides, it is said, the chiefship of his clan a small but heroic branch of the race of Somerled of the Isles. He possessed superior natural endowments -physical as well as mental-and was reputed to be altogether as fine a specimen of the Highlander as could be found in the whole county of Argyll in his day. He delighted to wear the Highland dress, and continued to do so, at least as a holiday dress, long after it had ceased to be used by any other of the adult population of his native parish.

In his mother, Mary Cameron, a daughter of Domhnull mor a Gharbh-choirre—in his day a man of considerable mark in the district of Cowall-the bard was scarcely less fortunate. She was noted for her store of traditional tales, legendary and fairy lore, and was withal thoroughly familiar with her Bible, and led a life of much active benevolence; and for her memory the bard cherishes the most tender filial feelings and affection. She is also said to have been somewhat of an improvisatrice, and her leanings in this direction, coupled with her frequent exercise of the gift, give a bent and tone to the boy-mind which time, an ardent soul, and carefully directed thought have fully developed, if not perfected in the man.

John Mackenzie, in his "Beauties of Gaelic Poetry, and Lives of the Gaelic Bards," informs us that the poet's

"parents, although not affluent, were in the enjoymont of more comfort than generally falls to the lot of Highland peasants; and were no less respected for their undeviating moral rectitude than distinguished for their hospitality, and the practice of all the other domestic virtues that hallow and adorn the Highland hearth." Of the bard himself, with whom he was intimately acquainted, the same writer says:-" At a very early age he displayed an irresistible thirst for legendary lore and Gaelic poetry; but, from the seclusion of his native glen and other disadvantageous circumstances, he had but scanty means for fanning the latent flame that lay dormant in his breast." He "however greedily devoured every volume he could procure, and when the labours of the day were over, would often resort to some favourite haunt where, in the enjoyment of that solitude which his father's fire-side denied him, he might be found taking advantage of the very moonlight to pore over the minstrelsy of his native country, until lassitude or the hour of repose compelled him to return home." The same author continues :-" His father, Dugald MacColl, seems to have been alive to the blessings of education; for as the village school afforded but little or nothing worthy of that name, he, about the → time that our bard had reached his teens, hired a tutor for his family at an amount of remuneration which his slender means could scarcely warrant. The tutor's stay was short, yet sufficiently long to accomplish one good purpose that of not only enabling Evan properly to read and understand English, but also of awakening in him a

taste for English literature. A circumstance occurred about this time which tended materially to encourage our author's poetic leanings. His father, while transacting business one day in a distant part of his native parish, fell in with a Paisley weaver, who, in consequence of the depression of trade, had made an excursion to the Highlands with a lot of old books for sale. MacColl bought the entire lot, and returned home groaning under his literary burden, which Evan received with transports of delight. Among other valuable works he was thus put in possession of were the 'Spectator,' 'Burns's Poems,' and the British Essayists.' He read them with avidity, and a new world opened on his view; his thoughts now began to expand, and his natural love of song received an impetus which no external obstacles could resist. Contemporaneous with this literary impulsion was the artillery of a neighbouring Chloe, whose eyes had done sad havoc among the mental fortifications of our bard: he composed his first song in her praise, and, although he had yet scarcely passed the term of boyhood, it is a very respectable effort, and was very well received by his coparishioners."

The means taken for the publication of this first effort, as related to us by the poet himself while his guest in Canada, is worth telling: The bards were not at the time held in high esteem in his native district, and this fact, of which he was well aware, coupled with the subject and nature of the song, made him unwilling to make it known even among his most intimate friends. He,