proud to ask for favours at their hands, was allowed to struggle on in his old office on, for a man like him, a wretched income which never exceeded £150 a year; and a grateful country-save the mark!-now permits himself and his family to starve on a retiring allowance of about onehalf that sum.

On New Year's Eve 1864, Maccoll was presented with an oil painting. of himself, accompanied with an address, from the subscribers, by a committee who waited upon him in his own house, when "his brother bard," Sangster, as we find him designated in an old number of the Kingston Whig, made the presentation in name of the committee and subscribers, and presented Maccoll with the following address, signed by several of the leading citizens of the city :

"To the Bard, Evan Maccoll, Kingston,

"Sir,-Permit us, the members of the committee, on behalf of the subscribers thereto, on this New Year's Eve 1864, to tender you the accompanying token of our esteem for you, the joint and freely-tendered gift of the St Andrew's and Caledonian Societies, and a few friends apart from these Societies. As the Bard of the Societies, particularly of the St Andrew's for over a period of ten years, you are fully and honourably entitled to this poor expression of our good will; but altogether apart from this fact we beg to assure you that not on that ground alone is the presentation offered you, but for your many good qualities as a man and a citizen, not less than as a true brother Scot, whose sympathies, though truly and intensely national, are equally cosmopolitan, from your happy possession of that universal sympathy of soul that makes the whole world kin.'

Please to accept from us, on behalf of the subscribers, this portrait of yourself, painted by Mr Sawyer, an artist of whom Canada has every right to feel proud. Let us hope that you will live many years to possess it, and that it may be a consolation in future years to the members of your interesting and intelligent family, when you yourself shall have passed, with many of us here to-night, to that bourne whence no traveller returns.'

Wishing yourself and Mrs Maccoll and your family many long years of domestic peace and happiness, not forgetting the compliments of the season, we remain, dear friend and Bard," &c., &c.

To this agreeable address Maccoll replied:

"Gentlemen,-In accepting at your hands this splendid gift, accompanied as it is by an address so very flattering to my feelings, I will not affect the mock-modesty of declaring myself altogether unworthy of the honour you have done me. It is enough for me that you, who have known me so long, think otherwise; and I feel altogether too well pleased to impeach your judgment. To do so would seem like paying a very doubtful compliment to your discernment. Let it, therefore, be granted that I have fairly won this mark of my countrymen's esteem, that thus it may become all the more valuable in the eyes of my posterity—an heirloom to which they all can point with honest pride, and say, There is the unpurchased tribute of regard of those who knew him best.

"Gentlemen, I am proud of the gift thus tendered me through you by

the societies of which you are the representatives-proud of it as a work of art-proud of it, as a likeness finished in a style worthy of the able artist to whom your commission was entrusted-a gentleman from whom a good portrait was a foregone conclusion.' Still more proud, however, am I of the friendship which conceived the idea, and the hearty, cordial good will with which it was carried out. If anything were wanting to assure me of what has always been the proudest object of my ambition as a bard-a corner in the hearts of my countrymen-this manifestation of to-night ought to set that matter henceforth and for ever at rest. I therefore thank you all, with a heartfelt emotion; for

Never yet was bard unmoved

When beauty smiled, or worth approved ;
For though his song he holds as nought-
An idle strain a passing thought-
Child of the heart! 'tis held more dear
Than aught by mortals valued here.

"And now, in acknowledging with pride and pleasure your expression of kindly feeling towards my wife and family, I think I can assure you that all of them, who are old enough to be capable of appreciating the honour now conferred upon me, will never forget this night or you. I have had many a happy 'Hogmanay' in my time, but never surely one so happy as this.

"Cordially reciprocating your compliments' of the season,' the least I now can do is to wish you all a Happy New Year! May peace and plenty ever cheer your firesides, and happiness be evermore your lot! "EVAN MACCOLL."

Throughout the whole of Maccoll's works there is hardly an idea that need hurt the most tender mind or raise the blush on the most delicate features. He is an original thinker, displays intense passion, elegance, and correctness of expression, not always characteristic even of many of our best Gaelic bards. His word-pictures of some of the most sublime, grand, and romantic scenes throughout his native Highland hills and dales are highly finished, and couched in the choicest language. Some of his pieces also show a satirical vein which it would be as well for the enemy not to arouse; and, according to another of the critics of the Gaelic "Clarsach," he is said to be conscious of superior power "which stamps his originality, and gives his poetry a power, a richness, and a splendour which the contracted information and confined ideas of the old bards, notwithstanding their power of language, could never by any possibility exhibit."

We have said enough to show the stamp of man, the genius, whom we had almost permitted to die out of remembrance, but we must yet be allowed to add one more tribute in his praise from a brother Canadian bard of no mean powers himself; for it is not often that one poet can be found to speak so well of another. We quote from a MS. Biographical Sketch written by the poet, Charles Sangster, for General Wilson's work on the Scottish Bards, published, some years ago, by the Harpers of New York. From the exigencies of space, the MS. sketch was very considerably curtailed by Wilson, but we are glad to have this opportunity of giving its concluding remarks as originally written, and it

will be a most appropriate conclusion to the preceding estimate of Maccoll as a bard. Sangster wrote many years ago:-" Maccoll is considerably past the middle of life, but bids fair to weather the storm of existence for many years to come. In private life he is, both by precept and example, all that could be desired. He has an intense love for all that is really good and beautiful and true, and a manly scorn for all that is false, timeserving, or hypocritical; there is no narrow-mindedness, no bigotry, in his soul. Kind and generous to a fault, he is more than esteemed, and that deservedly by all who properly know him. In the domestic circle, all the warmth of the man's heart-the full flow of genuine feeling and affection-is ever uppermost. He is a thoroughly earnest man, in whose daily walks and conversation, as well as in his actions, Longfellow's 'Psalm of Life' is acted out in verity. In his friendship he is sincere ; in his dislikes equally so. He is thoroughly Scottish in his leanings; his national love burns with intensity. In poetry he is not merely zealous, but enthusiastic, and he carries his natural force of character into all he says and does. Consequently he is not simply a wooer, but a worshipper of the muse. Long may he live, the Bard of Lochfyne,' to prostrate his entire heart and soul in the Temple of the Nine."

This is the character of the man whom we would desire to acknowledge and whose evening of life we hope to see mellowed and softened by his fellow-countrymen in a manner creditable to themselves and congenial to him. Too many of his kind have been allowed to live and die in straitened circumstances-neglected while they could be aided and comforted -afterwards to be commemorated with useless monuments and memoirs. Do not let us add another to our roll of neglected men of genius, already too long by far.

And can nothing be done even yet to soften and comfort the closing years of his life? We have already appealed publicly and privately to the leading men in Canada, to his political opponents as well as to his political friends-to his own distinguished countryman, the Marquis of Lorn, Governor-General of the Dominion-to the Honourable Alexander Mackenzie, ex-Premier of Canada, and a gentleman whom the bard positively adores. We have also appealed to the present Premier, Sir John A. Macdonald, K.C.B., suggesting that he should rise above mere party politics, and pay tribute to one of Canada's adopted sons of whom she has great reason to be proud-a fact which she will acknowledge perhaps when it is too late. Our appeal has as yet produced no practical results beyond a gracious invitation to the bard from his Excellency and his Royal Consort to visit them last summer at Government House in Ottawa, on the occasion of which he was received in the most gratifying manner and right royally entertained, not only at Rideau Hall, but by several of the leading citizens of the Canadian capital.

From political leaders we now appeal to our Celtic countrymen throughout the world, and ask them to come forward to help the bard in a manner which we know will be the most congenial and agreeable to his sensitive feelings and Highland spirit; and from the hearty nature of the communications which we have received from the Governor-General of Canada and others above-named, we have no doubt that the leading men of the Dominion will, at least in their private capacity, join in doing honour to their distinguished countryman, and by so doing raise them

selves and their country in the estimation of all right-thinking men— especially Highlanders-in all quarters of the globe.

What we propose then is that a committee be at once appointed in Canada to raise a sum which will enable the bard to publish a complete edition of his works which shall include not only what has appeared in previous editions, but his compositions since he emigrated to America. These are already prepared for the press, and having examined several of them last year in the bard's home, we have no hesitation in saying that his unpublished productions are on the whole far superior to what has already appeared in his published works. To carry this proposal into effect, we recommend a central committee in Toronto, with the Honourable Alexander Mackenzie, ex-Premier of Canada, and the Honourable Donald Macdonald, Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, at its head, with his Excellency the Marquis of Lorne, as patron, for the whole Dominion. Hugh Miller, and other Celts, good and true, will be glad to join. In Montreal Mr Macmaster, M.P. for Glengarry, who, though a good Conservative in politics, is first a Canadian Highlander, will take the lead with the Mackays, Maclennans, and other Highlanders of that city. In Hamilton Sheriff Mackellar, the Rev. Mr Fletcher, Mr William Murray, and others will do their share; while Dr Maccrimmon, Chief of the Caledonian Society of Lucknow, is a host in himself among his patriotic band of Lucknow Highlanders, In Halifax, Nova-Scotia, the patriotic North British Society will follow suit; while the Highlanders of Pictou and the Highland Society of Antigonish, will put their shoulders to the wheel with a good Highland will. In New York our friend Mr Macgregor Crerar, may safely be left to organise his brother Celts there; while Mr Macgregor in Rochester; and other clansmen innumerable will only be too glad of the opportunity to work shoulder to shoulder in every city, town, and village in the United States and Canada. And so soon as a beginning is made, where it ought to be made, in Canada, we promise to do what we can on this side of the Atlantic. Another means of aiding materially in carrying out the object in view, and which can be made supplementary to the one already suggested, is for those who cannot, or do not feel disposed to subscribe to the proposed fund, to send in their names for copies of the bard's complete works, on the understanding that the price shall not exceed, say 10s 6d, or two and a-half dollars; and for this purpose we shall be glad to receive the names of any one feeling disposed in this way to help on the object we have in view, and with which the hearts of all good Highlanders will beat in sympathy. Let our Canadian friends start the ball, and they may rest assured that it will be successfully driven to the goal of success with honour to all concerned.

Among Maccoll's literary friends and acquaintances in the Highlands were, "first and foremost," he informs us, "John Mackenzie of 'The Beauties,"" allowed, like many others of his class, to die prematurely in neglect and poverty, though his great services to the Celtic cause are now being fully acknowledged. The late Robert Carruthers, LL.D., whom he met several times, "first of all in the studio of my dear departed friend, Mr Alexander Macinnes, the artist, then resident in Inverness." All three met shortly afterwards at supper at Macinnes's house. Maccoll met Hugh Miller on several occasions, the last time being "at the old Cromarty homestead celebrated in his Schools and School

་

masters."

He also spent some time with the brothers Sobieski Stewart, at Eilean-Aigais, and drank with them out of a cuach once the property of Prince Charlie. In Glasgow he could claim among his friends James Hedderwick, of the Citizen; Dugald Moore, author of "The Bard of the North;" Andrew Park, author of "Silent Love," and "Hurrah for the Highlands;" and last but not least, the late genial Dr Norman Macleod. In Edinburgh the late Dr Robert Chambers made him the lion of a dinner party in his house in Princes Street, to which were invited about a dozen of the literary stars of the modern Athens, the poets Gilfillan and Vedder being among the number. In Liverpool he made the acquaintance and secured the friendship of James Phillip Bailey, the author of "Festus," and the late Robert Leighton, author of "The Christening of the Bride," and other well known poems. "When first I knew Leighton," Maccoll writes, "he was quite a raw, unsophisticated callant fresh from Dundee, and with seemingly no conception of the poetic power afterwards developed in him." In London he was intimately acquainted with poor James Logan, author of the "Scottish Gael." These, in all, form a circle of literary friends, though not altogether our most brilliant stars, with whom the peasant bard of Lochfyne might well be highly pleased, indeed gratified.

Maccoll has been twice married, his first wife being Frances Lewthwaite, a native of Cumberland, while his present worthy and hospitable partner is of Highland parentage, though born in Canada, her father, James Macarthur, as also her mother, Maccallum by name, being natives of Mull, in Argyleshire. Of a family of nine sons and daughters, Evan, the poet's eldest son, has been educated for the ministry, and is now Pastor of the Congregational Church in Quebec. The readers of the Celtic Magazine are already familiar with some of his daughter Mary's productions, and her fair promise as a poet to become worthy of her sire. Fanny, another daughter, is a teacher under the Ontario Board of Education, while the more youthful members of his most interesting family give ample promise of proving themselves worthy of the stock from whence they sprang.

We shall next make free quotations from a diary kept by the bard during a tour in the North Highlands in 1838-39.

A. M.

THE GAELIC SOCIETY OF INVERNESS AND THE FEDERATION OF CELTIC SOCIETIES.-At a meeting of the Gaelic Society held on Wednesday, 16th of December, it was unanimously decided, after considerable discussion, not to appoint any delegates to represent the Society at the annual meeting of the Federation, held in Glasgow on the 28th of December. The reasons which induced the Society to come to this decision were, first, that contrary to the arrangements made at the beginning to hold the annual meetings alternately in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Greenock, Perth, Aberdeen, and Inverness, they have all hitherto been held in Glasgow, and that the Federation has thus become virtually an association of Glasgow Societies alone; second, that the Federation has departed from its original purpose by becoming more a political than a social and literary association, and is consequently not in agreement with the constitution of the Gaelic Society, and therefore inconsistent with its own, which confines its proceedings to subjects within the constitution of all and each of the affiliated Societies.