The Modern Scottish Minstrel Volume I Part 47

When needy folk are pinch'd, alas!

For money in a great degree; Ah, George's daughter--generous la.s.s-- Ne'er lets my pockets empty be; She keepeth me in drink, and stays By me in ale-houses and all, An' at once, without a word, she pays For every stoup I choose to call!

An' every turn I bid her do She does it with a willing grace; She never tells me aught untrue, Nor story false, with lying face; She keeps my rising family As well as I could e'er desire, Although no labour I do try, Nor dirty work for love or hire.

I labour'd once laboriously, Although no riches I ama.s.s'd; A menial I disdain'd to be, An' keep my vow unto the last.

I have ceased to labour in the lan', Since e'er I noticed to my wife, That the idle and contented man Endureth to the longest life.

'Tis my musket--loving wife, indeed-- In whom I faithfully believe, She 's able still to earn my bread, An' Duncan she will ne'er deceive; I 'll have no lack of linens fair, An' plenty clothes to serve my turn, An' trust me that all worldly care Now gives me not the least concern.

[124] The "Auld Town Guard" of Edinburgh, which existed before the Police Acts came into operation, was composed princ.i.p.ally of Highlandmen, some of them old pensioners. Their rendezvous, or place of resort, was in the vicinity of old St Giles's Church, where they might generally be found smoking, snuffing, and speaking in the true Highland vernacular. Archie Campbell, celebrated by Macintyre as "Captain Campbell," was the last, and a favourable specimen of this cla.s.s of civic functionaries. He was a stout, tall man; and, dressed in his "knee breeks and buckles, wi' the red-necked coat, and the c.o.c.ked hat," he considered himself of no ordinary importance. He had a most thorough contempt for grammar, and looked upon the Lord Provost as the greatest functionary in the world. He delighted to be called "the Provost's right-hand man." Archie is still well remembered by many of the inhabitants of Edinburgh, as he was quite a character in the city. In dealing with a prisoner, Archie used to impress him with the idea that he could do great things for him by merely speaking to "his honour the Provost;" and when locking a prisoner up in the Tolbooth, he would say sometimes--"There, my lad, I cannot do nothing more for you!" He took care to give his friends from the Highlands a magnificent notion of his great personal consequence, which, of course, they aggrandised when they returned to the hills.

[125] A byeword for a regimental firelock.

[126] A favourite fowling-piece, alluded to in Bendourain, and elsewhere.

JOHN MACODRUM.

Jan Macodrum, the Bard of Uist, was patronised by an eminent judge of merit, Sir James Macdonald of Skye,--of whom, after a distinguished career at Oxford, such expectations were formed, that on his premature death at Rome he was lamented as the Marcellus of Scotland.

Macodrum's name is cited in the Ossianic controversy, upon Sir James's report, as a person whose mind was stored with Ossianic poetry, of which Macpherson gave to the world the far-famed specimens. A humorous story is told of Macodrum (who was a noted humorist) having trifled a little with the translator when he applied for a sample of the old Fingalian, in the words, "Hast thou got anything of, or on, (equivalent in Gaelic to _hast thou anything to get of_) the Fingalian heroes?" "If I have,"

quoth Macodrum, "I fear it is now irrecoverable."

Macodrum, whose real patronymic is understood to have been Macdonald, lived to lament his patron in elegiac strains--a fact that brings the time in which he flourished down to 1766.

His poem ent.i.tled the "Song of Age," is admired by his countrymen for its rapid succession of images (a little too mixed or abrupt on some occasions), its descriptive power, and its neatness and flow of versification.

ORAN NA H-AOIS,

THE SONG OF AGE.

Should my numbers essay to enliven a lay, The notes would betray the languor of woe; My heart is o'erthrown, like the rush of the stone That, unfix'd from its throne, seeks the valley below.

The _veteran of war_, that knows not to spare, And offers us ne'er the respite of peace, Resistless comes on, and we yield with a groan, For under the sun is no hope of release.

'Tis a sadness I ween, how the glow and the sheen Of the rosiest mien from their glory subside; How hurries the hour on our race, that shall lower The arm of our power, and the step of our pride.

As scatter and fail, on the wing of the gale, The mist of the vale, and the cloud of the sky, So, dissolving our bliss, comes the hour of distress, Old age, with that face of aversion to joy.

Oh! heavy of head, and silent as lead, And unbreathed as the dead, is the person of Age; Not a joint, not a nerve--so prostrate their verve-- In the contest shall serve, or the feat to engage.

To leap with the best, or the billow to breast, Or the race prize to wrest, were but effort in vain; On the message of death pours an Egypt of wrath,[127]

The fever's hot breath, the dart-shot of pain.

Ah, desolate eld! the wretch that is held By thy grapple, must yield thee his dearest supplies; The friends of our love at thy call must remove,-- What boots how they strove from thy bands to arise?

They leave us, deplore as it wills us,--our store, Our strength at the core, and our vigour of mind; Remembrance forsakes us, distraction o'ertakes us, Every love that awakes us, we leave it behind.

Thou spoiler of grace, that changest the face To hasten its race on the route to the tomb, To whom nothing is dear, unaffection'd the ear, Emotion is sere, and expression is dumb; Of spirit how void, thy pa.s.sions how cloy'd, Thy pith how destroy'd, and thy pleasure how gone!

To the pang of thy cries not an echo replies, Even sympathy dies--and thy helper is none.

We see thee how stripp'd of each bloom that equipp'd Thy flourish, till nipp'd the winter thy rose; Till the spoiler made bare the scalp of the hair, And the ivory[128] tare from its sockets' repose.

Thy skinny, thy cold, thy visageless mould, Its disgust is untold, and its surface is dim; What a signal of wrack is the wrinkle's dull track, And the bend of the back, and the limp of the limb!

Thou leper of fear--thou n.i.g.g.ard of cheer-- Where glory is dear, shall thy welcome be found?

Thou contempt of the brave--oh, rather the grave, Than to pine as the slave that thy fetters have bound.

Like the dusk of the day is thy colour of gray, Thou foe of the lay, and thou phantom of gloom; Thou bane of delight--when thy shivering plight, And thy grizzle of white,[129] and thy crippleness, come To beg at the door; ah, woe for the poor, And the greeting unsure that grudges their bread; All unwelcome they call--from the hut to the hall The confession of all is, "_'Tis time he were dead_!"

The picturesque portion of the description here terminates. With respect to the moral and religious application, it is but just to the poet to say, that before the close he appeals in pathetic terms to the young, warning them not to boast of their strength, or to abuse it; and that he concludes his lay with the sentiment, that whatever may be the ills of "age," there are worse that await an unrepenting death, and a suffering eternity.

[127] Alluding to the plagues.

[128] The teeth.

[129] _Gaelic_--Matted, rough, gray beard.

NORMAN MACLEOD;

OR, TORMAID BAN.

Single-speech Hamilton may be said to have had his _marrow_ in a Highland bard, nearly his contemporary, whose one effort was attended with more lasting popularity than the sole oration of that celebrated person. The clan song of the Mackenzies is the composition in question, and its author is now ascertained to have been a gentleman, or farmer of the better cla.s.s, of the name of Norman Macleod, a native of a.s.synt[130]

in Sutherland. The most memorable particular known of this person, besides the production of his poetic effort, is his having been the father of a Glasgow professor,[131] whom we remember occupying the chair of Church History in the university in very advanced age, about 1814, a.s.sisted by a helper and successor; and of another son, who was the respected minister of Rogart till towards the end of last century.

The date of "Caberfae" is not exactly ascertained. It was composed during the exile of Lord Seaforth, but, we imagine, before the '45, in which he did not take part, and while Macshimei (Lord Lovat) still pa.s.sed for a Whig. In Mackenzie's excellent collection (p. 361), a later date is a.s.signed to the production.

The Seaforth tenantry, who (after the manner of the clans) privately supported their chief in his exile, appear to have been much aggrieved by some proceedings of the loyalist, Monro of Fowlis, who, along with his neighbour of Culloden and Lovat, were probably acting under government commission, in which the interests of the crown were seconded by personal or family antagonism. The loyal family of Sutherland, who seem by grant or lease to have had an interest in the estates, also come in for a share of the bard's resentment.

All this forms the subject of "Caberfae," which, without having much meaning or poetry, served, like the celebrated "Lillibulero," to animate armies, and inflame party spirit to a degree that can scarcely be imagined. The repet.i.tion of "the Staghead, when rises his cabar on,"

which concludes every strophe, is enough at any time to bring a Mackenzie to his feet, or into the forefront of battle,--being a simple allusion to the Mackenzie crest, allegorised into an emblem of the stag at bay, or ready in his ire to push at his a.s.sailant. The cabar is the horn, or, rather, the "tine of the first-head,"--no ign.o.ble emblem, certainly, of clannish fury and impetuosity. The difficulty of the measure compels us to the use of certain metrical freedoms, and also of some Gaelic words, for which is craved the reader's indulgence.

[130] In Stat. Ac. said to be of Lochbroom, vol. xiv., p. 79.

[131] Hugh Macleod.

CABERFAE,

THE STAGHEAD.[132]

A health to Caberfae, A toast, and a cheery one, That soon return he may, Though long and far his tarrying.

The death of shame befal me, Be riven off my eididh[133] too, But my fancy hears thy call--we Should all be _up and ready, O_!

'Tis I have seen thy weapon keen, Thine arm, inaction scorning, a.s.sign their dues to the Munroes, Their _welcome_ in the morning.