1881.] on the Literature of the Seutlish Uijhlands. 555 



Till it gather stroiigtli to leap, 

 "With a li,i;lit and loamy sweep, 

 To the conie broad niul deep 



Proiidly swelliiij; ; 

 Then biuils amid the i»ould(.'rs, 

 'Neath Iho yhmlow of the shouhlera 



Of the IWn, 

 Through a country rough and slinggy, 

 So jaggy and s<j knaggy, 

 Full of hummoikri and of liunches, 

 Full of stuni[)S and tufts iind bunciies, 

 Full of busihes and of rushes, 



In the glen, 

 Througli rich green solitudes, 

 And wildly hanging woods 

 With blossom and with bell, 

 lu rich redundant swell, 



And the pride 

 Of the mountain daisy there, 

 And the forest everywhere, 

 With the dress and with the air 



Of a bride." 



As a wliole, Gaelic literature is a literature whicli is likely to die, 

 as it has lived, without going largely into what we call more distinc- 

 tively literature. The genuine Highlander still sings. He does not 

 write. An admirable, and to a certain extent successful, attemj^t at 

 creating a prose literature was made by Dr. Norman Macleod, father 

 of his better-known son, the Queen's favourite clergyman, in the early 

 part of the present century. He published a magazine full of 

 graphic sketches of Highland life and character, set forth with 

 a grace and seasoned with a humour, enough to give a classical 

 position to any writer. But admirable as these tracts were, and 

 forming, as they do at the jDresent hour, the unequalled model of 

 classical Gaelic prose, the reading element in Highland society was too 

 weak to encourage any further adventure in this style. It is in vain 

 to write for a people who either do not read at all, or are led by 

 irresistible seduction to seek for what books can give in the full- 

 flowing streams of English, rather than in the thin rivulets of Gaelic 

 prose. Next to sketches of character, given in the lively style of 

 popular dialogue, the staple of Macleod, one would expect from the 

 Highlander, being as he is notably a very serious and religious 

 person, a large display of sermon or pulpit literature; but here 

 expectation finds itself hugely disappointed. The fervour of Celtic 

 apostleship is well known ; and the very numerous adherence of the 

 Presbyterians north of the Grampians, to the Free Church, whatever 

 other value it may have, is certainly a remarkable proof of the 

 efficiency and the popularity of the clergy in those parts ; but how- 

 ever fervid in pulpit demonstration, and zealous in points of traditional 

 orthodoxy, the trans-Grampian Evangelists may be, they have wisely 

 confined their ministrations to the electric effect of the living word, 

 and not endeavoured to gain a position for Gaelic in the printed 



