270 ROB DOUN. 



nated as " Lord Reay's country," has produced some wild 

 and ferocious characters, it has likewise tempered its ro- 

 mantic district by giving birth to a man of no ordinary 

 celebrity. Rob Doun, or brown Robert, was born in the 

 heart of it, at Durness, in the year 1714 ; and although 

 a distinguished bard in his time, would probably have 

 sunk into oblivion, had he not fortunately been rescued 

 from it by a publication of his Poems, and an Essay, 

 prefixed to them, by the Rev. Dr. Mackay, minister of 

 Laggan. Rob could neither write nor read ; nor was he 

 much of a philosopher : there were no academic groves in 

 the wild land of his fathers. " But the habits of oral 

 recitation were in vigour all about him," and being, by 

 nature, endowed with a rich fancy, and a retentive 

 memory, his mind was stored with romantic legends and 

 superstitions, which, perhaps, abound more in that district 

 than in any other part of Scotland. 



The following account of this northern bard I have ex- 

 tracted from the Quarterly Review for July, 1831, with 

 some variation, however, for the sake of compression : 



" His witty sayings, his satires, his elegies, and, above 

 all, his love songs, had begun to make him famous not 

 only in his native glen, but wherever the herdsmen of a 

 thousand hills could carry a stanza or an anecdote. Do- 

 nald Lord Reay, a true-hearted chief, resident constantly 

 amidst his 'children,' and participating in all their affec- 

 tions, presently claimed for himself the care of the rising 

 bard of Mackay ; and Rob was invested with the office of 

 boman, or head cattle keeper, an employment which, at 

 that time, carried with it abundance of respect in the eyes 

 of his fellow-mountaineers. 



