74 I'lELD AND FERN. 



John, of projects rife" was beginning to '^ stand 

 ibrtli'^ and make his voice heard from John o^Groat^s 

 to Gretna. It was not, however, until July 30tli, 1 787, 

 that the Society was incorporated by royal charter, and 

 was known, '' per nomen et titulum in vulgari," as 

 " The Highland Society of Scotland at Edinburgh.'^ 

 John Duke of Argyll (its first President) and the 

 night Honourable Elizabeth Countess of Sutherland 

 were tlie first and second " original constituent mem- 

 bers^^ under the charter ; William Macdouald of St. 

 Martin's was its first secretary, and David Maclean. 

 its first piper. 



It proposed to examine into the Highlands and 

 Islands, to establish towns, villages, and harbours 

 therein — to open communication byroads and bridges, 

 to extend and promote fisheries, to encourage agricul- 

 ture, and to introduce manufactures. The preservation 

 of the language, poetry, and music of the Highlands 

 was also its care. It was to this end that it paid 

 teachers of Gaelic, that it gave prizes for the best per- 

 formers on the bagpipes, and instituted ^''inquiries into 

 the authenticity and history of the poems of Ossian/^ 

 Henry Mackenzie, " The Man of Feeling j" was quite 

 the knight of the Gael in council. Year after year 

 he kept the subject alive, and never bated one jot of 

 heart and hope during that weary delay, which arose 

 out of the difficulty of finding an editor really fit 

 to cope with Gaelic manuscripts. It was long before 

 he could fairly report progress, and his last sickness 

 was on him Y*^hen the completion of the Gaelic die- 



