is
native mountains as only one can who spends his life in daily communion
with them. His two great compositions are styled _Ben Dorain_ and _Coire
Cheathaich_. The former is a long poem of 550 lines divided into eight
parts, alternating with a sort of strophe and antistrophe, one slow
called _urlar_ in stately trochees, the other swift called _siubhal_ in
a kind of galloping anapaests; the whole ending with the _crunluath_ or
final quick motion. It is said to follow very accurately the lilt of a
pipe-tune. The poem, which might be called the "Song of the Deer," has
been well done into English by J. S. Blackie. _Coire Cheathaich_ (The
Misty Corrie), a much shorter poem than Ben Dorain, gives a loving
description of all the prominent features in the landscape--the flowers,
the bushes, the stones, the hillocks with the birds and game, and the
whirling eddies with the glistening salmon. MacIntyre's works went
through three editions in his lifetime, and a twelfth was issued in
1901.

Rob Donn.

John MacCodrum.

From Duncan Ban we pass on to consider the compositions of two men who
hailed from the outlying parts of Gaeldom. Robert Mackay, or, as he is
generally called, Rob Donn (1714-1778), was a native of Strathmore,
Sutherlandshire, who, like Duncan Ban, never learned to read or write.
His life, which was uneventful, was spent almost entirely within the
confines of the county of his birth. He left behind a large number of
poems which may be roughly classified as elegiac, love and satiric
poems. His elegies are of the typical Highland kind. The singer is
overwhelmed with sadness and despairing in his loss. His best-known
composition in this style is "The Death-Song of Hugh." Having just heard
of the death of Pelham, the prime minister, Mackay finds a poor friend
of his dying alone amid squalor in the heart of the mountains. In a poem
composed on the spot the poet contrasts the positions of the two men and
reflects on the vanity of human existence. Among his love-poems the
"Shieling Song" is deservedly famous. But it was above all as a satirist
that Mackay excelled during his lifetime. Indeed he seems to have had
the sharpest tongue of all the Highland bards. We have already seen what
powers were attributed to satirical poets in Ireland in medieval times,
and though bodily disfigurements were no longer feared in the 18th
century, nothing was more dreaded, both in Ireland and Scotland, than
the lash of the bard. Hen