309
The song of winter, 311
Dirge for Ian Macechan, 315
The song of the forsaken drover, 315
Isabel Mackay--the maid alone, 318
Evan's Elegy, 321

DOUGAL BUCHANAN, 322
A clagionn--the skull, 326
Am bruadar--the dream, 330

DUNCAN MACINTYRE, 334
Mairi bhan og (Mary, the young, the fair-haired), 335
Bendourain, the Otter Mount, 336
The bard to his musket, 347

JOHN MACODRUM, 351
Oran na h-aois (the song of age), 352

NORMAN MACLEOD (TORMAID BAN), 355
Caberfae, 357

* * * * *

GLOSSARY, 363

THE

MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL

JOHN SKINNER.

Among those modern Scottish poets whose lives, by extending to a
considerably distant period, render them connecting links between the
old and recent minstrelsy of Caledonia, the first place is due to the
Rev. John Skinner. This ingenious and learned person was born on the 3d
of October 1721, at Balfour, in the parish of Birse, and county of
Aberdeen. His father, who bore the same Christian name, was parochial
schoolmaster; but two years after his son's birth, he was presented to
the more lucrative situation of schoolmaster of Echt, a parish about
twelve miles distant from Aberdeen. He discharged the duties of this
latter appointment during the long incumbency of fifty years. He was
twice married. By his first union with Mrs Jean Gillanders, the relict
of Donald Farquharson of Balfour, was born an only child, the subject of
this memoir. The mother dying when the child was only two years old, the
charge of his early training depended solely on his father, who for
several years remained a widower. The paternal duties were adequately
performed: the son,