he use of Gaelic schools. This
work, which was the first of the kind in the language, was published at
Edinburgh in 1741. Macdonald was subsequently elected schoolmaster of
his native parish of Ardnamurchan, and was ordained an elder in the
parish church. But the most eventful part of his life was yet to come.
On the tidings of the landing of Prince Charles Edward, he awoke his
muse to excite a rising, buckled on his broadsword, and, to complete
his duty to his Prince, apostatised to the Catholic religion. In the
army of the Prince he bore an officer's commission. At the close of the
Rebellion, he at first sought shelter in Borodale and Arisaig; he
afterwards proceeded to Edinburgh, with the view of teaching children in
the Jacobite connexion. The latter course was attended with this
advantage; it enabled him by subscription to print a volume of Gaelic
poetry, which contains all his best productions. Returning to his native
district, he attempted farming without success, and ultimately he became
dependent on the liberality of his relations. He died sometime
subsequent to the middle of the century.

Macdonald was author of a large quantity of poetry, embracing the
descriptive, in which his reading made him largely a borrower; the
lyrical in which he excelled; the satirical, in which he was personal
and licentious; and the Jacobitical, in which he issued forth treason of
the most pestilential character. He has disfigured his verses by
incessant appeals to the Muses, and repeated references to the heathen
mythology; but his melody is in the Gaelic tongue wholly unsurpassed.

THE LION OF MACDONALD.

This composition was suggested by the success of Caberfae, the clan song
of the Mackenzies. Macdonald was ambitious of rivaling, or excelling
that famous composition, which contained a provoking allusion to a
branch of his own clan. In the original, the song is prefaced by a
tremendous philippic against the hero of Caberfae. The bard then strikes
into the following strain of eulogy on his own tribe, which is still
remarkably popular among the Gael.

Awake, thou first of creatures! Indignant in their frown,
Let the flag unfold the features that the heather[119] blossoms crown;
Arise, and lightly mount thy crest while flap thy flanks in air,
And I will follow thee the best, that I may dow or dare.
Yes, I will sing the Lion-King o'er all the tribes victorious,
To living thing may not concede thy me