Maccodrum was deemed a witness of no mean weight in the Ossianic controversy, on the strength of the following statement by Sir James Macdonald, in a letter dated from Skye, October 10th, 1763. Addressing Dr. Blair, on that occasion he writes: “The few bards that are left among us repeat only detached pieces of the Ossianic poems. I have often heard them and understood them, particularly from one man, called John Maccodrum, who lives on my estate in North Uist. I have heard him repeat for hours together poems which seemed to me to be the same with Macpherson’s translations.” The bard once met the hero of Ossianic fame when the latter had gone to the Outer Hebrides to collect fragments of ancient poetry. From Lochmaddy, Macpherson happened to be travelling across the moor towards the seat of the younger Clanranald of Benbencula, and falling in with a native, he took occasion to ask him if he had anything on the Feinn. This man, who was none other than the quick-witted and sarcastic Maccodrum, taking advantage of Macpherson’s badly expressed and ambiguous Gaelic, retorted literally to the effect that the Feinn did not owe him anything, and even if they did, it were vain to ask for payment now. Unaware of the personality of the bard, and direly offended at the character of the reply, which reflected on his own knowledge of the language, the proud collector passed on his way without more ado. Both men thus met and parted as ignorant of each other as ships that pass in the night. Maccodrum’s poems have never been published separately. A few appeared in Alexander Macdonald’s collection. Many of the rest, entrusted to memory, are now merged in oblivion. He had not the versatility either of Mary Macleod or of Alexander Macdonald, for he sometimes imitates the poems of bards more original than himself, yet in purity and elegance of language he frequently approaches Macdonald. His satire on “Donald Bain’s Bagpipe,” and his poems on “Old Age” and “Whisky,” are considered excellent, witty, ingenious, and original. And “Smeorach Chlann-Domhnuill,” or “The Mavis of Clan Donald,” which has been rendered into English verse by Professor Blackie, is a delightful pæan in praise of his own native Uist. The Mavis of Pabal am I; in my nest I lay long time with my head on my breast, Dozing away the dreary hour, In the day that was dark, and the time that was sour. But now I soar to the mountain’s crest, For the chief is returned whom I love best; In the face of the sun, on the fringe of the wood, Feeding myself with wealth of good. On the tip of the twigs I sit and sing, And greet the morn on dewy wing, And fling to the breeze my dewy note, With no ban to my breath, and no dust in my throat.