At the end of the book Mackenzie gives a select number of “Beauties” by individuals who invoked the muse only on rare occasions, or whose history is little known to the world. Among these we find the anonymous yet exquisitely beautiful and pathetic “Mali Bheag Òg.” Our author claims to be the first to give the whole of it correctly in print.[40] There is much uncertainty as to the history, circumstance, and locality, but the occasion of the poem was the elopement of two lovers, who were pursued. The gallant, a young officer, stood to the defence of his beautiful fiancée, who stole behind him in the melée. Unhappily his sword accidentally in the swing struck her so violent a blow that she expired at his feet. It was in jail awaiting execution that he composed this heart-melting song:— Nach truagh leat mi’s mi’m priosan, Mo Mhàli bheag òg Do chairdean a’ cuir binn’ orm, Mo chuid de’n t-saoghal thù. A bhean na mala mìne, ’S na’m pogan mar na fiòguis, ’S tu nach fagadh shios mi Le mi-rùin do bheoil. ’S mise bh’air mo bhuaireadh Mo Mhàli bheag òg, ’Nuair ’thain an ’sluagh mu’n cuairt duinn Mo ribhinn ghlan ùr; ’S truagh nach ann san uair ud, A thuit mo lamh o m’ ghualainn, Mu’n dh’amais mi do bhualadh, Mo Mhàli bheag òg. As another independent gleaning, and valuable supplement to Mackenzie’s work, there falls to be mentioned Archibald Sinclair’s _An T’ Oranaiche_, or the _Gaelic Songster_, published in 1879. “If a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation,” said a wise man. And certainly the songs occupy no mean place in Celtic life and poetry. Of these there is no collection in Gaelic like Sinclair’s—humorous, patriotic, satiric, and sentimental. He gleaned, as he tells us, in many a field, saving some from oblivion. Others he snatched from fugitive pieces of paper, ere these latter became food for the moth. In all there are 290 songs in the volume, and upwards of fifty names of composers, some of whom are still living. The songs are mainly of last century, and were compiled in Glasgow by their editor, who was a publisher in that city.