This sacred bard is supposed to have been born about 1690, and has been described as “a poet, a scholar, and a gentleman,” and as of Mudale, parish of Farr, Sutherlandshire. He belonged to the Clan-Abrach Mackays. A son of his, William, married and resided at Knockfin, in the parish of Kildonan, and is said to have been a contemporary of Rob Donn Mackay. He was a man of deep religious spirit; and attained considerable local distinction among the people of his district on account of the saintliness of his character. In his “Metrical Reliques” John Rose describes Mackay as “an eminently pious man,” and gives the following account of the conditions under which one of the poems was composed: “The first of these poems was composed by him on a fine moonlight night in harvest while he happened to be out in the fields, lying on his back, contemplating the glory and majesty of the heavenly luminaries.” Some men of the Sutherlandshire Militia stationed in 1746 at Dunkeld, immediately after the Rebellion, are represented as pious soldiers, who, having sought out Dugald Buchanan of Rannoch, used to sing to him the religious poems of Mackay of Mudale. The Sutherlandshire men used to relate that Buchanan sang Mackay’s hymns “with great glee,” and that it was the latter’s compositions that moved the former to sing in sacred strains himself. There is probably little or no foundation for this last statement. Mackellar had far more influence on Buchanan’s mind than Mackay; but at the same time the story of the “Men” of the far north is very instructive as indicating how readily men of Evangelical sympathies and genuine Christian life understood one another. Five of Mackay’s compositions are preserved in Rose’s collection. They are fair expositions of the pulpit themes with which the “Men” of the north in those days were familiar, and appear to have been well appreciated by the author’s religious contemporaries, by whom they were orally preserved. The last, from which the following two verses are taken, is composed in a simple easy measure, and is entitled “_The Complaint_” in which we have early indications of that Christian experience,—of the painful self-analysis and introspection,—for which the “Men” subsequently became so remarkable:— ’S moch a thréìg mi do shlighe, ’S gu bheil m’ fhiachan gun áireamh; Gabh ri toillteannas Chriosda, ’S na iarr aig mo lămh-s’ iad. Dean mi réidh ris na phearsa, Thoir gu comunn a ghraidh mi; Cuir an àireamh na treud me, ’S mise chaora bha caillte. ENGLISH: I early wandered from thy path, My debts I ne’er can reckon o’er; The worth of Christ accept for me And at my hand seek them no more. In Him atonement let me find, Me in his love’s communion keep; Give me a place among the flock, Though I have been so lost a sheep. DONALD MATHESON.