Dugald Buchanan was born in 1716 on the farm of Ardoch, Perthshire, where his father rented a farm and was the owner of a small meal mill the remains of which are still standing. His people were deeply religious people, of whom he speaks with much affection and respect in the autobiographical sketch which he left written in English. It is remarkable to find such people in Balquidder at that period—in the country of Rob Roy, who the year before the poet was born had marshalled his men on the field of Sheriffmuir under the banner of the Pretender. Young Buchanan was educated in one of the schools belonging to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which was formed in 1701. There he received a good education, which was afterwards supplemented by attendance on some classes in Edinburgh University, while he was superintending the printing of the Gaelic New Testament. And this last fact reminds me that I have recently counted more than twenty well-known Gaelic bards who received University education; so the general cry of illiteracy is not applicable to the majority of them who at least were trained in the rudiments of learning. Buchanan was afterwards appointed by the Presbytery of the bounds to be catechist and evangelist in the district of Rannoch, where he laboured with much acceptance and success. He died of virulent fever in June 1768, when he was fifty-two years of age. His death was profoundly mourned by every family in the district. His widow survived till 1824, and one of his daughters died as recently as 1854. It is said that Buchanan composed a good deal of poetry that has never been published. He published his religious poems or hymns in 1767. They are eight in number, the longest, “The Day of Judgment,” is 408 lines in length. This poem is also his best. It is dramatically vivid and very sublime. Indeed, Buchanan is the only Gaelic bard that exhibits much sublimity. He was a man of culture, of even judgment, and of true insight into human nature. There are many evidences of his acquaintance with the literature of his own and other times. While he knew something of Shakespeare and other masters of English literature, he became especially a student of the living religious thought of the England of his day. The writings of such men as Philip Doddridge and Isaac Watts helped to feed his spiritual needs and to colour the products of his own genius. The works of Buchanan have maintained their popularity to the present day. In 1875 the twenty-first edition of his poetry appeared, accompanied by a new sketch of his life by the Rev. Allan Sinclair, late Free Church minister of Kenmore. In November of the same year, a monument, in the form of an obelisk of Peterhead granite, was erected to commemorate his name and genius at Kinloch-Rannoch.