Mackay wants imagination and the overpowering feeling we find in two or three others of the Gaelic bards. But although he does not stand among the very first of the Gaelic poets, he is yet a powerful, refreshing, and influential singer, with a good deal of wit, point, and satire. He is a shrewd and sensible man, with a Wordsworthian tendency to exalt the commonplace into fit themes for poetry. His _Elegy on Ewen_ is one of his best-known pieces. The morning he composed it he heard of the death of Pelham, then Prime Minister to King George the Second; and he contrasted his death with the dying state of poor Ewen, in whose house he had stayed the previous night. Ewen could not converse with the bard, who, after kindling the fire in the morning for the dying man, composed the poem from which the following stanzas translated by a clansman of the bard—Mr Angus M. Mackay—are taken:— ’Tis thus thou dost instruct us, Death, That we should turn ere yet too late! The longest lives are but a breath, Thou callest hence both small and great! But these thy latest actions ought To ope at once our slumberous eyes— Thy sudden leap from Britain’s court To this low nook where Ewen lies! Long time, O Ewen, yes, long time, Has dread disease foretold thy fate; Now nigh Death’s door dost thou repine, With no one to compassionate! If unimproved the time has passed, And many a crime been done therein, Yet hope remains while life shall last, O yet repent thee of thy sin! If we believe thy word, O Death, These lessons we shall ne’er let slip! There is no mortal drawing breath Too vile for thy companionship! The solemn truth when will we learn,— Death’s vision is both high and low— From Ewen’s sores thou didst not turn, Great Pelham felt thy mortal blow. Thou makest grief in court and hall When at thy touch earth’s glories fade, The ragged poor man thou dost call For whom no mourning will be made! All men, O Death, thy face shall see, And all be forced with thee to go! Watchful and ready we should be ’Twixt Pelham high and Ewen low! And all around thy victims fall, Unseen thy sudden bullets fly; The noises round us loudly call That we should be prepared to die. Thou that art lowest in the throng, Hast thou not heard that Ewen dies? And thou whom riches render strong, That low in death great Pelham lies? Friend of my heart, and shall not this Make all our thoughts to heaven tend? Society a candle is That flames away at either end! Where shall we find a humbler man In Scotland than thy father’s son? And in all Britain greater than This Pelham, save the king, was none! Long time, O Ewen, &c.