KENNETH MACKENZIE.—This bard was born in 1758 at _Caisteal Leahuir_, near Inverness. When quite a young man he went to sea, but returned in 1789, when he began to collect subscribers’ names for his proposed volume of poetry. Some time after the publication of his poems he was procured the rank of an officer in the 78th Highlanders, through the joint influence of Lords Seaforth and Buchan. After leaving the army he got the situation of postmaster in an Irish provincial town. He was living in 1837. His poems are of an high order, polished, smooth, and well-finished. One of his songs has become a universal favourite—_Am Féile Preasach_. ALLAN MACDOUGALL.—This highly popular bard, better known as _Ailein Dall_, or Blind Allan, was born in Glencoe in 1750. His parents were poor, so Allan, incapacitated by his infirmity of blindness for the usual spheres of industry, turned his attention to music as a means of livelihood. He soon became well known as a fiddler in the district, and by engagements at country weddings and raffles earned a little to support himself. The poems also he composed helped to make him popular; and with the assistance of Mr E. MacLachlan, latterly of Aberdeen, who was then a tutor in the neighbourhood, a volume was prepared and published. Soon after this Colonel Ronaldson Macdonald of Glengarry took the poet under his patronage. In 1828 he travelled the counties of Argyll, Ross, and Inverness for subscribers for a new edition of his poems, but after procuring 1000 names, and going to press in 1829, the poor poet died. He was buried in the churchyard of Kilfinan. He has been regarded as the last of the family bards. He was a man of true poetic gifts; many of his songs are still highly popular, such as— “Nam faighainn gille r’a cheannach.” JAMES SHAW.—Poor James Shaw, otherwise called _Bard Lochuan-Eala_, was born about 1758. He subsequently lived at Ardchattan, where he received some kindness from General Campbell and his lady. He died in 1828 suddenly on board a steamboat when returning from Glasgow, where he was trying to get his poems printed. He has been described as idle and dissipated. _Bidh Fonn Oirre Daonnan_, one of his songs, is still very popular. DONALD MACDONALD.—Like the Bard of Lochnell this composer too fell a victim to his own infirmities of character. Macdonald, also called _Am Bard Conanach_, was born in 1780 in Strathconon, Ross-shire. He was a sawyer by trade, which he pursued after he removed to Inverness, where he did not fail to give scope to his convivial disposition. His moral conceptions of things do not seem to have been of a very high order, judging by his well-known song _Fhuair me Sgeula moch an dè_.