Before the plough of cruel eviction from their homes cut deep furrows into the Highland heart, the bards, such as Duncan Bàn, loved to sing of the pleasures of the chase; but the second quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed a change in this respect. A new, if not a revolutionary spirit—at least one of discontent—got abroad throughout the land. This “divine discontent” seized upon the Highland bards, and the burning strains of Maclachlan of Morven and William Livingston, no longer ran in the older moulds of Macintyre and others. The extension of the franchise, the study of history and the science of language, the growing sympathy with oppressed nationalities, the revival of Christian forces, and the increasing value attached to human life,—these and many other “cries of the human,” helped forward a movement which may be fitly described as a _Celtic Renaissance_. This Highland movement was reinforced by kindred and sympathetic influences from Ireland, Wales, and circles of social and linguistic learning on the Continent, until it eventually bore statutory fruit in the Highland Land Act of 1886, which constitutes an Imperial Charter of hereditary right to their native land for the Gaelic-speaking communities of Scotland. This was an achievement which even bards with millennial visions and hopes could scarcely look forward to a generation ago. The wails of the bards over Highland depopulation, however, nursed the people’s discontent as well as their resolution to assert themselves. A good proportion of the authors whose compositions come under notice in this chapter come under the spell of the Celtic Renaissance. Indeed this spirit of national resurrection is the vital force pervading their productions which would be poor and barren without it. EVAN MACCOLL. At the head of the Bards of the Victorian era stands Evan MacColl, who was born in 1808 at Kenmore, Lochfyneside, Argyleshire, where his father was a small farmer. Young MacColl eagerly seized on all the sources of culture within his reach, and at an early age became familiar with some of the chief works of English literature. He was born and educated in the midst of strongly Celtic influences and associations which continued to mould his mind and heart throughout his whole career.