None of the Gaelic bards had a wider acquaintance, nor a larger outlook of life than MacColl. But in the midst of all new associations and attractions, he remained at heart frankly and even sternly Highland. The following verse of an address (1878), to a well-known Highland patriot, Mr John Murdoch, illustrates this phase of his character:— I think I see thy manly form, Firm and unyielding as Cairngorm, The poor man’s cause maintaining warm, Just like a true-souled Highlander; I see the scorn within thine eye _As some evicting Chief goes by—_ One whose forbears would sooner die Than dispossess a Highlander. Before Celtic things were held in such esteem as they are now, or rather, perhaps, before their value was appreciated as recently, men of Celtic extraction like Macaulay and Charles Mackay wrote of the Highlanders and Highlands, not only without discrimination and sympathy, but without knowledge, and even in a spirit of savage contempt. The latter lived to express regret for his earlier conduct; the former had not the same opportunity of modifying his earlier impressions, and his Highland fellow-countrymen were not slow to declare their minds on the subject. Among those who sought to pay back the illustrious historian in his own coin was Evan MacColl. On the occasion of Macaulay’s death some one had written “Macaulay now is registered among England’s mighty dead!” On this MacColl wrote verses the first and last of which are as follows:— Hech, sirs! “Macaulay’s registered ’Mong England’s mighty dead!” Let us hope that he lies buried near Her first mean-mighty Ned. Scotland can never well forget The zeal of those two men,— The one to stab her with the sword— The other with the pen. * * * * * But let that pass,—he’s there—John Bull Is not so much to blame; He lived to magnify John’s rule,— John magnifies _his_ name. The wonder, after all, is how John could be fooled so far As a mere meteoric light To worship as a star. The warm and generous heart of the bard is revealed in much of his poetry. His little poem, _Let us do the best we can_, shows his sympathy with the struggling poor:— Mark yon worldling lost in self, Dead to every social glow; Wouldst thou, to own all his pelf, All life’s purer joys forego? Truest wealth is doing good— Doctrine strange to him, poor man! If we can’t do all we would, Let us do the best we can.