Notwithstanding his exceeding patriotism it cannot be said that Livingston was either very generous or magnanimous. While haunted with painful suspicions he allowed the canker of vindictiveness to mar the finer elements of his nature. His envy also rendered him almost intolerable to all his Highland literary friends in Glasgow. But these, as one of them once remarked, could afford to prize all that was good in the bard and overlook his shortcomings. When this friend was dying William came to ask his forgiveness, which he was assured he had, with the remark, “William, my ghost will not trouble you.” This gentleman knew the bard’s selfish motive in asking pardon, and the superstitious reason for his so doing. Notwithstanding all this, the man was not many days in his grave when the bard began to attack him in a scurrilous letter in the newspapers, which, however, was not inserted. He might be described as a Celtic brother of Walter Savage Landor, whom he resembled in several respects. But the sphere of life in which Livingston was born, and his want of early education, ought to make us charitable in our judgments of the savage element of his character. It must be acknowledged, at the same time, that beneath the barbarian patriotism of his nature there lay a depth of tenderness and warmth of a grateful heart, which we discern in several of his pieces on individual persons. There can be no doubt, also, that many of his eccentricities arose from finding himself out of joint in the social world, where mere patriotism or poetic talent cannot frequently obtain the means or influence which self-conscious spirits so hopelessly look for. _Blar Shunadail_, a piece of considerable length and merit, was published in _The Gael_ after his death. The only other piece of importance is _Driod-fhoitan Imhir an Racain_, a poem of five or six hundred lines long.