If not the most powerful, this bard is certainly the keenest and subtlest that the Highlands have produced. His father was a native of Glenalchaig, in Kintail; but Donald was born in the parish of Petty, Inverness-shire, the date of his birth being 11th November 1756. His parents were poor people in humble life, and their son got no education whatever. But Christian teaching and Biblical knowledge became a deeply cultivating power in his case. He earned his livelihood by labouring at his loom, when he lived as a cottager on the estate of the Earl of Moray in his native parish of Petty. He lived to the good age of eighty-one, his death taking place in 1837. He was buried in the churchyard of Petty, where a small tombstone points out his grave. He got his poems published in Inverness some time before he died, under the title of _Spiritual Songs_. He has composed a considerable quantity of poetry, the most of which is first-class when the bard’s theme is of more than local interest. He combines the spiritual insight and holy sympathies of George Herbert with the subtlety of Shelley. He is the only bard that distinctly illustrates the tendency to mysticism in Highland religion manifested in some quarters. His profound self-analysis may be seen the poem _Luireach_:— Bha ’n inntinn dhiomhain riamh mar tha, Aig spionadh tràth na h-ùmhlachd, Mar eun aig itealaich gu h-àrd, ’Snach gabhadh tâmh ’san dùthaichs’. Is coslach mi ri madadh tàir’ Le lotaibh grannd a’ bùraich, Ach le a theangaidh a rinn slàn Na leòin a ta ’ga chiurradh, ENGLISH: The mind of vanity e’er so Obedience true o’er-riding, Like birds on flight in highest heaven And ne’er on earth abiding. I am so like that dog despised That with sore wounds is moaning, But with his tongue has healed his hurts That caused his painful groaning. MARY CLARK. This poetess—_Bean Torra dhamh_—who was the daughter of Ewen Macpherson, schoolmaster in Laggan, Badenoch, appears to have been a woman of great piety. She began first to compose in English, but her husband, whose name was Clark, persuaded her to compose in Gaelic. At the beginning of this century she went to Inverness to get her poems, some thirty in number, written, she herself being at that time blind, and also to publish them. Her works appeared some time ago, anew edited and very well translated by the Rev. John Kennedy. Mrs Clark is a natural and intelligent singer, but without much freshness or originality. The warmth of her religious feelings renders her pieces more readable than they would otherwise be. She died at Perth at an advanced age. MARGARET CAMPBELL.