The late Free Church minister of Glenorchy, Mr MacLean, was a religious poet of great power and originality. Buchanan, Morrison, and he are poets of the first order. The “Gaelic Hymns” of MacLean appeared in 1868 in a small closely-printed volume. The pieces in this volume are rather religious poems than hymns. A keenly æsthetical spirit pervades all that MacLean has written; and he has written more than any of the first-class religious bards. He is exceedingly rich in poetic illustration, and very profound in thought. He was a man of wide general culture, and he brought the power and fruits of it with him into the sphere of Gaelic religious poetry. But though his countrymen highly appreciated his able ministrations in that language in the pulpit, they do not appear to be ready to understand that they have such a deep mine of fresh and original thought in his poetry. The thoughtful reader, however, will at once feel that MacLean is a man of great culture and a poet of a high order, in full sympathy with man and the works of creation. Like Morrison of Harris, he is too profound for the present popular taste. Here are some translated verses of one of his best poems, on the scenery of his native place:— As I sit on the knoll, on the steep scarpy height, And lonely survey all that falls ’neath my sight, My crowding thoughts, stirred in their slumber, fast roll In currents resistless all over my soul. Loch Tay there I see with a beautiful shade On its bosom that’s pure as the breast of a maid; Like a child in sweet rest, in its fairy bed laid, Touch gently its locks ere its glory will fade. Oh fair is the vision before me outspread! Kind nature’s bright face that awakens no dread, The green woods where songsters attune on each tree Their throats for sweet warbling—beloved of me. The Dochart is rushing to Lochy’s domain To meet her, good woman, so gentle and plain; When they have embraced and are wed into twain His fierceness forsakes him, he yields to her strain. Glen Dochart, Glen Lochy, are bright to the view, With their corries of green when their dress they renew; With the shadowy nooks where the streamlet fast rushes, Where you hear the gay chorus of robins and thrushes. All changeless I see them, hill, river, and road, But where are the people that once there abode? Some rest in their graves ’neath the slumberous sod, But the many are scattered o’er ocean abroad. The smoke rises high from our house as before, In volumes encircling the same as of yore; But where is that father so kindly nursed me, And, gentlest of mothers—O, where now is she? The schoolhouse, unaltered, stands there all alone, But where the young friends of my bosom are gone? The schoolhouse is there still, but where are the boys With whom I oft tasted of innocent joys?