have been indebted for much of the enthusiasm which led them to glory in
the wars of Montrose. His poetry only reaches mediocrity, but the
success which attended it led the chiefs to seek similar support in the
Jacobite wars; and very animated compositions were the result of their
encouragement. Mathieson, the family bard of Seaforth, Macvuirich, the
pensioner of Clanranald, and Hector the Lamiter, bard of M'Lean, were
pre-eminent in this department. The Massacre of Glencoe suggested
numerous elegies. There is one remarkable for pathos by a clansman who
had emigrated to the Isle of Muck, from which circumstance he is styled
"Am Bard Mucanach."
The knights of Duart and Sleat, the chiefs of Clanranald and Glengarry,
the Lochaber seigniory of Lochiel, and the titled chivalry of Sutherland
and Seaforth,[18] formed subjects of poetic eulogy. Sir Hector Maclean,
Ailein Muideartach, and the lamented Sir James Macdonald obtained the
same tribute. The second of these Highland favourites could not make his
manly countenance, or stalwart arm, visible in hall, barge, or
battle,[19] without exciting the enthusiastic strain of the enamoured
muse of one sex, or of the admiring minstrel of the other. In this
department of poetry, some of the best proficients were women. Of these
Mary M'Leod, the contemporary of Ian Lom, is one of the most musical and
elegant. Her chief, _The M'Leod_, was the grand theme of her
inspiration. Dora Brown[20] sung a chant on the renowned Col-Kitto, as
he went forth against the Campbells to revenge the death of his father;
a composition conceived in a strain such as Helen Macgregor might have
struck up to stimulate to some deed of daring and vindictive enterprise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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