Maclish

“ Next instant Crawford was away, heading blindly into the darkness, while the bellow of Maclish was drowned in the bursting explosion of the black sands of death. Then, as Crawford darted into the gloom, he lifted his head and sent up the fearful blood-yell which even to these far redskins was known in all its dread implication—the Mohawk war whoop.
“Sassakouay!” he shrilled it, and again. “Kouay! Sassakouay!”
Leaving that token to chill their blood, he struck out across the wet night. No man could follow this unseen trail with any speed ”

“ An aged man, in Highland garments, stood and knocked. His overworn dress looked fresher and brighter in the friendly rays, but they shone very yellow on the bare hollows of his old knees. It was Duncan MacPhail, the supposed grandfather of Malcolm. He was older and feebler—I had almost said blinder, but that could not be— certainly shabbier than ever. The glitter of dirk and broadsword at his sides, and the many-coloured ribbons adorning the old bagpipes under his arms, somehow enhanced the look of more than autumnal, of wintry desolation in his appearance. ”

“ Degraded is he who delights in its breath,
For its trade has been plann’d in the regions beneath;
Its curse has been wed to consumption and death
In bodies’ and souls’ undoing. REV. DUNCAN MACCALLUM.
This was an able minister of the Church of Scotland, who was for some time settled at Arisaig. Collath is a poem of the heroic kind, which Mackenzie had inserted in “The Beauties” as a specimen of ancient poetry! Mr MacCallum published it first anonymously, as he did another booklet in which he acknowledged himself to be the author of Collath. ”

“ An easel with a large canvas on it fell, and a man came forward with great strides. Liftore let her go, with a muttered curse on the intruder, and she darted from the room into the arms of Caley, who had had her ear against the other side of the door. The same instant Malcolm received from his lordship a well planted blow between the eyes, which filled them with flashes and darkness. The next, the earl was on the floor. The ancient fury of the Celt had burst up into the nineteenth century, and mastered a noble spirit. ”

“ Macklin was proud and impetuous, and often lost engagements, by offending; and regained them by publicly apologising. He was an actor well established in favour, when, in the season of 1745-46, he made his first appearance as an author in an àpropos tragedy for the '45 era, "Henry VII., or the Popish Impostor." The anachronism in the title is only to [71] be matched by the violations done to chronology and propriety in the play,—a crude work, six weeks in the doing. It settles, however, in some degree, the time when Macklin left the Church of Rome for that of England. ”

“ The young king had barely reigned a year when he had to encounter the old enemies of the crown, the families of Macwilliam and Maceth, who now combined their forces, and under Donald Ban, the son of that Macwilliam who had been slain at Mamgarvia in 1187, and Kenneth Maceth, a son or grandson of Malcolm Maceth, with the son of one of the Irish provincial kings, burst into the province of Moray at the head of a large band of malcontents. ”

“ MacLean, surprised to hear of such gallant conduct by the Kintail men in the absence of their chief, asked Mackenzie if any of his own kinsmen were amongst them, and being informed they were not, Maclean replied, "It was a great and audacious deed to be done by fellows." "Truly, MacLean," returned Mackenzie, "they were not fellows that were there, but prime gentlemen, and such fellows as would act the enterprise better than myself and kinsmen." "You have very great reason to make the more of them," said Maclean; "he is a happy superior who has such a following." ”

“ This earl’s eldest son was John Mackenzie, Lord Macleod (1727–1789) , who shared his father’s fortunes in 1745 and his fate in 1746. Having pleaded guilty at his trial Macleod was pardoned on condition that he gave up all his rights in the estates of the earldom, and he left England and entered the Swedish army. In this service he rose to high rank and was made Count Cromarty. The count returned to England in 1777 and was successful in raising, mainly among the Mackenzies, two splendid battalions of Highlanders, the first of which, now the Highland Light Infantry, served under him in India. ”

“ Shortly after that he took the management of Maclean's estate, and recovered it from the Earl of Argyll, who had fixed a number of debts and pretences on it, so by his means all the Isles were composed and accorded in their debates and settled in their estates, whence a full peace amongst them, Macneill of Barra excepted, who had been an hereditary outlaw. Him, by commission, Sir Rory reduced, took him in his fort of Kisemull, and carried him prisoner to Edinburgh, where he procured his remission. ”

“ At Tarragona he was so mortified with Sir John Murray's conduct, that he almost forgot that he himself was only second in command, and charged Sir John with incapacity and cowardice, for which the latter was tried by Court Martial - General Mackenzie being one of the principal witnesses against him. Full of vigour of mind and body, he took a lively interest in everything in which he engaged, from fishing and shooting to farming, gardening, politics, and fighting. He never forgot his Gaelic, which he spoke with fluency and read with ease. Though a severe disciplinarian, his men adored him. ”

“ Macculloch was, as I have stated, a native of the parish of Cromarty, and passed the greater part of a long life as a Society schoolmaster, on a salary of twelve pounds per annum. Out of this pittance he contrived to furnish himself with a library, which, among other works of value, contained the whole of the Encyclopædia Britannica in its second edition. Though full of compliment and gallantry in his younger days, he was for the last forty years of his life, so thoroughly a woman-hater, that he would not suffer one of the sex to enter his cottage, cook his victuals, or wash his linen. ”

“ The dramatis personæ comprised an Irish officer, a Scottish baronet, a Jew broker, and an English squire, the Irishman being the only disinterested character. Despite some opposition it ultimately triumphed. It was a great advance upon any previous dramatic effort of Macklin. One act was printed in the 'Court Miscellany,' April 1766. The following season he went to Covent Garden, where he played, 28 Jan. 1761, Lord Belville, and Miss Macklin Angelica, in the first production of his own 'Married Libertine.' In Lord Belville Macklin was supposed to have ridiculed a well-known nobleman. ”

“ There will be no Arminianism when I am preaching, and no joking; but maybe there will be some parables, oh yes, about the sheep coming in at the manse door for want of a fence, and the snow lying in the pulpit.'
"There is a cateran for you, and, mind you, a good fellow too. It's not greed sends him out, but sheer love of spoil. Would you like to see MacTavish next time he passes up with the cattle?" for Carmichael was emboldened by the reception of his sketch.
"Nothing we should like better, for the General and I want to know all about Scotland ”

“ There was a Stile for Tragedy!
Omnes. Ha! ha! ha!
Smart. Well, I wish his Farce may succeed, however.
Snarle. O so do I upon my word, Sir.—I have a great Regard for Macklin—but to be sure he is a very egregious Blockhead ever to think of writing; that I believe everybody will allow.
Omnes. Ay, ay, there's nobody will dispute that with you, Mr. Snarlewit.
Snarle. Notwithstanding he is such a Blockhead, I assure you, Mr. Smart, I have an Esteem for him.
Smart. Do you know what Characters or Business he has in his Farce? ”

“ Irish. Who, me? Not upon my Honour. I know no more of it than he that made it.
Smart. A Gentleman was saying just before the Play was over that you were to be the Pit and to speak the Prologue; is there any truth in it, Sir?
Irish. No indeed, Sir, it is as false as the Gospel. I do assure you, Sir, I never spoke a Pit or Prologue in my Life—but once when I was at School, you must know, Sir,—we acted one of Terence's Tragedies there, so when the Play was over I spoke the Prologue to it.
Omnes. Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Smart. I remember your Face very well. Pray Sir, don't you belong to the Law? ”

“ Macklin condensed and tightened Regnard's five-act plot into a two-act afterpiece; the role of the apothecary is greatly reduced into the stock London-stage Frenchman, du Maigre, who can barely speak English; the servant Lucy is more the English maid than the French bonne of the Regnard play who gave orders to her master; and the satire of Macklin's afterpiece is directed not only at lawyers and physicians, as in the Regnard play, but at Methodist itinerant preachers. ”

“ The men trusted her, believing she had the power of divination. In the morning they set sail for Gairloch - the black galley was full of the Macleods. It was evening when they entered the loch. They were afraid to land on the mainland, for they remembered that the descendants of Domhnull Greannach (a celebrated Macrae) were still there, and they knew the prowess of these men only too well. The Macleods therefore turned to the south side of the loch, and fastened their birlinn to the Fraoch Eilean, in the well-sheltered bay opposite Leac-nan-Saighead, between Shieldaig and Badachro. ”

“ Here the origin of Maclise’s illustrations to the legends is thus given by the editor of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine.’ “The artist, who had not then quitted his native city of Cork, was a frequent visitor to Mr. Sainthill (the author of ‘Olla Podrida’) , at the time that the first edition of the work appeared. Mr. Sainthill read the tales aloud from time to time in the evening, and Maclise would frequently, on the next morning, produce a drawing of what he had heard. ”

“ While Rob Donn is not equal to Macdonald or Macintyre in the highest qualifications of the poet, he is their superior in power of satire. His two rival bards have confounded vituperative language with satire, but Mackay never. He is a great favourite with his countrymen, who are very proud of him, and have laudably done all they could to make known his poetry and perpetuate his fame.
In many respects Mackay is a typical representative of the northern counties, where the intense Celtic spirit and feelings of nationality which characterise Argyllshire Celts do not prevail so extensively. ”

“ He afterwards made a tour of travel, and returning home in 1730 married his cousin, Janet Mackenzie of Scatwell, on which occasion a fine Gaelic poem was composed in her praise by John Mackay, the famous blind piper and poet of Gairloch, whose daughter became the mother of William Ross, a Gaelic bard even more celebrated than the blind piper himself. If we believe her eulogist the lady possessed all the virtues of mind and body but in spite of all these graces the marriage did not turn out a happy one ”

“ W. Mackenzie, his chief lawyer in Edinburgh; to every one of their underlings, to sheep farmers, and ministers in the county of Sutherland, who abetted the depopulators, and I challenged the whole of them, and other literary scourges who aid and justified their unhallowed doings, to gainsay one statement I have made. Can you or any other believe that a poor sinner like Donald MacLeod would be allowed for so many years to escape with impunity, had he been circulating and publishing calumnious, absurd falsehoods against such personages as the House of Sutherland? ”

“ No Madam, Posterity shall never say such a wretched Performance as the Suspicious Husband had the sanction of Francis Canker.
Har. Then, Sir, your humble Servant—I am glad I know your Mind. Our Treaty ends here. (Going, he holds her)
Cank. Dear Harriet, stay! Why will you urge me to a Behaviour so contrary to my Nature? Consider, Madam, how ridiculous it will make me appear to the World. Why People will think me mad.
Har. You are mistaken, Sir; they will only think that your good Nature has at last got the better of your Envy. ”

“ Malcolm had been a favourite pupil, and the relation of master and scholar did not cease when the latter saw that he ought to do something to lighten the burden of his grandfather, and so left the school and betook himself to the life of a fisherman—with the slow leave of Duncan, who had set his heart on making a scholar of him, and would never, indeed, had Gaelic been amongst his studies, have been won by the most laboursome petition. ”

“ He was a licentiate of the Church, and was lost to the place by receiving an appointment to a semi-Highland parish somewhere in Perthshire; when his fame as a teacher was transferred for half an age to the parish schoolmaster of Fortrose, a Mr. Smith. It was under this man, who is said to have done for the burghers of Chanonry and Rosemarkie all that Mr. Macculloch had done for the householders of Cromarty, that Sir James Mackintosh, so well known in after years as a statesman and philosopher, received the rudiments of his education. ”

“ These are the lads I can trust wi' my Charlie!"
Could any man fail to answer? Could any man die otherwise than gladly if he died with such an appeal ringing in his ears? Macleod did not know there was scarcely any more volume in this girl's voice now than when she was singing the plaintive wail that preceded it: it seemed to him that there was the strength of the tread of armies in it, and a challenge that could rouse a nation. ”

“ At the siege of Derry, three of his uncles were among the besiegers, and three among the besieged; and he had another,—a Roman Catholic priest, who undertook to educate him, but who consigned the mission to Nature. I have somewhere read that at five-and-thirty, Macklin could not read, perfectly; but that is a fable; or at eight or nine, he could hardly have played Monimia, in private theatricals, at the house of the good Ulster lady, who looked after him more carefully than the priest, and more tenderly than Nature. ”