Ossian Collection > Gaelic bards

WILLISM ROSS,
William Ross, a sweet lyric poet, who has been very
incorrectly styled, the Burns of the Highlands, but who
might, without impropriety, be called the Gaelic Michael
Bruce, was born at Broadford, parish of Strath, Isle
of Skye, in the year 1762. His parents were able to give
him a good education, and young Ross, at a very early
age, distinguished himself highly by his proficiency at the
parish school of Forres, which he attended.
His father having become a packman, and travelling in
pursuit of his calling over most of the NYestern Isles,
William, while still a youth, accompanied his father in
order that he might study all the dialects of the Gaelic
language at the fountain-head, and make himself thor-
oughly acquainted with them all. He was so successful
in this endeavour that he was reputed among the first
Gaelic scholars of his day. He is also said to have known
Latin and Greek well. He sang pleasantly, though his
voice was not strong, and he played on the violin, flute,
and several other instruments with considerable skill.
He became parish school master at Gairloch, Ross-
shire, and was very successful as a teacher. He showed
a great deal of kindness, which attracted and attached his
pupils, and possessed a pleasant humour with which he
used to amuse them and lighten the weary drudgery of
their tasks He held this situation, however, but a short
time. Asthma and consumption closed his life in 1790,
when he was only in his twenty-eighth year.
William Ross is a graceful poet, perhaps the most
polished of any of the Highland minstrels ; although he
is certainly inferior to more than one of them in point of
strength and energy. He is tender, and easy, and