Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 3

192 THE CELTIC MAGAZINE.
P
THE MONUMENT TO JOHN MACKENZIE, OF TH
"BEAUTIES OF GAELIC POETRY."
The following letter appeared in The Inverness Courier ; and afterwards
in The Highlander, The Inverness Advertiser, Ihe London Scottish
Journal, and The Ross-shire Journal : —
Celtic Magazine Office, Inverness, Feb. 4, 1878.
Sir, — Will you kindly permit me to appeal, tlirougli your widely
circulated paper, to the admirers of the language and literature of the
Gael at home and abroad, for their aid in erecting a decent monument to
one to whom we aU owe so much. If he had done nothing else than to
collect the materials for, and compile " The IJeauties of Gaelic Poetry," he
would have deserved this at the hands of his Gaelic countrymen ; but he
has done much more : he has written, or translated, over thirty volumes
of poetry and jjrose — secular and religious — many of which his country-
men daily peruse in their Gaelic vernaculai', without having the slightest
idea to whom they are indebted for placing these within their reach iu
their own language.
The monument is already ordered — a granite obelisk, 12 feet G inches
high, on which it is intended to place an inscription in Gaelic and English
— and will be ready in July next. In addition to this it would be most
agreeable to place a slab at the head of his grave in the ruined old chapel
in which he is buried, and in which it is impossible to erect the monu-
ment itself. At present there is nothing to indicate his last resting-place.
This is a positive shame ; but I feel sure that it only wants to be
known to be at once rectified by his many admirers. A sum of about £50
has been already promised, but a few pounds more are necessary to enable
us to carry out the proposed monument and tablet. The Gaelic Society
of Inverness has collected about £10 among its members. Could not
other Celtic societies do themselves the honour to follow the example ?
The following extract from a letter just received from Evan M^Coll,
the Bard of Loch-Fyne, is, I trust, sufficiently interesting to secure a
place in your columns ; and at the same time to rouse the interest of
Highlanders in this movement. ]\Ir ISI'CoU writes from Kingston,
Canada : — " From a few words in your letter of last ^lay, in reference
to your relative, John Mackenzie, of ' The Beauties,' and the monument
about to be erected in commemoration of his achievements as a Celtic
writer, I would infer that you think John and myself were not
personally known to one another. Unknown indeed ! Why, my dear
sir, John and I have eaten at the same table and slept in the same
bed hundreds of times between the Avinter of 1835 and the spring
of 1839, at which latter date I left Scotland for Liverpool, never
again to meet with him in this life. We, however, continued to oc-
casionally exchange letters up to within a year or two of his death.
It was in the town of Greenock that we first met each other, and that at