Ossian Collection > Gaelic bards

XIV BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
After Mr. Pattison's death, the widow and family-
removed from Skerrols to Bowmore, and thence to that
charming sea-side villa, Fern Cottage, on a farm called
in Gaelic Bainneach Mhbr. The predecessor of the
Pattisons in this cottage was ]Mr. Soutar, the father-in-law
of the late Rev. William Barclay, M.A., Free Church
minister of Auldearn, Nairnshire. The Parish School of
Bowmore was about a mile from Fern Cottage. This
school has been successively taught by competent and
successful teachers, such as Dr. MacKintosh MacKay,
Mr. — Russell, M.A., Mr. John Taylor, and Mr. David
MacBean, whose son the Rev. John MacBean, M.A.,
is the Free Church minister of the well-known Gaelic
parish of Killin, Perthshire. Special reference may
be made here to two of them. 1. The Rev. M.
MacKay, LL.D., who afterwards rose to be one
of the Moderators of the Assembly of the Free Church
of Scotland, was the literary friend of Sir Walter
Scott, and of that premiei' of biographers, Mr. John
Gibson Lockhart. Dr. MacKay is widely known for his
accurate knowledge of the Gaelic language. When he
was minister of the parish of Laggan in Inverness-shire,
he acted as tutor to Mr. William Forbes Skene, who
afterwards became the celebrated historian of "Celtic
Scotland." Dr. George MacDonald, poet and novelist is a
near relation of Dr. MacKay. 2. Mr. John Taylor, the
learned teacher of the Greek and the Latin classics, whose
two sons, the Rev. M. 0. Taylor, D.D., the cultured
Professor of Church History and Divinity in the Univer-
sity of Edinburgh, and the Rev. Duncan Taylor, Avon-
dale, are honoured names in the Established Church of
Scotland. Thomas Pattison was one of Mr. Taylor's
favourite pupils. First at the University of Edinburgh,
and afterwards at that of Glasgow, the gentle, sensitive,
and shy student prosecuted his studies with diligence and
zeal. With his devotion to ancient and modern literature
he gradually became well acquainted with the princes of