Books and other items printed in Gaelic from 1871 to 1900 > Gaelic bards, and original poems

DUGALD BUCHANAN.
89
a blue great-coat. He was so highly respected that great
numbers gathered to attend his funeral, many of them
from a far distance. The people of Kinloch Rannoch,
fondly attached to him, wished to have him buried among
themselves, but that his kindred—equally attached to his.
memory—would not permit; and so they carried his
remains to his native place. A plain stone with a neat
inscription, marks the spot where his ashes rest, in the
burial ground of the Buchanans, at Little Lenny, near
Callander. In 1883 a monument was erected to his
memory at Strathtyre.
His “ Spiritual Songs,” of which there are only eight
in all, were first collected and published in 1767. His
“ Memoir of himself” was first printed in 1853. How
or where it was preserved so long does not appear; but
its genuineness is not doubted. It has been translated
into Gaelic, and is now, in its original shape, out of print.
His poetry is extremely popular, and has gone through
nearly twenty editions. No other book that has appeared
in Gaelic has been so extensively circulated. This is
undoubtedly due, in some measure to its religious
character; it being a work which can be conscientiously
and profitably read on the working man’s “ Great Leisure
Day.” It is also partly owing to its being very widely
distributed through means of the “ Colporteurs ” that
travel over the Highlands. Something too may be
allowed for its price, which is at present only threepence,
and a good deal still left for its own merits, which are
truly great.
Buchanan has been called the Cowper of the Highlands,
but his poetry bears little resemblance to Cowper’s. It
is much more like Blair’s, the author of “ The Grave.”
Once or twice he is indebted to Dr. Watts for his
subject, and partly too for his manner of dealing with it,
as in the hymn entitled, “The Hero; ” not that there is
discernible here or anywhere else in his writings such