TRANSACTIONS.

OCTOBER 3.-Upon Thursday, the 3rd day of October, 1872, the Gaelic Society of Inverness held their first meeting of the second year of their existence, within the Guildry Hall. The evening

was devoted to the election of members and other business.

OCTOBER 10.-Upon this evening a debate took place in Gaelic upon the question "Were the results of the battle of Culloden beneficial to the Highlands?" The discussion was opened by Mr James Fraser, commission agent, who, in an able and interesting address, maintained that the results were beneficial to the Highlands. The negative side was opened by Mr Mackay, the secretary, and thereafter a number of those present spoke upon the subject. The discussion was animated, and brought out many interesting incidents of the stirring times of the Forty-five. At the close a show of hands was taken, which was found to be in favour of the negative.

OCTOBER 17.-Upon this evening Mr Murdoch read a paper upon "The Celtic Sympathies of Burns," from which we take the following:

THE CELTIC SYMPATHIES OF BURNS.

Robert Burns, having been born and brought up among Saxonspeaking Lowlanders, is, of course, claimed and appropriated as a gem in the crown of the chief of races, the mythic Anglo-Saxon! No doubt his mother was an Ayrshire woman. It does not, however, follow that she was a Saxon; for Ayrshire, until very recently was as Celtic as the neighbouring county of Argyle. The names

B

66

of the old towns, villages, parishes, and farms are Gaelic; and so are the names of most of the people—as is the case in Wigtonshire and the rest of Galloway. Nay, until within the last two hundred years, Gaelic was the vernacular of all that country. So that the probabilities are in favour of the supposition that even Burns's mother was a Celt. Her maiden name, Brown," falls readily into the same preponderating scale. In the Highlands it is common, where it has two origins-the one through a literal translation, and the other through an accommodating corruption. The former, Donn, the Gaelic for the colour brown-the other is a corruption of Briuinn, the Gaelic of judges. Hence many in the Highlands who are called Brown in English are, in the language of the country, called clann a' Bhriuinn. The transition in sound from Briuin to Brown is slight, although in sense the stride is considerable between the colour Brown and the ancient Celtic functionaries the Briuins. Briuin itself, by the way, as well as the modern Irish Brehon, is a slight departure in sound, and more in spelling, but none in sense, from the real old word Breitheamhna (judges). Breith (pronounced nearly brae) is the verb to judge; Breitheamh (pronounced bre-av, or bre-u) is the noun which designates the official who judges; and Breitheamhnas (pronounced bre-anus) is the name of what the judge does (judgment). To return: William Burness, the poet's father, was, we may say, a fugitive member of a Celtic or Highland Jacobitical clan in the North of Scotland, and characterised by those qualities which bound the Highlanders to their country, their clans, their chiefs, and their king, so long as faith was kept and liberty could be enjoyed; but which, when these failed, compelled them to betake themselves to other lands.

So far, then, the Highlanders, from whose fruitful Celtic stem sprang the imperishable sons and fathers of song—Ossian, Oran, Ullin, Clan Mhuirich, Clan Chodrum, Mackay, Ross, Macdonald, MacIntyre, MacNeill, McColl, &c., would seem to have no slight claim to Coila's Rustic bard. If this claim be valid, as it certainly is plausible, it will help to account simply and naturally for his Highland predilections and sympathies. The object of his great love was Mary Campbell, a Highland girl; a circumstance to which the world is indebted for one of his best and most generally received songs, "Highland Mary." This love may, on the one hand, be traced, in some measure, to the kindred sympathy of Celtic blood; or, on the other, be regarded as the origin of that sympathy. Or, what is still more probable, this event may have roused to life and activity those inherited, but hitherto latent, Celtic tendencies and susceptibilities which ever after manifested themselves under the slightest stimulation. So that we may thus say that the Celt and

the Poet were at once awakened by the melody of love, as his muse expresses it in the "Vision":

"When youthful Love, warm-blushing strong,

Keen-shivering, shot thy nerves along,
Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,

Th' adoréd name,

I taught thee how to pour in song

To soothe thy flame."

Now it is not unworthy of notice that these very lines have certain marks of Celtic kinship. "Warm-blushing, strong, keenshivering," are as if imitations of Ossian or Donnchadl. Bàn. But as we cannot call them imitations we must trace them to the same fountain.

Allan Cunningham, after referring to Macpherson's Rant, says, "the genius of the North had an influence over the Poet's musings in other compositions. In 'The Highland Lassie,' the lover complains of want of wealth and of the faithlessness of fortune; but strong in affection, declares—

'For her I'll dare the billows' roar,
For her I'll trace the distant shore,
That Indian wealth may lustre throw
Around my Highland Lassie, O!'

In the Northern Lassie,' he utters similar sentiments; and in the 'Braw, braw Lads of Gallawater,' his hand may be traced by the curious in Scottish song." "Stay, my Charmer," if not of Highland extraction, owes its air to the North.

He shews a strong predilection for the ideas, the spirit, the poetry, and the music of the North. In his Highland travels he was quite smitten with the ease, elegance, and sweetness of the society, as well as with the songs and their airs. Of course it was seldom that much of the original richness of the poetry was conveyed to him by a translation, which is but a miserable cribbing, cabining and confining of the Celtic poetic genius, within the bounds of the language of a "nation of shopkeepers." The music, however, took possession of him at once, as strains of liquid language fraught with wealth and melody to every tuneful soul. So thoroughly was this music cast in the same mould with his own poetic muse, that he has several scores of songs to purely Gaelic airs, many of which had not before his day even acquired Lowland

B 2

names.

* Allan Cunningham again says, "I have said that he exhibited early symptoms of Jacobitism: his Highland tours and conversations with the chiefs and the ladies of the North, strengthened a liking which he seems to have inherited from his fathers." And Burns himself says, "By the bye, it is singular enough that the Scottish muses were all Jacobite. I have paid more attention to every description of Scots songs than perhaps anybody living has done, and I do not recollect one single stanza, or even the title of the most trifling Scots air, which has the least panegyrical reference to the families of Nassau or Brunswick, whilst there are hundreds satirizing them. This may be thought no panegyric on the Scots' poets, but I mean it as such. For myself, I would always take it as a compliment to have it said, that my heart ran before my head. And surely the gallant though nnfortunate House of Stewart, the kings of our fathers for so many heroic ages, is a thing much more interesting than .

All the above facts, sentiments, and observations go to show the same things-the Celtic constitution and predilections of Burns; and his observations relative to the Scottish muses generally being so Jacobitical, is to the effect that they were eminently Celtic. There were many Celts on the Brunswick side, but certainly all the Scots on the Stuart side may be said to have been Highlanders. So that in saying that the Scottish muses were Jacobitical, he virtually represents them as being Highland too.

And why should it not be added in passing, that even Walter Scott drew no small share of his inspiration from Highland scenes, sentiments, and lore, as well as from this same Jacobitism. Was not Byron's harp strung in the Highlands, and vibrated by the boreal breath of "Dark Lochnagar." Campbell, too, though born in the Lowlands, it was whilst in the Higlands, the home of his fathers, in the retirement of the glens and valleys around Duntroon, listening to the roar of the western waves, as, after a race of a thousand leagues, they forced their way through the gulf of Coire Bhreachdain, the beautiful pastoral picture of his retreat, backed by the rugged crags of Scaraba and Alpine heights of Jura, that the

*Of the latter are—An gille dubh, ciarr, dubh; Banarach dhonn a' Chruidh; A' chaora Chrom; Baile 'mhonaidh mhoir; Druimionn dubh; Failte na misg; "Gille Morice," "Hee baloo;" Latha Raon ruadhraidh; An Gli gearum chas; Mòrag; Oran gaoil; Oran an Aoig; Port Ruairidh dhaill; Rinn m'éudail mo mhealladh; Robaidh dona, gòrach; Iain buidhe; Tullochgorm; Coille-Chragaidh. Besides these, several of his songs are simply to "A Gaelic Air," and to "A Highland Air;" and some to airs whose names would seem to be in a transition state from one language to another.