same district. This reverend gentleman is said to have entertained a
scheme of getting the catechist regularly licensed to preach the gospel
without the usual academical preparation. The scheme was frustrated by
his death, in the summer of 1768.

We know of no fact relating to the development of the poetic vein of
this interesting bard, unless it be found in the circumstance to which
he refers in his "Diary,"[104] of having been bred a violent Jacobite,
and having lived many years under the excitement of strong, even
vindictive feelings, at the fate of his chief and landlord (Buchanan of
Arnprior and Strathyre), who, with many of his dependents, and some of
the poet's relations, suffered death for their share in the last
rebellion. While he relates that the power of religion at length
quenched this effervescence of his emotions, it may be supposed that
ardent Jacobitism, with its common accompaniment of melody, may have
fostered an imagination which every circumstance proves to have been
sufficiently susceptible. It may be added, as a particular not unworthy
of memorial in a poet's life, that his remains are deposited in perhaps
the most picturesque place of sepulture in the kingdom--the peninsula of
Little Leny, in the neighbourhood of Callander; to which his relatives
transferred his body, as the sepulchre of many chiefs and considerable
persons of his clan, and where it is perhaps matter of surprise that his
Highland countrymen have never thought of honouring his memory with some
kind of monument.

The poetic remains of Dougal Buchanan do not afford extensive materials
for translation. The subjects with which he deals are too solemn, and
their treatment too surcharged with scriptural imagery, to be available
for the purposes of a popular collection, of which the object is not
directly religious. The only exception that occurs, perhaps, is his poem
on "The Skull." Even in this case some moral pictures[105] have been
omitted, as either too coarsely or too solemnly touched, to be fit for
our purpose. A few lines of the conclusion are also omitted, as being
mere amplifications of Scripture--wonderful, indeed, in point of
vernacular beauty or sublimity, but not fusible for other use. Slight
traces of imitation may be perceived; "The Grave" of Blair, and some
passages of "Hamlet," being the apparent models.

[102] "Statistical Account of Fortingall."--Stat. Acc., x., p. 549.

[103] The same account observes that thoug