s with the magnificent Dorset. If Dorset out of his own purse
allowed Dryden a pension equal to the profits of the Laureateship,
Lochiel is said to have bestowed on a celebrated bard, who had been
plundered by marauders, and who implored alms in a pathetic Gaelic ode,
three cows and the almost incredible sum of fifteen pounds sterling. In
truth, the character of this great chief was depicted two thousand five
hundred years before his birth, and depicted,--such is the power of
genius,--in colours which will be fresh as many years after his death.
He was the Ulysses of the Highlands, [329]

He held a large territory peopled by a race which reverenced no lord,
no king but himself. For that territory, however, he owed homage to the
House of Argyle. He was bound to assist his feudal superiors in war,
and was deeply in debt to them for rent. This vassalage he had doubtless
been early taught to consider as degrading and unjust. In his minority
he had been the ward in chivalry of the politic Marquess, and had been
educated at the Castle of Inverary. But at eighteen the boy broke loose
from the authority of his guardian, and fought bravely both for Charles
the First and for Charles the Second. He was therefore considered by
the English as a Cavalier, was well received at Whitehall after the
Restoration, and was knighted by the hand of James. The compliment,
however, which was paid to him, on one of his appearances at the English
Court, would not have seemed very flattering to a Saxon. "Take care of
your pockets, my lords," cried his Majesty; "here comes the king of the
thieves." The loyalty of Lochiel is almost proverbial: but it was
very unlike what was called loyalty in England. In the Records of the
Scottish Parliament he was, in the days of Charles the Second, described
as a lawless and rebellious man, who held lands masterfully and in high
contempt of the royal authority, [330] On one occasion the Sheriff of
Invernessshire was directed by King James to hold a court in Lochaber.
Lochiel, jealous of this interference with his own patriarchal
despotism, came to the tribunal at the head of four hundred armed
Camerons. He affected great reverence for the royal commission, but he
dropped three or four words which were perfectly understood by the pages
and armourbearers, who watched every turn of his eye. "Is none of my
lads so clever as to send this judge packing? I have seen them get up a
quarrel when there was less need of one."