Of that department of the Gaelic Minstrelsy admired by Scott and condemned by Macpherson, the English reader is presented in the present work with specimens, to enable him to form his own judgment. These specimens, it must however be remembered, not only labour under the ordinary disadvantages of translations, but have been rendered from a language which, in its poetry, is one of the least transfusible in the world. Yet the effort which has been made to retain the spirit, and preserve the rhythm and manner of the originals, may be sufficient to establish that the honour of the Scottish Muse has not unworthily been supported among the mountains of the Gael. Some of the compositions are Jacobite, and are in the usual warlike strain of such productions, but the majority sing of the rivalries of clans, the emulation of bards, the jealousies of lovers, and the honour of the chiefs. They likewise abound in pictures of pastoral imagery; are redolent of the heath and the wildflower, and depict the beauties of the deer forest.
The various kinds of Highland minstrelsy admit of simple classification. The _Duan Mor_ is the epic song; its subdivisions are termed _duana_ or _duanaga_. Strings of verse and incidents ([Greek: Rhapsôdia]) were intended to form an epic history, and were combined by successive bards for that purpose. The battle-song (_Prosnuchadh-catha_) was the next in importance. The model of this variety is not to be found in any of the Alcaic or Tyrtæan remains. It was a dithyrambic of the wildest and most passionate enthusiasm, inciting to carnage and fury. Chanted in the hearing of assembled armies, and sometimes sung before the van, it was intended as an incitement to battle, and even calculated to stimulate the courage of the general. The war-song of the Harlaw has been already noticed; it is a rugged tissue of alliteration, every letter having a separate division in the remarkable string of adjectives which are connected to introduce a short exordium and grand finale. The _Jorram_, or boat-song, some specimens of which attracted the attention of Dr Johnson,[21] was a variety of the same class. In this, every measure was used which could be made to time with an oar, or to mimic a wave, either in motion or sound. Dr Johnson discovered in it the proceleusmatic song of the ancients; it certainly corresponds in real usage with the poet's description:--