Buchanan the Sacred Bard. By Lachlan Macbean. (Simpkin, Marshall. 5s.
net.)—Dugald Buchanan was a Highlander of humble birth who came under the influence of George Whitefield in his famous mission at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, and devoted himself after the last Jacobite rising to the work of teaching and preaching in the Highlands. His religious verse in Gaelic has always been popular with the Highlanders. In this book Mr. Macbean gives a revised verse translation, of Buchanan's Spiritual Songs "—first published in 1767, the year before his death—and a version of part of his religious diary or " Con- fessions," a curiously interesting document which has parallels; in Fox's diary and in early Methodist writings. Buchanan was one of the pioneers in the work of civilizing the Highlands, for which the Scottish Church deserves our lasting gratitude. His simple religious verse, touched here and there with vivid Celtic imagery, pleased his fellow-peasants by its homeliness. Nothing could be less like Ossian.
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