CHAPTER II.

THE MACPHERSONS.-BIRTH.-RUTHVEN, AND THE
RISING OF '45.-EDUCATION AT ABERDEEN.
RETURN TO RUTHVEN AS SCHOOLMASTER.-
EARLY POETRY.

THE biography of any man fitly begins with the
mention of his ancestors. To know something
of the race of which he came not only gratifies
a reasonable curiosity; but it helps or ought to
help us in forming a right estimate of what he
was in himself; and this is all the more needful
if any uncertainty attaches to his doings. His
race, it may be said, is the long shadowy prelude
to the drama of his individual life; and in the
course of nature his part is, in some measure at
least, determined for him there before he enters.
As we watch him, mostly an ill-defined figure,
strut his little hour upon the stage, and in the
twilight of the past do what we can to follow
him through the scenes of his history, it may
be useful to remember the character of the
prelude; it may sometimes assist a just under-

standing of his action at critical moments in his

career.

The Macphersons are an important clan in the Highlands of Scotland, mainly inhabiting the southern parts of the county of Inverness, and, in particular, the district of Badenoch. They form one of the two principal branches of the ancient clan Chattan. One had need to be a

Highlander to take a

proper interest in the conflicting accounts that have been given of the origin of this clan, or to describe its fortunes with adequate enthusiasm. In sober prose its members are the reputed descendants of one Gillicattan, who, as the name implies, was a votary or servant of St. Kattan, a Scottish saint; but some deny that they were native Celts and make them foreign adventurers, of the German tribe of the Catti or Hessians, mentioned by Tacitus. The Celtic name of the Macphersons is Mac Mhuirich. This they are said to have obtained from one Mhuirich or Murdoch, who in 1153 was parson of Kingussie, a religious colony in lower Badenoch, founded by Irish missionaries at a much earlier date. Upon the death of his elder brother without issue, Mhuirich succeeded to the chiefship of the

3

clan, and obtaining a dispensation from the Pope, he married a daughter of the Thane of Cawdor and became the father of five sons. It was from this office of "parson” that his heirs obtained the surname of Macpherson, properly Macphersain. Their history, like that of most clans in the Highlands, is a long record of feuds with other clans. They were often at open war with the Mackintoshes, the rival branch of their own sept, in the bitter struggle for supremacy: a struggle carried on at first by the sword, and then at law, and even still in our own day waged with the pen. Their disputes led them into antagonism with the Camerons and the Davidsons, and between them all there was continual strife and enmity. They were ardent supporters of Queen Mary in the sixteenth and Charles the First in the seventeenth century. They took a leading part in resisting the Earl of Argyle when he marched with a royalist army against the Earls of Huntly and Errol and other Catholics in 1594; and their chief, John Macpherson, stoutly and successfully defended the Castle of Ruthven in Badenoch, and afterwards fought under Huntly at the battle of Glenlivet. They led a rough and lawless life; the Highlands

were then, and indeed for long afterwards, in a condition little removed from savagery; most of the inhabitants had no intercourse with the outer world; and from the character of their country, a wild mountainous district with here and there a rude path, they had little means of communication even amongst themselves.

At the time of the great Civil War the chief of the clan was Donald Macpherson of Cluny, who with his three brothers, Andrew, Lachlan and John, fought on the royalist side and suffered for their allegiance. Andrew Macpherson succeeded to the chiefship in 1647. It is set down to his credit that of his own free will he assisted the rival branch of the clan in an expedition against the Camerons; but in return for his services he shrewdly demanded that a deed should be executed, binding Mackintosh to assist him and his brothers in such lawful action as they might be compelled to undertake. In 1672 Andrew was succeeded by his grandson Duncan, whose title to fame is an attempt which he made to have his arms entered on the roll of the Lyon office, as the only true representative of the clan. The Mackintoshes, enraged at this attack on their supremacy, appealed to the Privy Council; and

the Council, recognising each branch as independent, bound over the chiefs for the peaceable behaviour of their followers-a decision which was regarded by the Macphersons as a victory. Duncan died without issue in 1722, and was succeeded by Lachlan Macpherson, a descendant of John of Nuid, the youngest brother of the chiefs Donald and Andrew.1

Such were the men of whom James Macpherson came; and if most of them found their distinction more in the arts of war than in the arts of peace, their harsh life, while it made them rough, made them also a proud, sensitive, and spirited race. It was to William, the second son of this same John of Nuid, that he traced his descent. In an account published when he was at the height of his reputation, and probably written by one of his friends, it was stated that he was a cousin to the chief of the clan; and the statement was no more more than the truth. His family is there described, with a pardonable flourish, as one of the most ancient in the north of Scotland. Macpherson's parents, however, were not able to hold their heads very

See Keltie's History of the Scottish Highlands, ii. 211; and Wm. Anderson's The Scottish Nation, iii. 60-66.