guage, classical allusions, and occasionally dialectic peculiarities, make him one of the hardest to translate of all the highland bards. Patriotism is his keynote. ‘Hè an clò dubh. … B'fearr leam am breacan’ is a spirited defence of the then proscribed highland dress. In descriptions of natural scenery he must be held inferior to Duncan Ban McIntyre [q. v.], but probably to him alone among Gaelic poets. His ‘Allt an t'Siucair’ is an attractive description of the poet's walk along the Sugar brook. In the ‘Moladh Moraig,’ a love song, he is passionate and tender. His luxuriance of epithet, however, has tempted some of his imitators to subordinate sense to sound, and in this respect his influence has been unfortunate. Besides the Edinburgh edition of 1751, there have been published reproductions of the poems in Glasgow in 1764, 1802, 1835, 1839, 1851. A seventh edition appeared at Edinburgh in 1874.
[Reid's Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica; Mackenzie's Sar Obair nam Bàrd Gaelach; Blackie's Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands; Moidart, or Among the Clanranalds, by the Rev. Charles Macdonald, Oban, 1889; Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 1884–5; Celtic Magazine, xiii. 265, &c.]
MACDONALD, ALEXANDER (1736–1791), Scottish catholic prelate, born in the island of Uist in 1736, was son of the laird of Bornish. He entered the Scots College at Rome 20 Jan. 1754, was ordained priest in 1764, and left the college 27 April 1765 for the mission in Scotland. He was stationed in the island of Barra, where he remained till 1760. On the death of Bishop John Macdonald (1727-1779) [q. v.] he was appointed to succeed him as vicar-apostolic of the highland district. The briefs were dated 1779, and he was consecrated by Bishop Hay at Scalan, 12 March 1780, with the title of Bishop of Polemunium. near Trebizond, in partibus. He died at Samalaman on 9 Sept. 1791, and was succeeded in the vicariate-apostolic by John Chisholm [q. v.]
[Brady's Episcopal Succession, iii. 466; London and Dublin Orthodox Journal, iv. 130; Catholic Directory, 1892, p. 61; Stothert's Catholic Mission in Scotland, p. 454.]
MACDONALD, ALEXANDER (1755–1837), Gaelic scholar, born in the west highlands in 1755, was received at the age of eleven into the Roman catholic seminary of Bourblach, in North Morar, by Bishop Hugh Macdonald [q.v.] He was afterwards sent to the Scots College in Rome, where he was ordained priest by dispensation at the age of twenty-three. In 1782 he returned to Scotland, and being a good Gaelic scholar, he was placed at Balloch, near Drummond Castle, Perthshire, to attend the highlanders resident in that mission. He was appointed missionary of the Gaelic chapel in Blackfriars' Wynd, Edinburgh, in 1792. Afterwards he returned to Balloch, and eventually he built a chapel at Crieff, where he passed the remainder of his life, except for a short interval in 1827-8, when be took charge of the congregation at Leith. He died at Crieff on 13 July 1837.
He was an admirable classical and Gaelic scholar, and was employed to give the Latin significations of the words of two letters of the alphabet in the 'Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum: a Dictionary of the Gaelic Language,' published under the direction of the Highland Society of Scotland, 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1828, 4to. He himself published 'Phingaleis, sive Hibernia Liberata, Epicum Ossianis Poema, e Celtico sermone conversum, tribus præmissis disputationibus, et subsequentibus notis,' Edinburgh, 1820, 8to, dedicated to Augustus Frederick, duke of Sussex.
[Stothert's Catholic Mission in Scotland, p. 586; Pref. to Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum.]
MACDONALD, ALEXANDER (1791?–1850), Scottish antiquary, was at an early period employed in the Register House, Edinburgh, where he assisted Thomas Thomson [q.v.] in the preparation of the ‘Acts of the Scottish Parliament’ and other works. In 1824 he was elected a member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and in 1837 joint curator of the society's museum. In 1836 he was appointed principal keeper of the register of deeds and probate writs. He died at Edinburgh on 23 Dec. 1850, aged about fifty-nine. Macdonald supplied a considerable amount of the material for Sir Walter Scott's notes to the ‘Waverley Novels.’ It is, however, as editor of the publications of the Maitland Club that he rendered most service to historical research. The volumes edited by him are: 1. ‘The Register of Ministers, Exhorters, and Readers of the Church of Scotland,’ 1830. 2. ‘Maitland Club Miscellany,’ vols. i. and ii. 1834. 3. Adam Blackwood's ‘History of Mary, Queen of Scots,’ 1834. 4. ‘Report on the State of certain Parishes in Scotland,’ 1835. 5. ‘Letters to King James the Sixth,’ 1835. 6. ‘Papers relative to the Royal Guard of Scottish Archers in France,’ 1835. 7. ‘Letters to the Argyll Family,’ 1839. For the Bannatyne Club he also edited ‘Registrum Honoris de Morton,’ 1853.
[Archæologia Scotica, vol. v. pt. i. (1872) p. 24; Gent. Mag. 1851, pt. i. p. 317.]
