is not simply concerned go gather wealth, but who is ready to share it with the needy. Robb Donn turns his elegy into asocial document, in what is a highly refreshing way at this period." In 1759, Rob Donn enlisted in the Sutherland Fencibles during the Seven Years' War. After being demobilized following the end of hostilities in 1763, Rob Donn entered the service of Donald Mackay, 4th Lord Reay as a cattleman. Rob Donn, however, considered threshing the corn to feed the cattle he tended as beneath his dignity and employed a substitute to do the threshing in his place. This did not find favor with the estate Factor and Rob Donn was accordingly dismissed. After his dismissal, Rob Donn resided at Auchmore and Saingo until 1770, when Colonel Hugh Mackay, the son of former employer, became estate factor to Lord Reay and brought Rob Donn back into the Chief's employment. Robb Donn remained on the Chief's estate until his death in 1778. Both Lord Reay and the Rev. Murdo MacDonald were great influences on Rob Donn, and were celebrated in his poetry. Collection of his poems Although sometimes moralistic, Rob Donn's poetry sometimes also contained bawdy images, which were bowdlerised by later collectors; especially by Presbyterian ministers, who were major figures at the time in collecting and publishing Scottish Gaelic literature from the oral tradition, while also similarly censoring it. A major exception, however, was the Rev. John Thomson, who succeeded Murdo MacDonald as minister of the parish of Durness, and who allowed his daughter to transcribe Rob Donn's works uncensored and from the Bard's own dictation. Later editors and collectors were not always so kind, in other ways. For example, Rob's Strathnaver dialect was sometimes deliberately rewritten into a more standardised form of Scottish Gaelic, which destroyed certain of the effects and rhythms. In a diary entry 22 February, 1898, the iconic 19th century Gaelic poet Fr. Allan MacDonald wrote, "Read Rob Donn for vocabulary purposes. His vocabulary is more valuable than his poetry. His subjects are often enough coarse and treated coarsely. His reputation is greater than his merits. I should never dream of comparing him with W. Ross or Alasdair. Even Alein Dall is superior to him in rhyme, rhythm, and humour... Took up W. Ross and read pieces. His vocabulary has not so many strange words as Rob Donn's Reay Country Gaelic... He makes