Knox’s _Liturgy_ by Bishop Carsewell, published in Edinburgh in 1567.
Carsewell, or Carsuel, as the name is sometimes spelt, a native of
Kilmartin, was superintendent of the diocese of Argyll, and well versed
in the Highland vernacular. It was he who, in the preface to his work,
denounced the ancient _ursgeuls_ or Gaelic prose tales as lying fables,
and inaugurated a clerical campaign against the popular ballads. Yet he
merits our approbation for getting into print so early a book which
modern philologists regard as uncommonly valuable.
Only three copies exist of the original issue,—one, complete, in the
possession of the Duke of Argyll, and two others imperfect. Of the
twain, one is now in Edinburgh University Library, the other in the
British Museum.
The Duke’s was lost for a time, but recovered in 1842, and doubtless
restored to its ancient place in Inverary Castle.
This rare book is five inches long and three and a half broad,
containing 247 pages, on the 246th of which occurs the couplet:—
Gras Dé is na thós atáimid
Ni ránuic sé fós finid.
And on the last page the following:—
DO BVAILE
adh so agclo an
Dvn Edin Le Ro
ibeart Lekprevik
24 Aprilis 1567.
In 1872 the Rev. Dr. Maclauchlan transcribed it entire for a new edition
which was published the following year, 1873.
Nearly another century glides slowly by after the printing press
disgorged Carsewell’s translation before any further Gaelic
printing—that we know of—took place, if we except the translation of
Calvin’s Catechism issued at Edinburgh in 1631. In fact, three
psalm-books complete the list for the whole of that seventeenth century,
namely, the first fifty Psalms of David with the Shorter Catechism,
published by the Synod of Argyll in 1659, exactly ninety-two years after
the Liturgy; another Psalter by John Kirke in 1684, and the Synod of
Argyll’s finished in 1694. Thus in the sixteenth century we have just
one Gaelic printed book; in the seventeenth, three and a catechism; and
all these merely translations from other languages.
Not till 1741 do we encounter any original work, and even then it is
simply a Gaelic Vocabulary by Alexander Macdonald, the gifted bard of
Ardnamurchan. So that till after the Forty-five, Gaelic Scotland had no
printed literature of its own—neither poetry nor prose of any kind.
Indeed, with the exception of a few reprints between 1702 and 1725 of
the Synod of Argyll’s Psalter and Catechism, and Kirke’s Irish version
of the Bible and Vocabulary in 1690, Lhuyd’s Vocabulary in Nicholson’s
_Historical Library_, 1702, and Macdonald’s, 1741, there were no
additions to the printed list of the Highlands till Baxter’s _Call to
the Unconverted_ was issued in Gaelic in 1750, Macdonald’s _Songs_ in
1751, and David Mackellar’s _Hymns_ in 1752. These two latter volumes
were the early precursors in type of that considerable output of song
and hymn and story with which we have been familiar in later years.
After them came, in 1752, a small book entitled _Hymn of Praise_
(English and Gaelic), Willison’s _Mother’s Catechism_, and next year
Macfarlane’s _Translation of the Psalms, with forty-five of the
Paraphrases_.
Between 1753 and 1767, Reid could not find that any Gaelic work was
printed, with the exception of reprints of the Mother’s and Shorter
Catechisms and Macdonald’s songs.
Like some slow-moving stream, the output was at first very feeble and
irregular, and drawn for the most part from imported sources.
In 1767, however, an event occurred in the Gaelic printing world worthy
of special notice. This was the issue of the New Testament for the first
time in the language of the Highland people. It was translated by
Stewart of Killin, with the assistance of Dugald Buchanan and other
eminent Gaelic scholars, and was published by the Society for
Propagating Christian Knowledge. Strange to say, the language of this
translation was looked upon at that period as perfectly free from Irish
idiom, and yet in Reid’s day, half a century later, it was regarded as
savouring more of Irish than of Gaelic.
The same year in which the New Testament saw the light in the ancient
dialect there appeared also the celebrated hymns of Dugald Buchanan, and
the year after the no less famous songs of Duncan Ban Macintyre.
As yet no Bible existed in the language of the Highlands, and attention
having been drawn to this fact, the Society for Propagating Christian
Knowledge set themselves to supply the defect. It was arranged to have
the Old Testament translated and issued in four parts, which were
ultimately published in Edinburgh as follows:—
Part I. in 1783.
Part IV. in 1786.
Part II. in 1787.
Part III. in 1801.
The first part contained the Pentateuch, to which was prefixed a
vocabulary of five pages and general rules for reading the Gaelic
language. The second comprised from Joshua to the end of 1 Chronicles.
The third, published last, contained 2 Chronicles and on to the end of
the Song of Solomon. The fourth was made up of the Prophets, and to it
was prefixed an advertisement, stating the use that had been made of
various English translations.
The Rev. Dr. John Stuart of Luss was responsible for the rendering from
Hebrew into Gaelic of the first three parts, and the Rev. Dr. John Smith
of Campbeltown for the fourth, which appeared second in point of
publication.
Their MS. translations were, before being sent to press, submitted for
revision to a Committee of Highland clergymen specially selected; and by
order of the General Assembly of 1782 a collection was made in all the
parishes to defray the expense. This appointment was renewed in 1783 and
1784, as the funds of the S.P.C.K. were reduced, and the outlay on
publication amounted to £2300 for some 5000 copies, with an additional
number of Part I. containing the Pentateuch. The whole work was printed
on fine and common paper; and until the early decades of last century
was looked upon as the standard of Gaelic orthography.
Considering that the Bible has since come to be regarded as a kind of
fetich in the Highlands, it is somewhat surprising to learn that there
was no complete rendering of it in the language earlier than 1801, just
a century ago. And apparently not till 1807 were the Gaelic Old and New
Testaments finally printed together in one volume. In that year they
were thus issued in England for the first time on behalf of the British
and Foreign Bible Society, who chose two different colours of paper for
the purpose—the one blue for the Old Testament, and the other yellow for
the New, which gave the book rather a polychrome appearance. The
impression amounted to 20,000 copies, each of which cost the Society 6s.
6d., though they issued them to subscribers at half that price.
Of the Gaelic Scriptures there have been fourteen different recensions.
From the time of the publication of Dugald Buchanan’s and Duncan Ban
Macintyre’s compositions in 1767–68, may be reckoned the real beginning
of the new era of printing, so far as the production of original Gaelic
literature was concerned, and that mainly poetry, for of prose the land
was singularly barren, except in translations. And it will hardly be
credited that from the introduction of printing down to the end of the
eighteenth century, just about a hundred years ago, if we exclude the
translations from other languages, and extra editions of books already
published, there were not in all three dozen printed original
Scottish-Gaelic works to be found. The day of copious issue had not yet
arrived for the sweet and tuneful Gaelic.
Even the collected MSS. of Macpherson did not appear in type till 1807,
almost half a century after his so-called translations electrified the
literary world.
Thus it will be seen that the nineteenth century was really the golden
age of Gaelic printing, for, with the exception of the straggling
volumes indicated above, the literature we now have passed into printed
book form within the last hundred years. From the beginning of the
century there was a marked increase in the rate of publication—an
activity which has been growing in volume and momentum to the present
day.
And now it will be found highly informing and even entertaining to
review the printed literature of the Gael, to consider its character,
its general features, and specially to note what the Highlander deemed
worthy of putting into type—his favourite books. Such a survey, in fact,
amounts to a revelation of character, and throws a wonderful light on
his recent past, his outlook on life, and peculiar habits of thought.
Indeed, the glimpse we get here of the mental composition and literary
limitations of the purely Gaelic-speaking or Gaelic-reading section of
our countrymen is really amazing, and if we did not know that they now
rely so much for their knowledge and information on the English
language, would simply be incredible.
It surprised Reid beyond measure that there were so many Gaelic printed
books to catalogue seventy years ago, and probably he thought the work
was well-nigh complete for all time, but had he lived to-day to scan the
amended and supplemented list, it would almost take his breath away, for
he expected the Gaelic long before now to be as extinct as the
Waldensian or the Cornish. He just gave it fifty years in which to “die
down and drone and cease.” People in general, even Highlanders, are
scarcely aware of the very considerable number of printed books that
exist in the native tongue.
But a cursory glance at the catalogue shows the derived nature of the
material. A large proportion of the volumes consists of translations,
and these translations, if we except the Scriptures, are almost, if not
entirely from the English. And here we are face to face with a most
striking fact. The literature represented, both in the original and in
translations, is mainly religious.
You will search in vain for the masterpieces of other languages and
other nations. The Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament, _The Arabian
Nights’ Entertainments_, parts of Homer’s _Iliad_, and Thomas à Kempis’
_Imitatio Christi_, are perhaps the solitary exceptions. All the best
literature of the world has been given a silent go-by.
And this is true even of the greatest English and Scottish works of
genius. You will not find Chaucer, or Shakespeare, or Bacon, or Gibbon,
Scott or Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle, or Tennyson here. Two poems alone
of Burns are translated, “Tam o’ Shanter” and “Auld Langsyne,” but the
great masters are to Gaelic print as if they had never existed. Science
is unknown, and art and philosophy; history, too, we may say, and the
drama. Whole departments of human thought remain practically
unrepresented, as if they were alien to the Gaelic mind.
On the other hand, works of religion, pious devotion, theology, and
ecclesiastical polemics abound, showing the peculiar cast of the modern
Celtic temperament.
And of all the books, that which has been most in demand, if we may
judge by the extraordinary frequency with which it has been printed, has
been the Shorter Catechism. We are confronted with the curious fact that
between the year 1651 and the Disruption in 1843 no less than seventy
editions or reprints of this document were issued, and this
notwithstanding the circumstance that it was also usually published with
the oft-printed Psalter. The version far and away the most in evidence
seems to have been the Synod of Argyll’s, though other versions, such as
Dr. Ross’s, Dr. Macdonald’s, Dr. Smith’s, and Morrison’s were in
circulation, besides various other Catechisms, of which Willison’s and
Watt’s were prominent examples. The Gael seems to have had a perfect
mania for Catechisms. And next to these in his estimation comes the
Psalter, with nearly eighty editions or reprints between the year 1659
and the Disruption.
These editions represent six important versions, without taking into
account other four unauthorised ones. The select six may be given in
chronological order, as follows:—
1. The Synod of Argyll’s translation of the first fifty Psalms,
entitled, “An Ceud Chaogad do Shalmaibh,” 1659; and the whole,
1694.
2. Kirke’s Psalter—a translation by the Rev. Robert Kirke,
Balquidder, 1684. This was the first complete version issued,
ante-dating the former when finished by ten years.
3. Macfarlane’s translation, which is just the Synod of Argyll’s
amended and altered by the Rev. Alex. Macfarlane, M.A., of
Kilninver and Kilmelford, who excluded many of the Irishisms and
added forty-five of the paraphrases, 1753.
4. Smith’s revised version, including all the Paraphrases, by the
Rev. Dr. Smith, Campbeltown, 1787.
5. Ross’s Psalter, also an amendment, by the Rev. Thomas Ross, LL.D.,
Lochbroom, 1807.
6. The General Assembly’s authorised translation, 1826.
Of these the most extensively used seems to have been Dr. Smith’s, which
ran through no less than thirty or thirty-five editions in half a
century. Next to his, in popular esteem, came Macfarlane’s, represented
by twenty. Ross’s and the General Assembly’s have also had a wide vogue,
especially in more recent times.
Besides the Shorter Catechism and Psalter, the _Confession of Faith_ has
been printed in Gaelic eleven times, and _The Book of Common Prayer_
eight times, and Prayers from it once.
Of English religious writers who have captivated the Highland emotions,
Bunyan takes first place with his _Pilgrim’s Progress_, eleven editions;
_Death of Mr. Badman_, one edition; _The Barren Fig-tree_, one; _The
World to Come_, seven; _Visions of Heaven and Hell_, four; _Heavenly
Footman_, three; _Water of Life_, five; _Holy War_, two; _Come and
Welcome_, four; _Grace Abounding_, three.
Then Baxter’s _Call to the Unconverted_ went through nine editions, and
his _Saints’ Rest_, seven. Alleine, Boston, Doddridge, Dyer, Jonathan
Edwards were also prime favourites, whose works were represented by many
editions, especially _The Sinner’s Alarm_, _The Fourfold State_, _The
Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul_, _Christ’s Famous Titles_,
and _Doomed Sinners_.
Though the Gaelic-reading Highlanders had apparently little appetite for
general English literature in their own tongue outside works of
religion, they had a surprising avidity for hymns, elegies, and sermons,
for books on the Church, Christian doctrine, Baptism and the Sacraments.
And we meet with such varied titles as _Voluntaryism Indefensible_,
_Christ is All_, _Apples of Gold_, _Village Sermons_, _Letters to
Sinners_, _The Unspeakable Gift_, _Fame of the Branch_, _The Rose of
Sharon_, _Call to Awaken_, _Salvation by Grace_, _Sacramental
Exercises_, _The Believer’s Hope_, _A Parting Exhortation_, _Blair’s
Sermons_, _Token for Mourners_, _On the Guidance of the Holy Spirit_,
_Short History of the Baptists_, _Lessons on the Sabbath_, _The
Declaratory Act_, _A Word of Warning to the People_, _Assurance of
Salvation_.
Topics of this kind abound. They formed the favourite pabulum of the
more pious of our countrymen, and to this day some of these or similar
theological productions may be found in almost every Gaelic household of
the North and West Highlands.
While English printing concerned itself first with such works as _The
Game and Playe of the Chesse_, _The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers_,
_The Æneid of Virgil_, _The Poems of Chaucer_, _Lydgate and Gower_, _The
Golden Legend_, and the _Morte d’Arthur_, Gaelic printing took to do
with religion. Knox’s Liturgy, Catechisms, Psalters, and Vocabularies
were its main concern; and only after the lapse of nearly two hundred
years did it give any attention to poetry or native literature of any
kind. The original bards, like all other English and foreign writers,
had to wait in the outer court of the Gentiles. But after Baxter’s _Call
to the Unconverted_ was issued in 1750 they began to come straggling in,
Mackellar with his hymns and Macdonald with his songs. And in addition
to Dugald Buchanan’s and Macintyre’s we have, during the following half
century, these books:—
A volume of Hymns published in 1770 by Macfadyen, a Glasgow University
student; and about the same time an Elegy and one or two other Gaelic
poems by another Glasgow student. Ronald Macdonald, son of Alexander,
published the first issue of old Gaelic poems, including some of his own
and his father’s, in 1776. Then followed in 1777 an anonymous collection
of Mirthful Songs, and in 1780 another of Curious ones; and a volume
entitled _Loudin’s Songs_.
John Brown’s, Margaret Cameron’s, and A. Campbell’s appeared in 1785;
and next year the better known collections of John Gillies, bookseller,
Perth, and Duncan Kennedy, schoolmaster, Kilmelford.
In 1787 Dr. Smith published his alleged poems of Ossian, Orran, Ullin,
etc., and those entitled _Dargo and Gaul_. And before the century closed
Kenneth Mackenzie’s, Alexander Macpherson’s, Duncan Campbell’s, and
Allan Macdougall’s compositions were all in type, issued separately.
The subsequent years, from 1800 to 1831, were most prolific in the
output of poetical publications. It seemed as if the Highland bards had
made a rival rush for the printing presses, and kept the busy machines
clicking. Among the names of those whose poems were then issued occur
the following: Dr. Dewar, Rob. Donn, William Gordon, George Ross Gordon,
Peter Grant, Angus Kennedy, A. and J. Maccallum, J. Macdonald, John
Macgregor, Dr. James Macgregor, P. Macfarlane, D. Macintosh, A. Mackay,
J. Maclachlan, J. Maclean, D. Macleod, D. Matheson, J. Morrison, James
Munro, A. and D. Stewart, R. Stewart, P. Stuart, P. Turner. And in
addition to theirs, and some other ten volumes of anonymous poetry,
partly original and partly collected, there were published within that
period the Highland Society’s edition of Ossian’s poems, and its
reprint, the one in London, 3 volumes, 1807, the other in Edinburgh,
1818.
If the Gaelic muse was at first slow in committing its productions to
modern printing, it appears to have cast off all reserve after 1800, and
every type of bardic effusion went to the press.
But of all the bards whose poems were appearing then, undoubtedly the
most popular was Dugald Buchanan. No other book in Gaelic, if we except
the Shorter Catechism and Psalter, has gone through so many editions as
his Hymns. In the comparatively short period of 110 years from their
first appearance they have been issued from the press forty times—so
great has been the demand for these vivid and impressive products of
Gaelic genius.
Next in general vogue to Buchanan’s comes Peter Grant’s _Spiritual
Hymns_, a book which has been printed at least nineteen times.
These three instances alone—the Psalter, Dugald Buchanan’s and Peter
Grant’s Hymns—would indicate that this is the type of literature that
has gone highest with the Gael, even if we did not observe how
frequently volumes of spiritual hymns occur in the list of printed
books.
By comparison such a classic as Alexander Macdonald’s _Gaelic Songs_ has
only reached eight editions, Duncan Ban Macintyre’s ten, and Rob Donn’s
three.
And this bias, so unmistakably exhibited by the Gaelic printed
literature, is not confined to poetry, but may be traced even in the few
original prose works that the language possesses.
Only ten such books appeared during the early decades of the nineteenth
century, and they are all religious ones of quite indifferent merit.
While of forty-five prose translations which were printed, either
through the munificence of private individuals, or as booksellers’
ventures, forty-two were of a religious and three of a moral kind.
There can be no doubt that this extraordinary preponderance of the
religious over every other type of printed literature in the Gaelic
list, has exercised its own baneful influence on the Highland character
of last century, leaving it lop-sided in some obvious directions and
rendering the Gael blind to the wider issues of life, and therefore more
or less impervious to new ideas. We can well understand his limitations,
if, ignorant of English or other modern languages, he were confined to
the books of his native tongue, as many Highlanders of the past
generations were. These books absolutely give him no knowledge of
science, philosophy, art, or even of the great literatures of the world.
And his own poets occupied, as we have seen, a somewhat subordinate
place in his list. Taught to look through one particular medium, and
deprived of most other means of vision, the unsuspecting Gael grew up
almost entirely oblivious of the march of mind, and for the most part
ignorant of the thoughts that shake mankind.
It is through the introduction of English, therefore, that he has been
getting emancipated of late years from the narrow outlook which his own
ill-chosen and limited printed literature affords. And it is the sudden
intrusion of this higher knowledge, rendering many of his theories
obsolete, which has so painfully convulsed the older generation of
Gaelic-speaking Highlanders in recent times, and left them so ill at
ease.
Though printing made its first inroad on the Gaelic language as early as
1567, it is characteristic of the race that the cream of the literature
only found type within the nineteenth century. After the early editions
of Ossian, Peter Grant, and Rob Donn, the following may be quoted as the
most noteworthy literary books that have appeared in the last hundred
years from the Highlands, namely: Dr. Norman Macleod’s _Caraid nan
Gaidheal_; Mackenzie’s _Beauties of Gaelic Poetry_, 1841; Campbell’s
_West Highland Tales_, 1860–62; Dr. Clerk’s _Ossian_, 1870; Campbell’s
_Leabhar na Feinne_, 1872; Sinclair’s _Oranaiche_, 1876–79; Nicolson’s
_Gaelic Proverbs_, 1882; Henry Whyte’s _Celtic Garland_, 1880–81;
_Celtic Lyre_, 1883–95; Mary Mackellar’s _Poems and Songs_, 1881; Neil
Macleod’s _Clarsach an Doire_, 1883; Dr. Cameron’s _Reliquiæ Celticæ_,
1892–94; Dr. Nigel Macneill’s _The Literature of the Highlanders_, 1892;
and Alexander Carmichael’s _Carmina Gadelica_, 1900.
In addition to the purely literary works, there are three other classes
of Gaelic books, intimately associated with the history of the language,
which have received considerable attention from the printer, and which
are worthy of our notice here. These are School-books, Grammars, and
Dictionaries.
Of school-books there were three series that ran through many editions
during the first half of last century, namely, the Gaelic Society’s
School series, the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge series,
and the General Assembly’s series. Besides ordinary class books,
portions of Scripture, especially from Proverbs, Psalms, Job, and the
Gospels were printed for use as reading books in schools. The first of
the above series dates from 1811, the second from 1815, and the third
from 1826.
John Reid apparently never heard of Fenius Farsaid or the “Uraicept na
n-Éigeas,”[35] or of the other MS. fragments, for he has the following
interesting modern account of Gaelic Grammars.
“The first attempt that we have on record of a Celtic Grammar was one
written by Florence Gray, a monk who was born in Humond about the end of
the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century; but we have
never been able to find a copy of it, or ascertain if it was printed. It
is probable that if it was printed it appeared about 1620, as we know
that he was living in Dublin in 1630.
“In 1639 Tobias Stapleton, an Irish priest, published at Louvain a small
quarto Catechism for the use of the Irish students on the Continent, in
parallel columns, Latin and English. To the end of the Catechism is
added a small tract in Latin and Irish, entitled, ‘Modus perutilis
legendi linguam Hibernicam.’
“After this there appeared various little imperfect compends of Irish
Grammar, but nothing of any real value until 1677, when there appeared
at Rome Molloy’s _Grammatica Latino-Hibernica Compendiata_, which,
although deficient in syntax and other important requisites, was
decidedly the most important work on the subject until 1728, when Hugh
M‘Cuirtin published his _Elements of the Irish Language_,[36] which
again appeared enlarged in his Dictionary, published in 1732.
“In 1742, Donlevy published at Paris a Catechism in Irish and English,
to which he appended ‘The Elements of the Irish Language.’ This has been
followed by the Irish Grammars of General Vallancy, Dr. William Neilson,
Dr. Paul O’Bryan, William Halliday, and one or two anonymous
authors.[37] It is said by Lhuyd, in the year 1707, that a Scottish
gentleman had then some thoughts of publishing a Scottish Gaelic
Grammar; but the earliest attempt known to us is by Malcolm, who, about
the year 1736, published _Some Elements of the Ancient Scottish, or
Caledonian Celtick, with some Observations_. In the year 1778 Shaw’s
work appeared, with the following title: _An Analysis of the Gaelic
Language, by William Shaw, A.M., Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.
Virg., Edin._, 1778.”
A second edition followed the same year, the published price of the book
being 4s. sewed. It is now very rare, but not of much account.
The next work of the kind to appear was Stewart’s, announced as follows:
“Elements of Gaelic Grammar, in four parts. I. Of Pronunciation and
Orthography. II. Of the Parts of Speech. III. Of Syntax. IV. Of
Derivation and Composition. By Alexander Stewart, Minister of the Gospel
at Dingwall, Honorary Member of The Highland Society of Scotland,
Edinburgh. Printed by C. Stewart & Coy.; for Peter Hill, Edinburgh; and
Vernon and Hood, London, 1801.”
A second edition, corrected and enlarged, was issued in 1812, a third in
1876, and a fourth in 1879. It is very much superior to that by Shaw,
and is still the best and the one in common use.
A smaller volume appeared in 1828, entitled, _The Principles of Gaelic
Grammar, designed to facilitate the study of that language to youth_, by
Archibald Currie, formerly Master of the Grammar School, Rothesay, but
at the time of publication Tutor at Prospect, Duntroon, Argyllshire. It
has never been reprinted. After him Neil Macalpine, of Dictionary fame,
produced one which went through four editions. The other grammarians
have been Munro, 1835–43; Forbes, 1843–48; Dr. Macgillivray, 1858; L.
Macbean; D. C. Macpherson, 1891; Malcolm Macfarlane, for the Highland
Association, 1893; Reid, 1895; and Gillies, 1896, the latter based on
Stewart’s.
A good Grammar of the Gaelic language is still a desideratum. Students
feel that those already in existence follow too slavishly the model of
grammars of other tongues, from which the Gaelic diverges, and thus
exceptions to the rules abound. Only a man of the Zeuss type, well
versed in philology and the original structure and peculiar idioms of
this ancient speech, would be likely to bring order out of the existing
chaos, and produce a book which would be a real help to the study of the
language. Meanwhile the student has to fall back upon Stewart, whose
outlines were put together when philological research was yet in its
infancy. Though Zeuss and Windisch have Gaelic Grammars, they are in
Latin and German.
The history of the Dictionaries is even more interesting. Michael
O’Clery is credited with the first attempts to produce a Gaelic one.[38]
His _Seanasan Nuadh_, or glossary of old words, was published at Louvain
in 1643. Other Irish lexicographers followed, as many as six
Dictionaries appearing before the year 1817 was ended, among them that
of the learned Lhuyd of Wales and Oxford in 1706.
The earliest in the Scottish Gaelic, was Kirke’s Vocabulary, printed at
the end of the Irish Bible in 1690, and consisting of five and a half
pages, on which the words were arranged alphabetically. Later, in 1702,
another Vocabulary of thirteen pages by him, including additions by
Lhuyd, was published in _Nicholson’s Scottish Historical Library_. This
one is not arranged alphabetically, but under twelve heads or divisions.
Neither of Kirke’s was issued by itself, apart from other
subject-matter.
Afterwards, about the year 1732, the Rev. Dr. Malcolm or M‘Colm of
Duddingston made an attempt to compile a lexicon, the material for which
was said to have been prepared by Lhuyd. He published a prospectus and a
specimen of the work, entitled “Focloir Gaoidheilge-Shagsonach,” but
although he was encouraged by the General Assembly and received a grant
of £20, the work never appeared.
Thus the first Gaelic Dictionary published in separate form was
Macdonald’s Vocabulary, 1741, written for the use of the Charity Schools
founded and endowed in the Highlands by the Society for Propagating
Christian Knowledge. Like its predecessor, it is not arranged
alphabetically but divided into subjects or chapters, like the
syllabaries used by the ancient Assyrians.
A more ambitious work was “A Galic and English Dictionary, containing
all the words in the Scottish and Irish dialects of the Celtic that
could be collated from the voice, and old books, and MSS., by the Rev.
William Shaw, A.M., followed by an English and Galic Dictionary,
containing the most useful and necessary words in the English language,
explained by the correspondent words in the Galic,” by the same author,
1780. The published price was two guineas, though it was frequently sold
for three and a half. Shaw’s knowledge of the language was defective. A
most furious Highland storm burst over his head on account of his open
championship of the Johnsonian side in the Ossianic controversy.
Consequently some of the subscribers returned their copies, but on the
plea that there were a good many Irish words in the book. Others, who
did not return them within a reasonable time, were found liable to pay.
The case had gone to the Court of Session, and the author won, the
judges finding that though he did not fulfil the terms of his prospectus
he was not guilty of fraud or deceit in the preparation of the book, and
when a definition of a Gaelic Dictionary was given they held that his
legally answered the description. From Shaw himself the curious fact was
elicited that, when picking up words among the Highlanders, he found the
task nearly impossible, as he had to pay them all except the most
educated, the natives being impressed with the idea that he was going to
make a fortune out of the language, and of course they should have a
share. In consequence he turned to the Irish peasantry, who received him
more graciously; and he had access to Colonel Vallancy’s MSS. But the
upshot was that the Dictionary did ultimately contain more Irish words
than Gaelic. And this, combined with his own unpopularity, gave his
controversial foes the opportunity to thwart him, which he resisted, as
we have indicated, by litigation. Ultimately he had to seek refuge in
the Church of England, where through the influence, it is supposed, of
Dr. Johnson, he got a living worth £200 a year.
“A new Alphabetical Vocabulary, Gaelic and English, with some directions
_for writing and reading_ the Gaelic,” by Robert Macfarlane, Edinburgh,
appeared in 1795; and in 1815 another, in two parts, by Peter
Macfarlane, the Gaelic translator of Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_,
Doddridge’s _Rise and Progress_, and Blair’s _Sermons_. The two parts
were also published separately in the same year. This was the only
really practical Gaelic Dictionary up to date, but on account of its
limited size was still very deficient
A prospectus for a more comprehensive lexicon was issued in 1803 by
Alexander Robertson, schoolmaster, Kirkmichael, and a few parts
appeared. Thereafter the Highland Society bought his MS., as an aid to
the Dictionary contemplated by themselves.
Since then there have been issued as many as five good ones, all more or
less well known and serviceable at the present time. The first of these
was by Rev. A. Armstrong, A.M., “in which the words in their different
acceptations are illustrated by quotations from the best Gaelic writers;
and their affinities traced in most of the languages of ancient and
modern times, with a short historical appendix of ancient names deduced
from the authority of Ossian and other poets; to which is prefixed a new
Gaelic Grammar, 1825.” The work was published at three guineas.
On the other hand, the rival, issued by the Highland Society of
Scotland, three years later, on somewhat similar lines, cost seven
guineas in demy quarto, and ten in royal. To an advertisement from the
publisher the following is attached: “This great work has occupied the
attention of the Society since 1814, and presents not only a fully
illustrated view of the Gaelic of Scotland, but surpasses in extent any
lexicon of the Celtic Language ever offered to the public in this or any
other country.” Armstrong’s and this one are by far the largest and the
best.
Next in order comes that projected by the Rev. Dr. Norman Macleod,
Minister of Campsie, and the Rev. Dr. Daniel Dewar of Glasgow, 1831. It
was superintended through the press and indeed mainly compiled by the
Peter Macfarlane already mentioned and his son Donald—both accredited
Gaelic scholars; and sold for a guinea. It is now known as Macleod and
Dewar’s.
Contemporary with it we may say, there appeared, in 1832, the first
attempt at a Gaelic pronouncing Dictionary, sold in parts by all the
teachers in the Highlands. It was originally issued as “A Pocket
Pronouncing Gaelic Dictionary for Schools in the Highlands and Islands”;
containing a far greater number of pure Gaelic words than any other
Dictionary, and three times, in some instances ten times, the number of
illustrations and examples in the large Gaelic Dictionaries, from the
Bible and other sources; also all words that are exclusively Irish
pointed out, and reasons given for rejecting them by N. Macalpine,
student in Divinity and Parochial Schoolmaster in Islay.
While Armstrong’s and the Highland Society’s Dictionary have only had
one edition, and Macleod and Dewar’s five, Macalpine’s has reached as
many as twelve, and was last printed in 1890. A small volume of
recognised merit by the Rev. Ewen Maceachen bears the date 1842. It has
now been re-edited by Dr. Macbain and Mr. John Whyte.
Lately Dr. Macbain’s own _Etymological Dictionary_, the most scholarly
work of the kind, has been published at Inverness in 1896, of which
interesting book a new edition may shortly be expected, so that Highland
Vernacular Dictionaries have had a goodly record.
One other department of this study remains to be noted, namely the
periodicals, a mere list of which suffices to show their character and
history. But indirectly this list throws a pathetic sidelight on the
waning fortunes, or may we not say, the expiring struggles of our
ancient tongue, as well as upon the number and variety of efforts that
have been put forth to resuscitate it.
PERIODICALS
┌──────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────┬───────┬────────┐
│ Name. │ Place. │ Date. │ Nos. │
├──────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────┼────────┤
│Ros-Roine (The Rose of the │Glasgow │1803 │ 4│
│ Field) │ │ │ │
│An Teachdaire Gaidhealach │ „ │1829–31│ 24│
│ (Highland Messenger) │ │ │ │
│An Teachdaire Ur Gaidhealach │ „ │1835–36│ 9│
│ (New Messenger) │ │ │ │
│Cuairtear nan Gleann │ „ │1840–43│ 40│
│An Cuairtear Og Gaidhealach │Antigonish │1851 │ 13│
│Cuairtear nan Coillte │Ontario │1840 │ │
│Teachdaire Gaidhealach │Antigonish │1837 │ │
│ Thasmania │ │ │ │
│An Fhianuis (The Witness) │Glasgow │1845–50│ 36│
│Eaglais Shaor na h’Alba │ „ │1875–93│ 74│
│ (Quarterly) │ │ │ │
│An Fhianuis (Continuation of │ „ │1893– │ │
│ above) │ │ │ │
│A Bheithir Bheuma (The │ „ │1845 │ │
│ Satirist, No. 1) │ │ │ │
│Teachdaire nan Gaidheal │ „ │1844 │ 8│
│Caraid nan Gael │ „ │1844 │ 5│
│Caraid nan Gaidheal (No. 1) │Inverness │1853 │ │
│Fear Tathaich (The Mountain │Glasgow │1848–50│ 25│
│ Visitor) │ │ │ │
│An T-Aoidh Miosail │Edinburgh │1847–48│ 17│
│An Gaidheal (The Gael) │Toronto │1871–77│ 6 vols.│
│ Issued afresh │Glasgow and Edinburgh│ │ │
│Monthly Visitor │ „ │1858– │ │
│The Celtic Magazine │Inverness │1876–88│13 vols.│
│The Highland Magazine │Oban │1885 │ 8│
│The Banner of Truth │Glasgow │1872–74│ 2 vols.│
│The Highland Monthly │Inverness │1889 │ 51│
│Cuairtear na Coille │ „ │1881 │ │
│MacTalla │Sydney, Cape Breton │1892 │ │
│Supplement to _Life and Work_ │Glasgow │1879– │ │
│Scottish Celtic Review │ „ │1881–85│ 4│
│The Celtic Monthly │ „ │1892– │ │
└──────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────┴───────┴────────┘
Of these it will be seen the most died in their infancy. The only
survivors in Scotland to-day are the Church Quarterly _An Fhianuis_, the
Monthly Supplement to _Life and Work_, and the _Celtic Monthly_. There
have been about twenty monthly periodicals tried since the beginning of
last century. Of the _Gaelic Messenger_, to take a single example, Dr.
Nigel Macneill says that the late Mr. W. R. Macphun, the publisher,
informed him in 1873 that the parcels of _Messengers_ sent to the
Highlands and Islands came back at the end of the year, _after they had
been read_, without any accompanying payment. Dr. Macleod, the editor,
and his enterprising publisher saw then that it was time to give up the
business. “Some who have lost time and money in recent times over Gaelic
affairs,” adds Dr. Macneill sententiously, “may find some cold comfort
in this incident in the experience of our greatest of prose writers.”
Further comment on that score is surely unnecessary. Yet is it not
suggestive of much that the only paper at present wholly written in
Scottish Gaelic is one published in Cape Breton, 3000 miles without and
beyond the Celtic fringe of the Old World?
Taken as a whole, we may see from this survey that the printed Gaelic
books extant belong to the past. They represent a type of thought which
has been largely superseded. And no modern outside the world of Gaelic
dream could live and thrive on them exclusively. Nevertheless they
represent the literature of a people, ancient and venerable, and as such
they will have a value and interest for the future historian,
litterateur, philologist, and ethnologist far exceeding what they have
to-day; and in translations the best of the bards will be read when the
language in which they breathed their poetry is no longer heard on the
lips of men.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE MASTER GLEANERS OF GAELIC POETRY
The work of the gleaner—Authors of the three most precious relics of
Celtic literature, Leabhar Na h’Uidhre, Book of Hymns, and Book of
Leinster—of the three Highland treasures, Book of the Dean of
Lismore, Fernaig MS., and Book of Clanranald—Advent of
Macpherson—Collections and collectors between 1750 and 1820—First
printed gleaning—Four nineteenth-century monuments, Campbell’s
Leabhar na Feinne, Mackenzie’s Beauties of Gaelic Poetry,
Sinclair’s Songster, and Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica—Other
recent gleaners and their books.
To the gleaners of the poetic heritage of the past we are indebted
almost as much as to the poets themselves; for what mattered it to us
that some Homer or Ossian had sung, if none of their contributions ever
reached us? An unappreciative age may allow its masterpieces to be lost,
but the gleaners will not suffer that. They treasure the best, many a
time snatching the fugitive poems from the verge of oblivion.
Sometimes they glean for the pure pleasure of possessing, as the miser
amasses his gold. Often they do it to share with others. In any case,
like the middlemen of commerce, they are the true distributers, for
sooner or later their wares reach the market.
Unlike that of the poet, the work of the gleaner demands no originality;
only a certain devotion and enthusiasm for the compositions admired, and
a certain critical judgment, the latter not always in evidence, and not
necessarily indispensable. Posterity does the winnowing.
To the gleaners we owe the original compiling of the three most precious
relics of Celtic literature now in the world—the Leabhar Na h’Uidhre,
the Book of Hymns, and the Book of Leinster.
It is away back in the latter end of the eleventh century and early part
of the twelfth that we encounter the authors of these. When the gloom of
the Middle Ages was settling down upon Europe, and weird apparitions
hovered round the camp fires and the cloisters; when the feudal lords
were building their strong castles and the men of peace their churches
and monastic retreats, to escape from war and disorder and general
wickedness, one might enter the precincts of the great monastery of
Clonmacnois in Ireland and find Maelmuiri, the son of the son of Conn
nam Bocht, busy with his pen compiling the Leabhar Na h’Uidhre. Many
times already had the sacred edifice been attacked and pillaged by the
marauding Norsemen, and even then it was surrounded by people rendered
violent and half savage by the disorders of the time, so that the
studious Maelmuiri with his literary tastes was not secure in his quiet
retreat, but in the midst of his peaceful avocations was set upon one
night in the church and murdered by a band of robbers, to whom
literature, most likely, had no meaning.
But Maelmuiri had already reared his monument, more lasting than brass,
in the book which happily escaped the hands of the ruffians.
It is the oldest miscellaneous gleaning we have, and contains, among
many valuable productions in prose and poetry, such ancient poems as
Dallan Forgaill’s “Amra” or “Praise of Columcille,” and a pretty large
transcript of the “Táin Bó Chuailgné.” The Gaelic of the former in the
Fenian dialect was so ancient even in Maelmuiri’s time that it had to be
heavily glossed and commented upon.
Of his contemporary, the compiler of the Book of Hymns, nothing seems to
be known. His monument too has survived the ravages and vicissitudes of
time, but without his name. A wonderful anthology it is, carrying us
back, as in the case of the other, to the days of St Columba, and even
further, to the period of St. Patrick. For here, in the _Liber
Hymnorum_, we have the Gaelic hymns of Patrick, Colmán, Fiacc, Ultán,
Broccán, Sanctáin, Dallan Forgaill, Máel-ísu, the prayers of Níníne and
Adamnan; a Quatrain on the Apostles; besides a variety of beautiful
Latin hymns with Gaelic glosses and prefaces. Among the more famous of
the latter may be mentioned the “Te Deum,” the “Magnificat,” the “Gloria
in Excelsis Deo,” and the “Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel,” so well
known to worshippers throughout the ages since then; and the three Latin
hymns of St. Columba—the “Altus,” “In te Christo,” and “Noli Pater.”
Many of these occur only in the Book of Hymns, except when copied from
it elsewhere, and may have been lost to posterity, but for the industry
of the unknown gleaner now no more remembered.
Maelmuiri and he, in all probability had made their collection before
the close of the eleventh century; and fifty years later appeared the
compiler,[39] who produced the Book of Leinster, containing no less than
187 romances in prose and poetry. After the Leabhar Na h’Uidhre this is
reckoned the most important monument of Gaelic literature.
The stories recorded relate to events which for the most part happened
before the year 650, and their interest and variety may be inferred from
the following category of subjects, into which they have been
classified, namely: destructions of fortified places, cow-spoils,
courtships, battles, cave-stories, voyagings, tragic deaths, feasts,
sieges, adventures, elopements, slaughters, water-eruptions,
expeditions, progresses, and visions. A book of old-time and abundant
human incident is this middle-age document.
In succession to these three master-gleaners there arose numerous other
less famous ones in Ireland.
But our special quest carries us over from this time to the land famed
in later song and story as the home of the Gaelic tongue. And coming to
Scotland three other monuments of Celtic industry and literary taste
arise to view, covering the period extending from the fourteenth century
to the Forty-five. They are the Book of the Dean of Lismore, the Fernaig
MS., and the Book of Clanranald. These having been described in detail
in Chapter VII., demand no more than a passing reference here. Happily,
more is known of their authors than of the compilers of their famous
precursors.
It was in that wild and turbulent period of clan feuds in the Northern
and Western Highlands, and family quarrels between the Douglases and
their rivals in the Lowlands, almost half a century before the Scottish
Reformation, that the Dean of Lismore in his island home near Oban, set
about collecting his fund of Gaelic poetry. In 1512, just the year
before Flodden, he began to write down what he gleaned from oral
recitation throughout the Highlands and Ireland, and continued with the
help of his brother down to the year 1526, thus conserving not only the
poetry of his own generation and of two previous centuries, but also
most beautiful and characteristic fragments of Ossianic poems, some of
which, but for him, would have been irretrievably lost.
A hundred and sixty years pass stormfully by before we meet the next
gleaner in this field of poetic literature. And then arose among the
wild Macraes of Kintail the chief of that name, Donnachadh nam Piòs,
full of piety and song. Amid the tumults of the Revolution of 1688,
while Claverhouse was leading the clans on to fateful Killiecrankie, and
Cannon and Buchan were ravaging the Northern Highlands, this friend of
the Muses, and learned chieftain, found a pastime in making of verse and
committing to manuscript, thousands of lines of poetry current in his
own district, from Carsewell’s day down to his own, and in point of
place from Southern Argyllshire north to the borders of Caithness.
This representative gleaning carries the bardic succession over the long
interval since the Dean’s time, and it is a pity that though the Fernaig
manuscript has been transcribed and annotated by Professor Mackinnon,
and again transcribed by Dr. Cameron and Dr. Macbain, and partly
transliterated by Dr. Henderson, no English rendering has yet been
published.
The poems in the Book of Clanranald are not of the same high order as
the earlier survivals, with the exception of the two or three Ossianic
fragments, which are likewise to be found elsewhere. But they supplement
the Fernaig collection, and help to bring down the poetic tradition
nearer the Forty-five. It is to the Macvurichs—the descendants of
Muireach Albanach, and the hereditary bards of Clanranald—that we owe
this contribution to the gleanings of poetising in by-gone days. They
collected throughout their successive generations chiefly elegies and
eulogies, from the time of Charles the First to George the Second.
A new era of enthusiasm for bardic compositions opened with the advent
of Macpherson and his publication in June 1760 of “Fragments of Ancient
Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland.” The rich field of Celtic
lore in the past was by this time almost unknown. Few interested
themselves in the Celtic literature of their country. The Book of the
Dean of Lismore lay in obscurity, nobody now knows where. For centuries
it had never been heard of. The Fernaig MS. and the Book of Clanranald
were equally buried, perhaps in old clan chests or lumber-rooms. No
better evidence of the great dearth in the land of master-gleaners could
be adduced than the challenge of Dr. Johnson, that there were not in the
whole world Gaelic MSS. one hundred years old, and the feeble way in
which it was met.
Interest in these days had reached a very low ebb indeed, when the
controversy over Macpherson’s _Ossian_ set the Celts a-searching.
Macpherson himself, first in the field of these newly awakened
enthusiasts, is believed, in the course of his journey through the
North-West Highlands, to have gleaned the best of what remained of the
treasure. But for him it is highly probable there would be no Scottish
collection of Gaelic MSS. in the Advocates’ Library to-day. Many of them
were already on their way to decay, as their tattered appearance shows.
Besides the work of the Highland Society and the stock in hand of the
Kilbride family, it is quite remarkable the number of minor collections
that were made between the years 1750 and 1820. This period was, in
fact, a resurrected Ossianic cycle. It would be tedious, and quite
unnecessary here to catalogue all the names, but we may mention the
Turner, the Jerome Stone, the Macnicol, the Fletcher, the Campbell, the
Gillies, the Irvine, the Macpherson, the Kennedy, the Sir George
Mackenzie, the Sinclair, the Sage, the Macfarlane, the Grant, and the
Maccallum collections. And among these gleaners, the baronet, the
clergy, the teacher, the farmer, the printer, the soldier, the advocate,
the traveller, are all represented.
It is curious now, looking back on the great Macpherson Ossianic
controversy, which called forth all this industry, this laborious
writing and research, to reflect on its rise and progress. Doubtless it
was felt then, as it is recognised now, that the only real way to solve
the riddle was to glean in the fields of poetry and history—a task prior
to that period too much neglected. They wanted data. Had they the
records we now possess, and had they been able to read the ancient
scrolls, there would have been no literary wrangle. How quietly and
naturally the question, then a problem, has with the advent of
scientific scholarship solved itself. As a controversy the Macpherson
squabble is now as extinct as the dodo. And the Celtic champions who
heralded the dawn of last century, as we did of this, would perhaps be
almost as much taken aback with the issue could they know, as with the
wonders of steam or electricity and the camera.
It is an interesting fact that the earliest to achieve a printed
collection of ancient Gaelic poetry was Ronald Macdonald, son of the
Ardnamurchan bard, who published a volume in 1776, presumably from
materials treasured by his father.
But if through the past centuries the master gleaners appeared only at
rare intervals, the nineteenth has not been thus barren. For almost
simultaneously with the Celtic renaissance abroad, enthusiastic
harvesters entered the field at home. Four works especially, all
produced within the last sixty years, call for particular attention.
Following the modern method, their authors have each taken up a special
line, ransacking the past and the present for their own peculiar pearls.
And thus for the first time the whole Scottish field of Gaelic poetry
has been well-nigh gone over, and representative poems of every age and
class have been gleaned and printed.
First in the order of the antiquity of its contents, though not first in
the field, comes Campbell’s _Leabhar na Feinne_. It appeared in 1872,
its title page announcement sufficiently indicating its aim and scope.
As a sub-title, the latter runs as follows:—
“Heroic Gaelic Ballads
Collected in Scotland
Chiefly from 1512 to 1871
copied from old manuscripts preserved at Edinburgh and elsewhere, and
from rare books; and orally collected since 1859; with lists of
collections and of their contents; and with a short account of the
documents quoted.
Arranged by
J. F. Campbell,
Niddry Lodge, Kensington, London, W.”
The author, who was a barrister, and of an ancient and illustrious
Highland family in Islay, spent twelve years from 1859 collecting
folk-lore and poetry as opportunity offered throughout the Highlands, a
work in which he was assisted by various contributors and coadjutors.
His first book, entitled _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, orally
collected, was published in Edinburgh in 1862. There are four volumes,
and they contain mainly prose stories, such as were wont to be repeated
round the firesides in the Highland Ceilidh in days of yore. Yet,
commingled with the Sgeulachdan, are to be found Ossianic fragments
which had filtered down by oral tradition.
This publication, however, was but a stepping-stone to the author’s real
_magnum opus_, the _Leabhar na Feinne_.
For it, he collected about 54,000 lines of heroic poetry, and these it
will be observed are independent of the Irish MSS., and almost of the
Scottish MSS. written in the Irish character before the year 1512. With
regard to the latter he says, “To publish them is more than I am able to
do. Where extracts have been made I have quoted a few passages to show
what the language is like, and how these ancient writings correspond to
later writings.”
Since in many cases he had two or more versions of the same ballad, and
in some cases five or six, it was his original intention to collate and
make one perfect copy. This idea he had ultimately to abandon, and
wisely followed the plan of printing the oldest, with selections from
later versions. Of the first Ossianic fragment he attempted to collate
from two versions, namely, Garbh Mac Stairn, he says, “not a line of
Macpherson’s Gaelic was in either version, but the story seemed to be
the foundation of the first book of Fingal, and therefore a literary
curiosity.” It is significant that when Campbell issued his first book
he favoured the authenticity of Macpherson’s _Ossian_, but by the time
_Leabhar na Feinne_ appeared he was strong the other way. His early
attitude he attributed to “unformed opinions affected by old beliefs.”
The ballads of _Leabhar na Feinne_ are arranged under nine heads,
according to their chronological sequence, as follows:—
I. The Story of Cuchulinn.
II. The Story of Deirdre.
III. The Story of Fraoch.
IV. The Story of Fionn and the Feinn, including the Norse Ballads.
V. Parodies.
VI. Later Heroic Ballads.
VII. Mythical Ballads.
VIII. Poems like Macpherson’s _Ossian_.
IX. Pope’s collection of ten Ballads.
These heroic tales read like the _Arabian Nights_, often with the
exaggerated fancy of _Don Quixote_. The extraordinary variety and human
interest of the ballads may be gleaned even from their names. For
example: The Story of Cuchulinn and Eimer, his wife; his sword; his
chariots; Garbh Mac Stairn; and Conlaoch; and Connal’s revenge. The
Story of Fionn and his Feinn; his pedigree; stories about his birth;
Ossian and Padruig; Ossian’s last hunt; how he got his sight; the loss
of the Fenian history; Ossian’s controversy with Padruig; his lament for
his comrades; their names; their favourite music; how nine went forth to
seek a whelp. Caoilte; how he slew a magic boar and a giant.
The following would pass as the titles of chapters in the great classic
of Cervantes: The adventure with the timbrel player; With Silhalan; The
adventure of the hag; The stealing of Fionn’s cup; The adventure with
the enchanter’s family; Roc, the King’s one-legged runner; The smithy
song, how they got swords; The one-eyed giantess and her ships; The
battle with Manus; Fionn’s expedition to Lochlan; His puzzle; His
enchantment in the rowan booth; The adventure of the nine with a
horseman; The adventure in the house of the king of the fair strangers;
The Black Dog slain by Bran; The adventure of the six at the golden
castle; The tightest fight of the Feinn; The expedition of eight or of
the six to foreign lands; The distressed maiden; The battle of Fair
Strand, in which the Feinn defeated the whole world in arms; The maid of
the fair white garment; Ossian’s courting; How Bran was killed and
Gaul’s dog; Fionn’s encounter of wits with Ailbhe, Cormac’s daughter;
The elopement of Grainne, Fionn’s wife, with Diarmad, Fionn’s nephew;
Diarmad’s lament for his comrades; The story of Gaul Macmorna; his
adventure with Lamh-fhad; Gaul’s last words to his wife.
The parodies have these headings: The black wrapper; A dream; The tailor
and the Feinn; The truiseal stone; Diarmad’s speech.
Among later heroical ballads occur subjects like these: The lay of the
great fool; Oscar and the giant; Muirchadh Mac Brian and the heiress of
Dublin; Muirchadh Mac Brian’s riding dress; Hugh O’Neil’s horse.
Such sumptuous narrative, spiced with no lack of imaginative detail,
might satisfy even Chaucer’s merry group as they foregathered to listen
to the story-telling at the Tabard Inn centuries ago.
In 1841, some thirty years before _Leabhar na Feinne_, Mackenzie’s
_Beauties of Gaelic Poetry_ appeared. It is a work of more general
interest than the other, in so far that it gives gems of every type of
poem. Here are to be found in concise compass the best productions of
the best bards during the last 300 years, with brief biographical
sketches, critical and explanatory notes, and other elucidations.
John Mackenzie, the compiler, was born in 1806 of humble parentage in
Gairloch, Ross-shire. Educated in the parish school there, and
afterwards at Tain Academy, he developed a taste for reading and music,
and became very proficient in the making of musical instruments. His
father had him started in life as an apprentice joiner in Dingwall. This
occupation he soon left, however, for more congenial literary work, such
as the collecting of poetical material for publication. On leaving his
native strath to push his way in the great cities of the South, he acted
for a time as book-keeper in the Glasgow University printing office, and
in addition to compiling “The Beauties,” wrote much in prose. Afterwards
the late Gaelic publishers, Maclachlan and Stewart, Edinburgh, employed
him on various undertakings for several years. Besides “The Beauties” he
wrote a “History of Prince Charlie,” the English-Gaelic Dictionary,
usually bound with Macalpine’s, the “Gaelic Melodist,” and compiled,
wrote, translated, or edited under surprising difficulties, about thirty
other works.
A man of talent and industry, Mackenzie has produced a book which not
only enhances the prestige of our native literature, but also places
himself in the front rank of Gaelic gleaners.
Like the Dean of Lismore, however, he has inserted certain matters which
critics feel might, with advantage, be omitted, as they detract from the
dignity of the work as a whole.
On the other hand, the author of _Leabhar na Feinne_ feels aggrieved
that Mackenzie has not included among “The Beauties” some of the ancient
heroic ballads of Ossianic origin. As well might objection be taken to
Mr. Campbell himself for omitting the heroic poetry in the Irish MSS.
and the Scottish MSS. written in the old Gaelic script. As a matter of
fact, Mackenzie does give as samples three very beautiful pieces, the
“Mordubh,” “Collath,” and “The Aged Bard’s Wish,” which he took to be
ancient, but which are now held to belong to the Macpherson period.
Both compilers did well to follow each his own plan and work out his own
ideal. The field has thus been all the better harvested.
Mackenzie’s undertaking seems to have early undermined his health, and
though usually resident in the South, he died at Inverewe on the 19th
day of August 1848, among his own people, and was buried with his
fathers in the old chapel in the churchyard of Gairloch, near which, at
the roadside, a monument now stands to his memory.
A few specimen extracts from “The Beauties” may here be quoted to
illustrate their quality. Of the three earlier poems “The Aged Bard’s
Wish” is the best known, and of it our author gives both the text and a
literal translation. It was Mrs. Grant of Laggan who first brought it
under public notice, and then it was considered ancient because there is
no flavour of Christianity in its composition. On the contrary, the bard
desires entrance at death into the hall where dwell Ossian and Daol, and
expresses the wish that there be laid by his side at the last a harp, a
shell full of liquor, and his ancestor’s shield. In other respects both
the language and sentiment are modern.
O càiraibh mi ri taobh nan allt
A shiubhlas mall le ceumaibh ciuin
Fo sgâil a bharraich leag mo cheann
’S bi thùs’ a ghrian ro-chàirdeil rium.
O place me by the purling brook,
That wimples gently down the lea,
Under the old tree’s branchy shade,
And thou, bright sun, be kind to me!
Where I may hear the waterfall,
And the hum of its falling wave,
And give me the harp and the shell and the shield
Of my sires in the strife of the brave.
Of Macintyre’s “Ben Dorain,” which is also included, Professor Blackie
says, “I shall be surprised to learn that there exists in any language,
ancient or modern, a more original poem of the genus which we may call
venatorial. What Landseer, in a sister art, has done for animals in
general, that Macintyre, in this singular work, has done for the deer
and the roe.” And then Blackie himself gives a characteristic rendering
into English of the poem, very free, but catching the spirit of its
Gaelic author. For example:—
My delight it was to rise
With the early morning skies
All aglow,
And to brush the dewy height
Where the deer in airy state
Wont to go;
At least a hundred brace
Of the lofty antlered race,
When they left their sleeping place
Light and gay;
When they stood in trim array,
And with low deep-breasted cry,
Flung their breath into the sky,
From the brae;
When the hind, the pretty fool,
Would be rolling in the pool
At her will;
Or the stag in gallant pride,
Would be strutting at the side
Of his haughty-headed bride
On the hill.
And sweeter to my ear
Is the concert of the deer
In their roaring,
Than when Erin from her lyre
Warmest strains of Celtic fire
May be pouring;
And no organ sends a roll
So delightsome to my soul,
As the branchy-crested race,
When they quicken their proud pace,
And bellow in the face
Of Ben Dorain.
O what joy to view the stag
When he rises ’neath the crag,
And from depth of hollow chest,
Sends his bell across the waste,
While he tosses high his crest,
Proudly scorning.
And from milder throat the hind,
Lows an answer to his mind
With the younglings of her kind
In the morning;
With her vivid swelling eye,
While her antlered lord is nigh,
She sweeps both earth and sky,
Far away;
And beneath her eye-brow grey,
Lifts her lid to greet the day,
And to guide her turfy way
O’er the brae.
O how lightsome is her tread,
When she gaily goes ahead,
O’er the green and mossy bed
Of the rills;
When she leaps with such a grace
You will own her pretty pace
Ne’er was hindmost in the race,
When she wills;
Or when with sudden start,
She defies the hunter’s art.
And is vanished like a dart
O’er the hills.
At the end of the book Mackenzie gives a select number of “Beauties” by
individuals who invoked the muse only on rare occasions, or whose
history is little known to the world. Among these we find the anonymous
yet exquisitely beautiful and pathetic “Mali Bheag Òg.” Our author
claims to be the first to give the whole of it correctly in print.[40]
There is much uncertainty as to the history, circumstance, and locality,
but the occasion of the poem was the elopement of two lovers, who were
pursued. The gallant, a young officer, stood to the defence of his
beautiful fiancée, who stole behind him in the melée. Unhappily his
sword accidentally in the swing struck her so violent a blow that she
expired at his feet. It was in jail awaiting execution that he composed
this heart-melting song:—
Nach truagh leat mi’s mi’m priosan,
Mo Mhàli bheag òg
Do chairdean a’ cuir binn’ orm,
Mo chuid de’n t-saoghal thù.
A bhean na mala mìne,
’S na’m pogan mar na fiòguis,
’S tu nach fagadh shios mi
Le mi-rùin do bheoil.
’S mise bh’air mo bhuaireadh
Mo Mhàli bheag òg,
’Nuair ’thain an ’sluagh mu’n cuairt duinn
Mo ribhinn ghlan ùr;
’S truagh nach ann san uair ud,
A thuit mo lamh o m’ ghualainn,
Mu’n dh’amais mi do bhualadh,
Mo Mhàli bheag òg.
As another independent gleaning, and valuable supplement to Mackenzie’s
work, there falls to be mentioned Archibald Sinclair’s _An T’
Oranaiche_, or the _Gaelic Songster_, published in 1879. “If a man were
permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the
laws of a nation,” said a wise man. And certainly the songs occupy no
mean place in Celtic life and poetry. Of these there is no collection in
Gaelic like Sinclair’s—humorous, patriotic, satiric, and sentimental. He
gleaned, as he tells us, in many a field, saving some from oblivion.
Others he snatched from fugitive pieces of paper, ere these latter
became food for the moth. In all there are 290 songs in the volume, and
upwards of fifty names of composers, some of whom are still living. The
songs are mainly of last century, and were compiled in Glasgow by their
editor, who was a publisher in that city.
By the well-known gleaners above mentioned, the heroic ballads, the
lyric poems, and the songs have been securely garnered. But there still
remained one large section of the field from which hitherto there had
been no great ingathering, necessary to complete the harvest up to our
time. And happily, ere the century closed, the crowning work appeared.
It is a remarkable book and sumptuous, published in two volumes, in
1900, by Alexander Carmichael, who was for many years a member of Her
Majesty’s Inland Revenue staff, and an enthusiastic admirer of Gaelic
lore. The work is styled “_Carmina Gadelica_,—hymns and incantations,
with illustrative notes on words, rites, and customs, dying and
obsolete; orally collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and
translated into English,” by the author. Undoubtedly it places the
compiler in the very front rank of Celtic gleaners, and will carry its
testimony forward to posterity, as a monument of a phase of thought and
life now passing away. Even already its weird and old-world “ortha,
urnan agus ubagan,” sound like the echoes of a far-off time, from which
the race has long since emerged.
Yet its cultured author tells us that this work consists of old lore
collected during the last forty-four years, forming but a small part of
a large mass of oral literature written down from the recital of men and
women throughout the land of the Gael, from Arran to Caithness, and from
Perth to St. Kilda. The greater portion, however, was made in the
Western Isles, the last refuge of the distinctive Celtic life “expiring
on the horizon before the growing tumult of uniform civilisation.”
For three centuries Gaelic oral literature has been disappearing, and,
as our author tells us, it is now becoming meagre in quantity, inferior
in quality, and greatly isolated.
“Several causes have contributed towards this decadence,” he says,
“principally the Reformation, the rebellions, the evictions, the
Disruption, the schools, and the spirit of the age. Converts in
religion, in politics, or in aught else are apt to be intemperate in
speech and rash in action. The Reformation movement condemned the
beliefs and cults tolerated and assimilated by the Celtic Church and the
Latin Church. Nor did sculpture and architecture escape their
intemperate zeal. The rebellions harried and harassed the people, while
the evictions impoverished, dispirited, and scattered them over the
world. Ignorant school teaching and clerical narrowness have been
painfully detrimental to the expressive language, wholesome literature,
manly sports, and interesting amusements of the Highland people.”
Mr. Carmichael has classified the contents of his extensive gleaning
under the following five sub-titles: Invocations, Seasons, Labour,
Incantations, Miscellaneous, and in the general introduction explains
his mode of gathering the materials.
The glimpses of Highland life he gives in connection with his visits and
colloquies with the people are highly interesting.
“Whatever be the value of this work,” he says, “it is genuine folk-lore,
taken down from the lips of men and women, no part being copied from
books. It is the product of far-away thinking, come down on the long
stream of time. Who the thinkers and whence the stream, who can tell?
Some of the hymns may have been composed within the cloistered cells of
Deny and Iona, and some of the incantations among the cromlechs of
Stonehenge and the standing stones of Callarnis. These poems were
composed by the learned, but they have not come down through the
learned, but through the unlearned—not through the lettered few, but
through the unlettered many, through the crofters and cottars, the
herdsmen and shepherds of the Highlands and Islands.”
“The poems were generally intoned in a low, recitative manner, rising
and falling in slow modulated cadences, charming to hear but difficult
to follow. The music of the hymns had a distinct individuality, in some
respects resembling and in many respects differing from the old
Gregorian chants of the Church. I greatly regret that I was not able to
record this peculiar and beautiful music, probably the music of the old
Celtic Church.”
Following the advice and example of his acquaintance, J. F. Campbell of
Islay, whom he knew for a quarter of a century, Mr. Carmichael gives the
words and names of the reciters. But, unlike Campbell and Mackenzie and
Sinclair, he gives an English rendering of the original in every
instance. Thus, while to the vast majority of this nation _their_
felicitous poems are locked up in the Gaelic, _his_ are available to
all, in chaste and beautiful language, with charming letterpress,
embellished by old Celtic letters, artistically copied by his wife from
the ancient MSS. in Edinburgh and elsewhere.
Speaking of the original, he maintains that, although in decay, the
poems are in verse of a high order, with metre, rhythm, assonance,
alliteration, and every quality to please the ear and to instruct the
mind. Simple dignity, charming grace, passionate devotion, characterise
most of these pieces. Again and again he laid down his self-imposed
task, feeling unable to render the intense power and supreme beauty of
the original Gaelic into adequate English; but he persevered, thus
placing a stone as it were upon the cairn of those who composed and of
those who transmitted the work.
And now, a few characteristic specimens from the book may fitly close
this study. The first is an incantation beginning:—
The wicked who would do me harm,
May he take the (throat) disease
Globularly, spirally, circularly,
Fluxy, pellety, horny-grim, etc.
But scarcely any English can convey the vengeance of the vernacular.
Even the sounds are terrifying:—
Ulc a dhean mo lochd,
Gu’n gabh e’n galar gluc gloc,
Guirneanach, goirneanach, guairneach,
Gaornanach, garnanach, gruam.
Next, we quote two verses from “The Invocation of the Graces,”
interesting as containing beautiful names from the ancient sagas:—
A shade art thou in the heat,
A shelter art thou in the cold,
Eyes art thou to the blind,
A staff art thou to the pilgrim,
An island art thou at sea,
A fortress art thou on land,
A well art thou in the desert,
Health art thou to the ailing.
Thine is the skill of the Fairy Woman,
Thine is the virtue of Bride the calm,
Thine is the faith of Mary the mild,
Thine is the tact of the woman of Greece,
Thine is the beauty of Eimer the lovely,
Thine is the tenderness of Darthula delightful,
Thine is the courage of Meve the strong,
Thine is the charm of Buine-bheul.
Now follows an example of a charm for sprain:—
Christ went out
In the morning early,
He found the legs of the horses
In fragments soft;
He put marrow to marrow,
He put pith to pith,
He put bone to bone,
He put membrane to membrane,
He put tendon to tendon,
He put blood to blood,
He put tallow to tallow,
He put flesh to flesh,
He put fat to fat,
He put skin to skin,
He put hair to hair,
He put warm to warm,
He put cool to cool.
As the King of power healed that
It is in his nature to heal this,
If it be in his own will to do it.
Through the bosom of the Being of life
And of the Three of the Trinity.
And, finally, we may take this as a good specimen of an invocation:—
Bless, O Chief of generous Chiefs,
Myself and everything anear me,
Bless me in all my actions,
Make Thou me safe for ever.
Make Thou me safe for ever.
From every brownie and ban-shee,
From every evil wish and sorrow,
From every nymph and water-wraith,
From every fairy mouse and grass-mouse,
From every fairy mouse and grass-mouse.
From every troll among the hills,
From every siren hard pressing me,
From every ghoul within the glens,
Oh! save me till the end of my day.
Oh! save me till the end of my day.
In recent years, Dr. George Henderson has done useful work in
transliterating several poems from the Fernaig MS., which, along with
many songs collected in the West Highlands, he has published in his
_Leabhar nan Gleann_. And to Henry Whyte and Malcolm Macfarlane the Gael
is indebted for an extensive gleaning in the field of vocal music. In
addition to numerous Gaelic melodies, they have rescued a variety of
excellent songs from impending oblivion and enhanced their value,
especially to those who are unacquainted with the original, by giving
literal renderings in English, which serve to exhibit their simple
beauty.
Nor have the three sister nationalities been behind in work of this
kind. The first important Irish gleaning has been Miss Brooke’s
_Reliques of Irish Poetry_, consisting of heroic poems, odes, elegies,
and songs, which she published in the original with English translations
and notes, Dublin, 1789. In more recent times we have the interesting
collections in English of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Dr. Hyde, Dr.
Sigerson, Yeats, and others, besides the _Treasury of Irish Poetry_
lately edited by Stopford A. Brooke, and T. W. Rolleston. The latter
deals simply with the nineteenth century, but Dr. Sigerson’s _Bards of
the Gael and Gall_ is an Anthology of nearly a hundred and fifty poems
metrically translated, “covering the ground from the earliest unrhymed
chant ascribed to the first invading Milesian down to the peasant days
of the eighteenth century.”
Wales is well represented by the extensive Myvyrian Archaiology of Owen
Jones, 1801–1807, which capable Welshmen, such as Aneurin Owen, Thomas
Price, William Rees, John Jones and others, set themselves to finish;
while M. de la Villemarqué has done for Brittany, in his now famous
books, perhaps all the ancient gleaning it was possible to do at a
period so late as the middle of last century.
CHAPTER XIX
THE MASTER SCHOLARS OF CELTIC LITERATURE
The bards and seanachies—Six men of outstanding literary
eminence—The earliest pioneer of the modern philological
movement—Representatives of the older scholarship—Those
of the new—The brilliant Zeuss—Foreign periodicals
dealing with Celtic—Foremost scholars of the various
nations—Italian—German—French—Danish—Scandinavian—American—British,
including English, Irish, Welsh, Manx, and Scottish—Many literary
problems solved—The promise of future harvests.
In the company of the scholars we still breathe the atmosphere of the
past. It is they who have resurrected the MSS. These monuments of
by-gone days are the quarries among which they work. As Burns “eyed with
joy the general mirth,” so do they scrutinise with eager glance the
much-prized vellum.
Only a scholar can know the pleasure it gives to hap upon a long-lost
relic of literature, to turn over its leaves, steeping the book in
water, if need be, to make its pages come asunder, and even using acid
to help the time-worn ancient one to deliver up its secret.
“Why bother with such defunct lore?” asks the man in the crowd, “the
past is over and gone. It is long since superseded.” Therein lies the
difference between him and the scholar. The scholar thinks it worth
while. Nay, he will sacrifice much—we shall repeatedly see—to search out
the contribution of the past, and determine its meaning. As Plato,
Aristotle, and the master-minds of ancient Greece wrote their books and
carried on their studies, knowing full well that these would be read and
assimilated by very few in their own day, there being no
printing-presses as now, and only a limited education; so many of the
Celtic scholars of our own time labour on in solitude, conscious also
that even with the printing-press the circle of their readers must be
small, yet knowing they are doing a work which in its own way is ever
widening the horizons of knowledge and enriching the common heritage of
mankind.
In the bards and seanachies, there have not been lacking from remote
times men who have interested themselves in the lore and learning of
their race; but we need to come down to more recent times to encounter
the class of writers we have specially in view in this study.
Happily, they are not confined to any one age or any one country. Yet
Ireland, as we might expect from its place in the Celtic group, figures
early and largely in the domain of Gaelic scholarship.
During the first half of the seventeenth century—to go no farther
back—it produced six men of outstanding literary eminence, who
represented a national scholarship in that country, the lustre of which
has never since been surpassed. These were Geoffrey Keating, Duald Mac
Firbis, and the Four Masters.
Keating, though born in Ireland, was of Norman extraction, and educated
abroad for the office of priest. On his return from Spain, a
full-fledged Doctor of Divinity, he was appointed to a church and
attracted great crowds as a preacher, till an incident, the most trivial
and fortuitous in its origin, drove him from the pulpit into literature.
The incident is worth recording as a determining factor in his
illustrious career. It seems that in his audience one day a young lady,
who was reputed to have questionable relations with a high dignitary of
the Province, happened to appear, curious, like all the rest, to hear
the great preacher. Keating, as fate would have it, was discoursing on
this occasion on a theme not likely to commend itself to the dissolute
girl; still less, since all eyes pointed the moral in her direction.
She had her revenge, for forthwith soldiers were dispatched by her
lordly patron to arrest the offending priest and make him prisoner. But
the latter hearing of this in time, made good his escape to the famous
glen of Aberlow, where he lived for years a hidden life. It was while
thus cashiered and ostracised that he conceived the idea of writing the
history of Ireland, from the earliest times to the Norman conquest,
afterwards travelling through the country in disguise, with Aberlow as
base, to consult the ancient MSS., which were then in the families of
the hereditary brehons and in the proximity of the old monasteries. Many
documents which existed in 1630, and which he perused, have since
disappeared. And his work is thus of great value, as he rewrote and
redacted their contents in his own words, like another Herodotus.
Duald Mac Firbis, his contemporary, was equally indefatigable in
ransacking the past for the benefit of the future. His _magnum opus_ is
_The Book of Genealogies_. O’Curry thinks it perhaps the greatest
national genealogical compilation in the world. In addition, he compiled
the _Chronicon Scotorum_, various glossaries, and, according to himself,
a dictionary of the Brehon laws.
Almost at the same time that Keating was writing his history in the
south of Ireland, the Four Masters were busy with theirs in the north.
Michael O’Clery, born at Donegal about 1580, was author of the Leabhar
Gabhala, or Book of Invasions, and other important works, but in
compiling the famous Annals, the greatest of all, he had the assistance
of other three eminent scholars, known as Farfasa O’Mulchonry, Peregrine
O’Clery, and Peregrine O’Duigenan. Hence the name “Four Masters,” given
by John Colgan of Louvain, himself worthy to rank after them as the
author of the _Trias Thaumaturga_, a book which owes its origin to the
vast collection of material amassed by Michael O’Clery throughout his
busy life. The latter work consists of two enormous Latin quartos, the
first containing the lives of Patrick, Brigit, and Columba; the second,
those of a number of other distinguished Irish saints.
From the middle of the seventeenth century we are carried forward to the
beginning of the eighteenth. And the next great name that illuminates
the pages of Celtic scholarship is that of a Welshman, Edward Lhuyd. A
peculiar interest and distinction attach to the work of this man,
inasmuch as he was the earliest pioneer of the modern philological
movement, and almost stumbled on the discoveries of Grimm and Rask,
which were only reached upwards of a century after his time.
An Oxford don, of Jesus College, he clearly saw the necessity of laying
a solid foundation for the scientific study of his own and kindred
languages, and, following up his ideal, he set about publishing
specimens of the literature and preparing vocabularies of the various
dialects. In pursuit of this laudable object he visited Ireland and
Scotland, and when his great work, the _Archæologica Britannica_, began
to appear about 1703, enthusiastic Celts from far and near sent him
congratulatory odes, some of which he afterwards printed. These poems
were either in Latin or in the mother tongue of their contributors.
Among the specimens sent from the Scottish Highlands, one, composed by
the Rev. John Maclean of Kilninian, Mull, has been justly described by
Professor Mackinnon as a “really admirable composition.”
Great praise and thanks, O noble Lhuyd, be thine,
True learned patriot of the Cambrian line!
Thou hast awaked the Celtic from the tomb,
That our past life her records might illume.
Engraved in every heart in lettered gold
Thy name remains; thy silent words unfold
To future ages what our sires had seen,
While others say, “A Gaelic race hath been.”
Such is one verse of the ode, as rendered in English by Dr. Nigel
Macneill.
Completed and printed at Oxford in 1707, the _Archæologica Britannica_
was, according to the title page, “delivered to the subscribers at 9s.
6d., being the remainder of their payment, and to others at 16s.”
As a scientific linguist, the reputation of its brilliant author was at
once established. His calibre may be inferred from the following
pregnant note, which he appended to an edition of Kirke’s Gaelic
Vocabulary in 1702. The note is in Latin to this effect:—
Of these 360 Gaelic words, 160 agree, in sound and sense, with the
British (Welsh) language. The letter _p_ in Welsh equates with the
letter _c_ in Gaelic, _e.g._, pren, crann (tree); plant, clann; pen,
ceann; pedwar, ceithir; pymp, cuig; pwy, cia; pasc, casg. _Gw_ of
Welsh equates with Gaelic _f_, _e.g._, gwyn, fionn; gwin, fion; gwr,
fear; gwair, feur; gwirion, firinneach. The Welsh _h_ corresponds with
the Gaelic _s_, _e.g._, hen, sean; helig, seileach; heboc, seabhag;
hil, siol; halen, salann; hyn, sin.
What was to prevent a man of such critical insight travelling towards
the interesting discovery of the position of the Celtic in the Aryan
group, or even the generalisation formulated in Grimm’s Law? Already he
was on the track, observing sound changes. He began with the Celtic
dialects, but had he lived, in all likelihood he would have carried his
equations to other languages of the Aryan group, and anticipated some at
least of the modern results. As it was, his early death occurred before
he had time to work out the idea on the wider platform; and the honour
of having laid a sure foundation for the new sciences of philology,
ethnology, and literary criticism passed a century and a half later to
the great German masters.
After Lhuyd’s time, unhappily in this country, his studies were not
followed up. On the contrary, the investigation of Celtic questions was
determined more by sentiment than by scholarship. Wrangling and
partisanship took the place of learning and scientific veracity. And so
far were the methods and results of later criticism from being
anticipated, that biassed men like Pinkerton and the Ossianic
controversialists had a loud voice in the land.
Gradually a better type of scholarship began to emerge both in Scotland
and Ireland. Not at first the representatives of the new order, but
representatives of the traditional seanachies, scholars of the long
past, who interested themselves afresh in the literature, history, and
antiquities of the race; and who began with unwearied zest to unearth
and bring to light the long lost and forgotten monuments of the past. Of
these, in Scotland, the brothers Donald and John Smith, Ewen Maclachlan,
Dr. Thomas Maclauchlan, and Dr. Archibald Clerk, were perhaps the most
prominent. As scholars they were rather uncritical, and do not rank in
the same category with the great names of later times; but they had
strong Gaelic sympathies and a large assortment of traditional
knowledge.
In Ireland, on the other hand, there were far more who occupied
themselves with the earlier periods. Of these it would be hard to rival
in patient, conscientious, and solid learning such men as O’Reilly,
Petrie, O’Donovan, O’Curry, Todd, Reeves, Hennessy, and Healy.
The first three were associated with the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, and
in that sphere found excellent scope for their Celtic studies, in
connection with the place-names of the country.
John O’Donovan was born in 1809. His father, though a small farmer, had
been descended from the celebrated O’Donovans of County Cork, and when
he died in 1817 his son John, then eight years of age and one of a
family of nine, was sent to Dublin to be educated. From the age of
seventeen he began to devote himself systematically to Celtic study, and
three years later was brought under the notice of the Survey Commission
as a youth singularly well qualified to conduct the archæological
department of their enterprise. Accordingly he entered the service in
1829, and forthwith instituted a careful investigation of the printed
books, MSS., and inscriptions bearing on topography; in due course
contributing articles to the _Dublin Penny Journal_, and laying the
first instalment of his research before the British Association in 1835.
Subsequently, Petrie and he published the full report.
In 1836 he set about preparing an Analytical Catalogue of the Irish MSS.
in Trinity College, and from 1841 was editor of the works published by
the Irish Archæological Society. Ever since he undertook the work of the
Ordnance Survey, he had in view the idea of writing a _Grammar of the
Irish Language_, and after seventeen years’ study the book appeared in
1847, and was received with enthusiasm both at home and abroad. It is
characteristic of the way in which British scholarship followed in the
rear of that on the Continent, that so well informed and interested an
exponent as O’Donovan did not know when he published his valuable
Grammar that aspiration and ellipsis had been explained in Germany eight
years before then. Thus he arrived too early to benefit much by the
study of comparative philology, though deeply interested in the science.
His masterpiece is really the edition he issued of the _Annals of the
Four Masters_ (1848–51). Of this vast effort Dr. Hyde affirms that it is
the greatest that any modern Irish scholar ever accomplished. “So long
as Irish history exists, the _Annals of the Four Masters_ will be read
in O’Donovan’s translation.”
In 1847 he was called to the Bar, but sacrificed his prospects in that
line for his Celtic studies. Later, he received the degree of LL.D. from
Trinity College, Dublin, and a Government pension of £50 a year, and was
appointed Professor of the Irish Language in Queen’s College, Belfast.
But having a large family to support on a small income, he contemplated
emigrating to America or Australia, when in 1852, most opportunely, the
Government resolved to appoint a Royal Commission to publish the ancient
Laws and Institutions of Ireland, and he and O’Curry, the two greatest
savants on that subject, were chosen for the office. Eight years’ more
arduous work undermined his constitution, and he succumbed to an attack
of rheumatic fever about the middle of November 1861.
Eugene O’Curry did not long survive him. Neither of them lived to
complete the vast undertaking, though they both wrote and translated
volumes of text, which have since been published.
The immense labours and success of O’Curry in the difficult fields of
Gaelic research are even more astonishing than those of his coadjutor,
as he had never received an academical education, and was mainly
self-taught, and had to forge his way in new and unexplored directions.
In view of this his surprise was great when offered the Professorship in
the Catholic University of Ireland, and so diffident was he that it was
with difficulty he was persuaded to accept it. His catalogues, editions
of texts and translations, and, above all, his famous books, the
_Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History_ (Dublin,
1861), and _On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_ (London,
1873), have rendered him a kind of quarry for subsequent scholars,
British and Continental.
To Dr. Todd is mainly due the inception, in 1841, of the Irish
Archæological Society for publishing original documents. He figures also
as the first editor of the _Liber Hymnorum_, Dublin, 1855, and as the
biographer of St. Patrick, while Dr. Reeves has done masterly service as
editor and biographer of Adamnan.
Of the line of scholars we have just passed in review, William Maunsell
Hennessy is probably the last great representative. The better part of
forty years he spent in close familiarity with the great tomes in
Dublin, publishing, translating, and annotating, till the list of his
works have become too numerous to mention here. Among the chief of these
are his edition of the _Chronicon Scotorum_, in the Master of the Rolls’
Series, 1858; and his translation of the _Tripartite Life of St.
Patrick_, printed by Mary Frances Cusack, 1871, and by O’Leary, New
York, 1874.
“Hennessy,” says Standish O’Grady, “was born at Castle Gregory, some
twelve miles west of Tralee, and in early life visited the United
States. Upon his return to Ireland he became a journalist, and was
appointed to the Public Record Office, Dublin, in 1868. He enjoyed the
friendship of the Cavaliere Nigra, himself an accomplished Celticist,
and was his guest at the Italian Embassy in Paris. In 1885 he was
visited by a family bereavement, almost tragic in sadness, and this
again was before long followed by a second blow, the effect upon his
sensitive and affectionate nature being such that he never fairly
rallied, but died at the age of sixty.”
Having thus glanced briefly at the representatives of the older
scholarship and their work, we shall now have occasion to retrace our
steps to consider the representatives of the new critical and
philological movement. After Edward Lhuyd’s demise no further progress
seems to have been registered in the elucidation of Celtic philology
till the time of Franz Bopp. Even as late as the first quarter of the
nineteenth century, Gaelic was regarded by scholars as a peculiar
language, unconnected with the other European tongues. It is true that
Sir William Jones, from his study of Sanskrit, had thrown out the hint
as early as 1786, that Celtic was of the same original stock with the
other languages of Europe and South-Western Asia; but when Bopp first
published his _Comparative Grammar_ Celtic was omitted. It was Dr.
Pritchard, an English ethnologist, who, in 1832, really demonstrated on
the lines laid down by Grimm and Bopp, that the Celtic language is a
member of the Indo-European group.
His book, entitled _The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations_, from this
time drew the attention of continental scholars to the excluded and
hitherto neglected language, with the result that three important works
soon after appeared, namely, first, one _On the Affinity of the Celtic
Languages with the Sanskrit_, by Adolph Pictet (Paris, 1837); second,
the _Die Celtischen Sprachen_, or _Celtic Philology_, by Bopp (Berlin,
1839); and the _Celtica_ of Dr. Diefenbach (Stuttgart, 1839–40).
By this time Bopp had studied the Celtic dialects, and published the
above work as a supplement to his great _Comparative Grammar of the
Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, German, and Sclavonic
Languages_. Some features of Gaelic phonetics, such as initial
aspiration and ellipsis, taking the place of declension, seems hitherto
to have baffled scholars, but Bopp’s sagacity enabled him to perceive
that these are nothing else than the relics and results of the
after-action of the old case-endings, and that the rational explanation
is to be found in the final sound of the previous word, or, as we now
say, vocalic and nasal auslaut. This discovery has since been fully
confirmed by Zeuss, Ebel, and Windisch.
It was with the publication of the _Grammatica Celtica_, however, that
the great moment in the evolution of Celtic scholarship arrived. Its
gifted author, J. Caspard Zeuss, stands supreme as the real founder of
Celtic philology. He did for it what Grimm did for the Teutonic, and
Diez for the Romance. Since the appearance of his monumental work it has
been definitely settled that the Celtic languages are pure Indo-European
tongues, without any admixture of foreign elements, and thus that they
are members of the family in the same sense that Latin or Gothic is. In
addition, it has furnished the means of interpreting the most ancient
forms of the Gaelic language found in the very old MSS., which before
then had defied the efforts of translators.
Zeuss was born in Bavaria in July 1806, and after a brilliant school
career, he went to the University of Munich, as his friends intended
that he should be a clergyman. But the youth preferred linguistic
studies, for which it soon transpired that he had a unique genius; and,
college life over, he taught for seven years (from 1832–39) in the
Gymnasium of Munich. Meantime he pursued his own favourite science,
publishing in 1837 a work which is still authoritative. It dealt with
the German chiefly, but from the first his studies included the oriental
languages.
To settle in Berlin and support himself by teaching there had now become
the objective of his desire, as the Metropolis would furnish him with
exceptional opportunities, but being a Catholic, he found this
impossible. In 1839, however, he succeeded in getting a professorship in
the Lyceum in Spires, and went there from Munich. It was then he began
to study Celtic. How enormous the difficulties were for a man in his
position one can readily imagine, when it is remembered how widely
dispersed, unknown, and unintelligible the materials for the most part
were at that time. His income was small, but in order to economise his
resources, and have the wherewithal to pursue his researches, it is said
that he decided to remain a bachelor. It was his custom annually during
the vacation to visit the great libraries of London, Oxford, Würzburg,
St. Gall, and Milan for the perusal of the Gaelic documents. In the
preface to his great work, he even apologises for not having made full
use of the Milan glosses. This we know was not altogether his fault, for
he went twice there to study the MS. On the first occasion there
happened to be a convention of savants in the city, and the library was
closed, much to his disappointment. An epidemic of fever prevailed when
he returned the second time, and feeling certain sensations, he imagined
he had caught the infection, and left the place without accomplishing
the object of his visit. No doubt the overwrought student was nervous on
that occasion, and his fears may have got the better of him.
In 1847 he was appointed Professor of History in Munich. But his health
not being very robust, though he accepted the chair, he was obliged a
few months afterwards to resign. Fortunately, however, he received a
similar appointment in the Lyceum of Bamberg, which he was able to
maintain. This was his last. The _Grammatica Celtica_, which was to take
the learned world by surprise and revolutionise Celtic studies, appeared
in 1853, after thirteen years’ close and laborious work. It is written
in Latin, and is so profoundly erudite that it has the reputation, like
some other great German books, of being very difficult to grasp. The
numerous sources consulted in the production of this masterpiece of
scientific scholarship are all carefully given in the preface. Its
publication at once established his fame, but the work killed him. In
1855 he was compelled to resign his chair through broken health. That
same year Professor Siegfried of Dublin saw him, and afterward wrote the
following interesting impression which the appearance of the devoted
scholar made upon him. “I paid a visit,” he says, “to this remarkable
man in the vacation of 1855, when his health was fast sinking. He was a
tall, well-made, rather spare man, with black hair and moustache, giving
on the whole more the impression of a Sclavonian or a Greek than a
German.” He did not long survive his retirement, for in November 1856,
less than three years after the completion of his Grammar, this
illustrious linguist but modest and retiring man died in his native
village in Bavaria. To him, mindful of his outstanding influence, Dr
Whitley Stokes has not inaptly applied the Greek line—
Ζεὺς ἀρχή, Ζεὺς μέσσα, Διὸς δ’ ἐκ πάντα τέτυκαι.
After the publication of the _Grammatica Celtica_, Celtic studies
received a mighty impetus and took great strides forward. Now that the
Celtic dialects were proved to be Aryan, their further study became a
necessity in connection with the comparative grammar of the whole
family. Already in Germany there was the well-known _Zeitschrift für
vergleichende Sprachkunde_ (Journal of Comparative Philology), a journal
specially devoted to the Germanic, Greek and Latin languages; but now in
1856, the _Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung_ (Contribution to
Comparative Etymology) was started in Berlin to deal with the Aryan,
Celtic, and Sclavonic tongues, and giving particular attention to the
Celtic. The periodical went through eight volumes, one appearing in four
parts every two years; and when it came to an end the _Zeitschrift_,
edited by Dr. Kuhn, began to receive articles on Celtic subjects, and
continues to do so still.
Among the contributors to the _Beiträge_ Dr. Hermann Ebel was the most
notable. His Celtic studies in the journal were afterwards translated
and issued in book form by the late Professor Sullivan of Dublin (1863).
Of these the most important are _On Declension_, and _The Position of
the Celtic_. Ebel taught for thirteen years in Schniedmuhl, and when the
Chair of Comparative Philology, once occupied by Bopp, in Berlin, fell
vacant, he was appointed thereto, but he did not live long to fulfil its
duties, for he died in 1875, only two years later. He left, it is said,
in MS. a dictionary of Old Gaelic. His greatest Celtic work, however, is
the second edition of Zeuss’s Grammar published in 1871, which embodies
the results of Celtic scholarship down to that year.
In 1870 another important periodical, wholly devoted to Celtic studies,
began to be published in Paris, namely the _Revue Celtique_. It was the
appearance of this quarterly that ultimately led to the appointment of
D’Arbois de Jubainville as Commissioner to the British Isles, to report
on the Gaelic MSS. found there. This paper, which still flourishes, has
for over thirty years done good service in the interests of scholarship,
there being among its contributors such eminent writers as Ebel,
Windisch, Max Müller, Count Nigra, Pictet, Jubainville, Stokes, Rhys,
Macbain, and others.
Occasional articles continue to appear in several German papers, but it
may be of moment in passing to note that a few years ago a new
periodical, entitled _Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie_, was
floated, as well as an _Archiv für Celtische Lexicographie_, which shows
the interest that is still taken by the German philologists in this
department of study.
As the great succession of Celtic scholars after Zeuss and Ebel are more
or less contemporary, it will be most convenient to deal with them in
the order of nationality. Among foreigners of the first rank are two
Italians, Count Nigra and Ascoli of Milan. Nigra was for a time his
country’s ambassador in London and Paris. It will be remembered that
Hennessy, who enjoyed his friendship, was entertained by him at the
Italian Embassy in the latter city. His most important contribution,
founded on his own researches in Italy, is the _Reliquie Celtiche_,
published in that land in 1872. Ascoli did similar good work in
connection with the Gaelic glosses in the ancient MSS. of Milan and St.
Gall, supplementing the labours in that field of Zeuss, Ebel, and Nigra.
In Germany, on the other hand, there are four still actively engaged who
rank among the masters. First comes the brilliant Professor Windisch of
Leipzig. He is best known for his _Irische Texte_ (vol. i.), published
in Leipzig, 1880; and again a second series of the same, in
collaboration with Dr. Stokes, in 1884. It is a learned work with a
vocabulary arranged alphabetically, which goes most minutely into the
structure of the words. Such pieces as Cuchulinn’s Sickbed, the Vision
of Adamnan, the Tale of the Sons of Uisneach, Hymns from the _Liber
Hymnorum_, and Irish glosses from the MSS. in the monastery of St Paul
in Carinthia are among its varied contents. Windisch is Professor of
Sanskrit in Leipzig, and besides an Irish Grammar has published other
books bearing on Celtic philology. In some instances he has corrected
Zeuss, and in various directions developed and extended his principles.
At present he is engaged on a second edition of the above-mentioned
grammar, and on an elaborate edition with translation of the Táin Bó
Chuailgné.
Next to him comes Professor Zimmer, formerly of Greifswalde, now
Professor of Celtic in Berlin University. Two books stand to his credit
in 1881, _Irish Glosses_ and _Celtic Studies_. As a writer he expresses
fresh and interesting opinions on a great variety of subjects, such as
the pagan character of Irish literature, the ancient Celtic Church, the
“Táin Bó Chuailgné,” Old Middle Irish MSS., the Irish scholars upon the
Continent, Fiacc’s _Life of St. Patrick_, and the scansion of the
classical Irish metres.
Professor Thurneysen of Jena (now of Freiburg) distinguished himself by
preparing, along with B. Gütterbock, an elaborate index to the
_Grammatica Celtica_, which renders that work more complete and
accessible. It was published in 1881.
He, along with Dr. Christian Stern, Librarian of Berlin, complete the
quartette of famous German Celticists who have been for some time in the
field, though not the list of able scholars engaged in like studies in
that country. Other significant names are Drs. Holder, Finck, Zupitza,
Foy, and Sommer.
Nor has France in recent years been lacking in eminent men of similar
research. M. de la Borderie, Gaidos, De Jubainville, Lotti, Ernault,
Dottin, and Professor Loth of Rennes have all greatly advanced the
interests of Celtic philology and literature. Of these, D’Arbois de
Jubainville is perhaps the best known, on account of his literary
mission to the British Isles on behalf of the French Minister of Public
Instruction in 1881, and his subsequent catalogue of the MSS. As
Professor at the College of France and editor of the _Revue Celtique_,
he made numerous interesting contributions in journal and book form to
the modern literature of the subject, such as _Grammatical Studies on
the Celtic Languages_ and _Epopée Celtique en Irlande_.
Ernault occupied himself more with the Breton dialect and folk-lore,
Professor Loth with the Mabinogion and Welsh metrics.
Other Continental savants of great promise remain to be mentioned. They
belong to the northern nations, which have recently begun to develop a
lively enthusiasm for Celtic studies. Denmark is well to the front with
Professor Holger Pedersen, a pupil of Zimmer’s, and Dr. Sarauw of
Copenhagen, while Scandinavia is represented by Dr. Liden of Gothenburg.
Much is expected of these men on the lines on which scholarship now
travels. Hitherto America, so much engrossed with the problems of the
present, has been slow to enter upon a research which burrows so deeply
in the past, yet within the last few years two names have emerged which
are intimately associated with this subject, namely, those of the Rev.
Professor Henebry and Professor Robinson of Harvard. The one is
concerned with the translation of O’Donnell’s _Life of St. Columcille_,
the other with the collection of certain early Irish poems and sagas.
And now, returning to our own shores after contemplating the masters
abroad, it is pleasing to find so many who have distinguished themselves
in one way or another in this field. England, Ireland, Wales, the Isle
of Man, and Scotland have each furnished enthusiastic and capable men.
Foremost of these British scholars, and apparently now of all living
Celticists, stands Dr. Whitley Stokes. Next to Zeuss he has done more
than any other single man in this particular department of study and
research. His publications are a library in themselves, and deal with
Cornish, Breton, Old Welsh, as well as Irish and Gaelic. He has made
himself master of the field in a very thorough and scientific manner.
Perhaps his best known books are the _Irische Texte_, vol. i., 2nd
series, 1884; vol. ii., published at Leipzig, 1887; _The Tripartite Life
of St. Patrick_, 1887, and his _Goidelica_ (old and early-middle-Irish
glosses, prose and verse) which appeared twenty years before the others,
and reached a second edition in 1872. In it are given accurate
translations of the Gaelic prefaces and hymns of the _Liber
Hymnorum_—that ancient anthology which dates from the eleventh century.
Dr. Stokes, who is a son of Professor William Stokes, Dublin, studied
Irish with O’Donovan, and Sanskrit and Comparative Philology with
Professor Siegfried in Dublin. After a distinguished career in the
Indian Civil Service he retired and took up residence in London. It was
in Calcutta that the foundation of his great reputation as a Celtic
scholar was laid, and it was from that city that he first issued his
_Goidelica_. The preface is striking in its brevity and simplicity:—
I have three objects in printing this book—one, to save the contents
of my transcripts of the glosses at Turin, Milan, and Berne from the
destruction which in this country anything solely entrusted to paper
MSS. must sooner or later meet with; another, to give those excellent
German philologists who, like Schleicher and Ebel, have expressed a
desire for trustworthy copies of Old Irish compositions, material on
which they may look with confidence; and, thirdly, to lay the first
stone of the cairn which I hope to raise to the memory of my beloved
friend and teacher, Siegfried.
The cairn has since been raised, and it is indeed a notable one. Besides
his books, contributions from Dr. Stokes may be found in Continental
journals, such as the _Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung_ of
Berlin, and the _Revue Celtique_ of Paris. He is still busy in his
island home at Cowes, editing and translating texts, of which the
_Annals of Tighernach_, the _Amra Choluimcille_, _Agallamh na
Seanorach_, and the _Bruiden Da Derga_ have lately been published.
Other great names in this country are those of Professor Rhys of Oxford,
a Welshman; Professor Atkinson of Dublin, a Yorkshireman; Dr. Kuno Meyer
of Liverpool, a German; Dr. Strachan of Manchester, Professor of Greek
and Comparative Philology, a native of Keith, Banffshire; Dr. Douglas
Hyde, whose interesting book on the _Literary History of Ireland_ has
just recently appeared; Dr. Norman Moore, the poetical Dr. Sigerson, and
the Professors Gwynne, father and son. Of these Principal Rhys has
hitherto perhaps been the most prolific in dealing with the early
history and problems of Celtic Britain, while the others have interested
themselves more in the language and literature.
There are two other outstanding names very familiar to the student of
Celtic, the erudite Standish Hayes O’Grady, author of _Silva Gadelica_,
and friend of Windisch for many years, and Mr. Alfred Nutt, an authority
on folk-lore and literary antiquities. Besides Rhys, Wales has produced
such indefatigable workers as Gwenogfryn Evans and Canon Silvan Evans,
the veteran of Welsh philology; Professors Morris Jones and Lewis Jones,
of Bangor; the late Charles Ashton; Professor Anwyl of Aberystwyth, and
Mr. Brynmor Jones; while the Isle of Man has Mr. A. W. Moore and Mr.
Kermode.
In Scotland during the middle of last century Dr. Skene did much to
revive interest in the history and monuments of the past, by collecting
MS. materials, editing the _Four Ancient Books of Wales_, and publishing
his own voluminous _Celtic Scotland_.
The first scholar north of the Tweed to assimilate the results of
Zeuss’s labours and follow his lead was the late Dr. Cameron of Brodick;
very industrious, as may be seen from his contributions to the
magazines, and his posthumous work, the _Reliquiæ Celticæ_, but sadly
lacking in system and method. After him come Dr. Macbain of Inverness, a
distinguished philologist, whose Gaelic Dictionary is a valuable
contribution to Celtic etymology, and the Rev. John Kennedy; the late
Sheriff Nicholson; Professor Mackinnon, occupant of the Edinburgh Chair
of Celtic Literature, and Dr. Henderson, a former student of his, who
has since studied abroad and written various papers and books, and
edited poems or tales collected in the Highlands.
These all represent the forces of scholarship in the highways and
by-ways of Celtic literature. They are not all masters, in the technical
sense of the word; not a few of them are, as we have already seen, and
the marvel is, looking back for fifty years, the number of men of the
first rank who have appeared, in great part on the Continent but also in
our own land. It is truly a recrudescence or re-arising of the Celt.
Spent forces seem suddenly to have re-emerged and overflowed the
foremost files of time, taking science captive and using it as their
instrument. And yet people wonder and inquire and continue to ask for
evidence of a Celtic renaissance.
Many literary problems have within the last half-century been solved,
but many more remain to be unravelled—questions too, of history,
ethnology, and sociology. But so much has already been done—so much that
a century ago seemed visionary and impossible, and had not even appeared
on the horizon of dreamers, that there is the promise of future
harvests, and still unlimited scope for the masters.
Thus the progress. First the available materials had to be ascertained,
catalogued, sifted, and examined in every land. Then followed the work
of publishing and interpreting the texts which have already yielded such
interesting philological and ethnical results, and now we look for a
further synthesis in other directions from the hints and suggestions
scattered all over these published records, which will throw light on
the fascinating problems which confront the students of history,
ethnology, archæology, and of the beliefs and customs of the race in its
earlier stages—a study in keeping with the human experience, that to go
on we must often go back.
INDEX OF NAMES
Achilles, 133
Adam, 63, 83, 126, 130, 232
Adamnan, 5, 16, 42, 45, 46, 47, 50, 58–77, 83, 88, 92, 201, 209, 215,
226, 291, 292, 349, 374, 380
Aedh, 54, 105
Aedh, 91
Aedh Mac Morna, 178, 181
Aeneas, 68, 228, 306
Aengus, 48, 292
Aidan, 221
Ailbhe, 355
Ailill, 109, 160, 161, 165
Ainnle, 158
Albin, St. 306
Aldfrid, 65, 68, 201
Alexander I., 89, 94
Alexander the Great, 6, 7
Alleine, 334
Amergin, 131, 139
Amphitrionis, 8
Anderson, Dr., 95
Andlis, 8
Andrew, 91
Aneurin, 218–223, 240, 244
Anne, Queen, 270
Antestis, 8
Anwyl, Prof., 383
Aoife, 159, 165, 167
Ardan, 158
Arganté, 320
Argyll, Earl of, 126, 272, 274, 327
Aristotle, 12, 367
Armstrong, Rev. A., 343, 344
Arnold, Matthew, 2, 97, 309, 311, 321–323
Arnold, Thomas, 307
Art, 179, 186, 193, 254
Arthur, 125, 128, 227–240, 344, 250, 260, 306–308, 318–321
Ascoli, 98, 379, 380
Ashburnham, 103
Ashton, Charles, 383
Aspasia, 254
Athol, 8
Atkinson, Prof., 383
Attila, 2
Aurelius, 319
Austin, 306
Avagddu, 230
Bach, Gwion, 331
Bacon, Francis, 332
Baithene, 48, 61, 71, 83
Balan, 318
Balin, 318
Balor, 141
Bannatyne, Lord, 117, 118
Barbour, John, 309
Baxter, Richard, 328, 334, 335
Becca, 145
Bede, 5, 22, 56, 65, 77, 93, 201, 221, 306
Bede, the Pict, 85, 86, 94
Bedivere, 321
Beli, 222
Benen, 34
Benignus, St., 34
Bernard, St., 39
Bethune, Donald, 116
Björn, 213, 214
Black, William, 301, 323
Blackie, Prof., 123, 186, 268, 272, 284, 322, 323, 358
Blair, Dr., 283, 343
Blake, William, 316
Blathmac, St., 62, 201, 208
Bodhbha, Dearg, 144, 145
Bollandist Fathers, 31, 62
Bondi, 214
Bopp, Franz, 258, 375, 376, 379
Borderie, M. de la, 381
Borron, Robert, 307
Boston, Thomas, 68, 334
Boswell, 63, 316
Brachet, A., 9
Bradshaw, Henry, 79–81
Bran, 247, 248, 355
Branno, 192
Branwen, 229
Brash, 14
Breas, 138, 141
Brec, Donald, 222
Brendan, St., 75, 215, 291
Brian, 141–143
Brian Boru, 203, 246
Bricriu, 153
Bride, 365
Brigit, 292, 369
Broccán, 292, 349
Brogan, 189
Brooke, Miss, 366
Brooke, Stopford, 310, 324, 366
Brown, Dorothy, 276
Brown, John, 335
Browning, Robert, 107
Bruce, Robert the, 86, 87
Bruce, Robert, 300
Brude, 46, 72
Brutus, 306
Buchan, Earls of, 87
Buchanan, Dugald, 250, 329, 330, 335, 336
Buchanan, Robert, 301, 323
Bugge, Dr. Alex., 210
Bugge, Prof. Sophus, 210
Buinne Borb, 151
Bunyan, 334, 343
Burnet, Bishop, 130
Burns, Robert, 257, 282, 299, 310, 367