historian it is only left to catch as they disappear the shadows of its ancient social system, decaying under a foreign influence, and from them to reproduce the system as it existed before the process of decay began.

In the present paper it is not our intention to write a formal review of this great book, or to attempt to criticise a master. We set before ourselves a humbler task, but one which we hope will be more agreeable to our readers, viz., to try and reproduce, from the materials so fully placed at our disposal, some pictures of the ancient Gaelic people, to trace some of the modifications which, under foreign influences, it underwent, and to touch, it may be somewhat at random, on various points of interest which the author brings before us.

We know from external, as well as from internal, sources that the ancient organisation of the Gaelic people was tribal. The original unit of this system was, according to Skene, the "Tuath," a word originally applied to the tribe alone, but which came ultimately to be applied also to the territory which the tribal community inhabited. In holding the tuath to be the unit, Skene differs from Sir Henry Mayne, who holds that the "fine," or sept, was the unit, but we think that Skene has succeeded in showing that his opinion is right, and that the sept by a natural process developed within the Tuath. What the original state of the tribe was, we have no records to show. It doubtless existed in a very rude state, and went through the usual stages of subsisting by the chase, by the care and feeding of cattle, and ultimately by the more settled occupa tion of husbandry. That there was a stage in the development, long after the cultivation of the land had began, when the idea of individual property in the land did not exist, is beyond all doubt; and we think we are safe in saying that as the root idea of the feudal system was that the whole land of the country belonged to the Crown, the root idea of the Celtic system was that the land was the common property of the tribe, and traces of this idea exist even to this day. When, however, we first get a clear view of the tribe, as we do in the Brehon Laws, the idea of individual property in land was well established, the title consisting in possession for three generations, and the internal organisation of the tribe is seen to be of a complicated and highly artificial character.

The tuath was ruled over by a Toseich, or Ri Tuath. This office was hereditary in the family of the Toseich, but the succession was according to the law of tanistry. Under the toseich there were six gradations of Boaires, or cow lords, before reaching the "Fer Midba' or inferior men-the free member of the tribe when first emancipated from the control of his parents, he became entitled to possess a house and to get a share in the periodical division of the common tribe land. The gradations of rank originally, as the name implies, arose from the possession of cattle, but came at a later stage to depend on the possession of land and the number of tenants: but, on whatever depending, the gradations of rank were well defined, and the "honour price" of each was clearly fixed. Of these ranks the most interesting. is the Aithech or Athreba, who represented a small community of four or five families, occupying jointly and possessing in common as much stock as would entitle one individual to the rank of a Boaire. Here we have without doubt the representative of those communities or townships, some of which exist to this day as club farms. In addition to the free members of the tribe, there appear

to have been in every tuath unfreed or servile men, consisting of broken men of other tribes who had settled on the land or whose land had been conquered; remnants of an earlier race, and doubtless free men of the tribe who had fallen into poverty, and their descendants. These were the "Bothach," "Cottiers," and "Fuedhir," and after four generations of service they came to be called "Seucleithe," or old adherents.

How the idea of individual property in land first originated it is not easy to tell. Skene supposes that it may have originated in the setting apart of certain portions of the tribe land as demesnes or mensal lands for the Toseich, bard, and other officials of the tribe. And with Christianity, and the grants of land to the monasteries, which formed the leading feature in the organisation of the ancient Celtic church, the idea must have gained strength. Once originated it would naturally gain ground rapidly, and the rich cow lords would naturally desire to continue in possession of the portions of the tribe land which had been allotted to them, and to hand them down to their descendants; and, as we have seen, possession of land for three generations was held to confer a right of property. In the tuath then, as we find it in the Brehon laws, the land consisted of the demesnes of the toseich and other officials, portions possessed in property by the men of rank and held by their tenants and dependants, and portions still common to the ordinary free men of the tribe and divided periodically among them. These portions, we may well believe, would tend gradually to become smaller by the encroachments of the more powerful members.

The services which the members of the tribe owed to the Toseich, and through the Toseich and those above him to the King, were princi pally assistance at the building of forts and "Feucht," or the burden of attending expeditions within the kingdom, and "sluaged" or hosting, the burden of attending the King's army or host when assembled for the defence of the kingdom or for foreign war, and a tribute called Can, or Kain and Conventh. These services do not appear to have originally been connected with the land, but to have been duties arising from membership of the tribe and nation; but they appear to have been apportioned according to the extent of land, the unit being the "Davoch," which consisted of twenty homesteads, and was equal to what, in the West Highlands and Isles when Norwegian terms came to be used, was called a twenty penny land. Being apportioned on the land these services would. naturally tend to be connected with it as a burden on it, and when feudal ideas were introduced, they tended to conform to the feudal idea. The tie which bound inferior to superior within the tribe seems to have been originally the giving of stock by the superior to the inferior, in return for which a rent in kind and homage and service were rendered. There were two forms of contract under which stock was given, one a free "saer contract terminable at the end of a certain time by the return of the stock, the other an unfree contract "daor" by which the inferior man placed himself permanently under the protection of the superior as a permanent follower or dependant. As territorial ideas gained ground these contracts also became connected with land, the superior giving not only stock but land to his tenants, free and unfree. Of the free tenancy under this system we presume we have the remains in the contract of "steelbow," under which the landlord gave to the tenant the land fully stocked, re

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ceiving back the stock at the end of the lease. This form of contract existed within the last twenty years, if it does not even yet exist.

The origin of the fine or sept within the tribe Mr Skene holds to have had a territorial basis. His theory is that when the territorial lords became firmly settled in possession of their lands, the more powerful of them would naturally try to increase the influence of themselves and their families by establishing a number of tenants dependant on them on their lands, and that as they increased their possessions, and the free land of the tribe correspondingly decreased, the free members of the tribe would tend to put themselves under the protection of their more powerful neighbours by becoming their "ceile" or tenants-at first, no doubt, free tenants, but gradually the poorer would tend to become unfree tenants. The unfree tenants at first would doubtless be strangers and broken men of other tribes, and servile men of other races settled on the land. The Toseichs too would naturally endeavour to increase their power and influence by settling on their demesnes tenants dependant on them. There would thus be a number of men within the tribe, each with a following of his own, and ultimately these developed into septs each with its chief. If, however, the original basis of the sept was territorial, the idea of relationship and common origin undoubtedly grew up along with it. The territorial lord would naturally settle on his land, as his principal tenants, his own relatives, and in course of time the belief in the common origin and relationship of all members of the sept prevailed and became its strongest bond of union-the word clan meaning simply children or dependants. The Brehon Laws describe an organisation within the sept consisting of seventeen persons, and of four ranks or degrees. These had very elaborate rules of succession among themselves, and it is not easy to understand what the exact nature of the organisation was, or to believe that anything so very artificial could long have existed. Mr Skene supposes this to have consisted of the chief of the sept, with the heads of the next three collateral families, with a certain number of members of each; all beyond these degrees of relationship merging in the commonality of the sept. Whether such an organisation as this existed in Scotland we have no record, but that something of the kind existed may be gathered from the following account of the Highlands given in the Gartmore MS.:-"The property of these Highlands belongs to a great many different persons, who are more or less considerable in proportion to the extent of their estates, and to the command of men that live upon them or follow them on account of their clanship out of the estates of others. These lands are set by the landlord during pleasure or a short tack, to people whom they call goodmen (duine uasail), and who are of a superior station to the commonality. These are generally the sons, brothers, cousins, or nearest relations of the landlord (or chief). This, by means of a small portion and the liberality of their relations, they are able to stock, and which they and their children and grandchildren possess at an easy rent-till a nearer descendant be again preferred to it. As the propinquity removes they become less considered, till at last they degenerate to be of the common people, unless some accidental acquisition of wealth supports them above their station. As this hath been an ancient custom, most of the farmers and cottars are of the name and clan of the proprietor."

But while septs thus grew up within the tuath or tribe in many cases, there were tribes where this did not take place, and where the whole tribe tended to become the sept of the toseich. Thus, in one of the tracts embodied in the Brehon Laws, it is stated that every person in a tuath accepts equal stock or subsidy from the Flath Gielfine or Gielfine Chief (that is the head or chief of a sept within the tuath), and the Flath Grelfine accepts stock from the Ri Tuath or toseich-or else every person in the tuath accepts it from the Ri Tuath. Whether in the tuath with its toseich and subordinate chiefs of septs we are to look for the origin of the group of clans, each with its chief, and one of them as captain over all, is a question which naturally occurs to us on reading this, and which several passages in the book suggest, but on which the author does not enter.

The next step in the organisation above the tuath was the mortuath, or great tribe, consisting of a number of tuaths. In Ireland above this there was the "cuicidh," consisting of five mortuaths with its king, above that the province with its king, and above all the Ard Ri, or supreme king, reigning at Tara. In Scotland, however, there were only mortuaths, each of these constituting a province, and ruled over by a mormaer, sometimes called a king; and over them a King of Alban.

When the kingdom of Alban was consolidated under Kenneth MacAlpin, the first of the dynasty of Scottish kings, it consisted of Scotland north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and exclusive of Caithness (which then included Sutherland) and the Western Isles, both of which then and for long after belonged to the Norwegians. Over this kingdom the king ruled, having his residence at the Mote Hill of Scone, and having as his demesnes a tract of land immediately surrounding that place. This kingdom was divided into seven great provinces, each forming the territory of a great tribe or mortuath, and ruled over by a mormaer or hereditary ruler, possessing as his demesne a portion of the tribe territory. The rest of the province was divided into tuaths, or territories of the smaller tribes or divisions of the great tribe, ruled over by toseichs, and each of these again possessing a part of the tuath as his demesne, and in some of these tuaths we may well believe that septs ruled over by their chiefs had developed or were in course of developing,

The first foreign influence which began to interfere with the natural development of this system was Saxon. This commenced probably with the cession of Lothian to the Scots in 1018, and its effect was greatly increased by the connection of Malcolm Canmore with England and his marriage with a Saxon princess. Under this influence the mormaers became earls, and the toseichs thanes. That this was so in the case of the earls is beyond all doubt, for among various similar instances we find the sennachie of Clanranald designating Mary Lesly, the feudal Countess of Ross, who married Donald of the Isles, and died in 1440, as "Banmorbhair" of Ross. Whether the thanes were the hereditary toseichs or chiefs of tribes under another name has been disputed on high authority, but Mr Skene holds that they were, and it appears to us on perfectly sufficient grounds. The next influence, and the one which ultimately prevailed, was the feudal. With David first commenced the policy of feudalising the old Celtic earldoms, that is of converting the Celtic earls into feudal vassals of the Crown. It is singular, however, to find that

long after the process was completed, a distinction was supposed to exist between the old earldoms and other feudal holdings. One of the questions put to the eighty arbitors appointed to decide the question as to the succession to the crown between Bruce, Baliol, and John de Hastings, was whether in the case of failure of male heirs the earldoms and baronies of the kingdom were partible among sisters as co-heiresses; and they decide without hesitation that baronies were partible (according to the feudal law), but that earldoms were not partible, the eldest heir-female taking them entire; and they say that this was so decided in the Court of the King of Scotland in the case of the Earldom of Athol some time previous to 1232. Ultimately, however, all distinction between the earls and other vassals of the Crown, except in the matter of power and rank, disappeared.

In the feudalisation of the Earldoms, the demesne land of the Mormaer or Earl became the fedual property of the Earl held of the Crown for military service, but in some cases at least the thanages were reserved to the Crown, and they appear to have been held by the thanes under the Crown, not as baronies or for military service, but in feu farm for payment of a rent, consisting of the Celtic kain and conventh. In other cases they were granted to the Earls, and the thanes held them in the same way under the Earls. Ultimately all the thanages held of the Crown were converted into baronies, and in those held of other superiors the thanes became feudal vassals. At least this is what happened in the case of all the thanages of which we have any record. It is very remarkable, however, that almost none of these are within the Highland line, and that most of them border on it. In Moray, for instance, we have record of the thanages of Cawdor, Moyness, Dyke, and Brodie, all of which became baronies, the only one in which even the name of thanage is kept up being that of Cawdor. And it is no less remarkable that within the Highland line, the names of Toseichs and Tuaths, Thanes and Thanages disappear, or survive only in the name Mackintosh, and in the names of certain offices, viz., Toschachdor, whose office was equivalent to that of Bailie or coroner, and Toschachdera, whose office was that of Summoner or Servitor of Writs, a grant of which latter office we find in Banffshire as late as 1476.

The causes which led to the disappearance of the name of Toseich or Thane in the Highlands are unknown, but it is singular that while on the borders the break up of the great tribes resulted in a race of proprietors who continued under Crown grants to hold their lands, and to retain the old Celtic name of the tribal chief translated into Saxon, but who lost the tribal leadership, within the Highlands the result was the coming into prominence of a race of chiefs and captains of clans who had not the old Celtic name of Toseich, but who retained the leadership of a clan or tribe, and who continued in many cases and until comparatively quite recent times to hold their lands, not only without written feudal titles, but in some cases in spite of the existence of such titles in favour of others.

Of the existence of clans we have very early evidence. In the Book of Deer mention is made of Cangall Mac Caennaiy Toseich of Clan Cannan, and of Donnachach Mac Sithig Toiseach of Clan Morgan. But it is only after the raid of Angus in 1391, and the clan battle at Perth in 1396 that they emerge into prominence as distinct organizations. While