proud race from whom he sprang. He could not even with impunity marry the girl he loved if she were of a race whose deeds would disgrace his children. But though proverb, tradition, and story served to educate the young Highlander at this wonderful institution of the Ceilidh (at which the dance also had no mean place), the great source of knowledge and of culture was in the poetry of the country; and if it is a sign of superior culture in the homes of rank and fashion to be able to quote the poets, it must necessarily be so also in our lowly Highland cots. I, who know the poets of both languages intimately, know of nothing as a teaching element loftier than the sentiments of our good old Gaelic bards. I pass by Ossian, whose poems are so well known in the different languages of Europe. Not to enter the controversy of whether they are really Ossian's or James Macpherson's, they are in either case Highland; and if their sentiments are considered too lofty for the minds of a primitive race like our Highlanders, we will pass them over to pick up and admire a gem whose right to be considered a pearl of the Highland shores has never been questioned—that is "The Desire of the Aged Bard." Let any one who cannot read Gaelic read that poem as it has been translated by Mrs Grant of Laggan, and say if there is anything purer, sweeter, or better in any of the poems of the last three Laureates. The beautiful poetic emblems are delicately handled, and the sympathy with nature is of a highly refined character. The old man rejoices in the visions of love and romance to which his eyes are closed for ever. He is glad to know that the flowers he loved are growing about his place of rest by the side of the wimpling brook, and no sweeter music can thrill his soul than the songs of the birds that he poetically calls "The little children of the bushes," and his high-souled memory of the days when he rejoiced in the cry, "The stag has fallen." There is no cowardly fear of death. He is sorry to leave the mountains he loves, but he knows his trembling hand can no longer awaken the harp. He knows his winter is everlasting, and he is willing to go to join his brother bards in their residence on Ardven. We are sorry that we have no other poem of this grand old man's, but it is a high compliment to the tastes of the people that even this one of his has come down to posterity-orally handed down "under the feet of the years" by an appreciative people. Next in antiquity, although generations have elapsed between, comes "The Comhachag," not so full of the poetry of romance as the other, not so fraught with eloquent words and lofty thought, but yet full of sound sense and of historical and genealogical lore. This old Macdonald has a ring of manliness in his song that breathes of the free, wild hunter who killed so many wolves in his day, and who grudged the laying down of his bow and arrow at the feet of hirpling, stumbling, old age. The soul was young though the body was aged, and we are sorry that we have not a few more of the out-pourings of so grand a spirit. This is perhaps the only song in which we find a bard utterly despising the creatures of the ocean, from the shell-fish on the sea-shore to the deep-breathing whale that splashes among the billows. Down through the years the bards gave voice to the ennobling thoughts God gave them, and thus became the teachers of the people. What is loftier or more ennobling for a young man bent on wedlock than Duncan Bàn Macintyre's song to Mairi his wife. His admiration of her beauty and purity, his determination never to make her heart palpitate the quicker for any irritating words of his, and to protect her and provide for her in all circumstances, are beautifully expressed; and every one who hears that pure and sweet song must be all the better for it. Truth and faithfulness in love, and the hatred of everything mercenary in connection with marriage, are universal characteristics of our Gaelic songs. "Ged a tha mi gann do stòras, Gheibh sinn bho là gu là na dh'fhoghnas; seemed to represent the general feeling of the bards in regard to conjugal happiness. We need not say how much they have added to the military ardour of their countrymen by their praise of great and heroic actions, and their utter detestation of everything akin to cowardice and unmanliness. Not to go further back than Mackinnon, we may know the effect such thrilling battles as he has described would have upon all who listened to the stirring words. Blàr na h-Olaind and Blàr na h-Eiphit, speak of the rival soldier's high and lofty spirit, and although the bard was wounded almost unto death, he only refers to it in passing. It is of the noble daring of his officers, and the lofty courage and great deeds of his brother soldiers, of which he speaks so caressingly and so full of sympathy "C'uim nach tòisichinn 'sa' chàmpa, Far an d'fhàg mi clànn mo ghaoil; I know many of the old people of Lochaber who can repeat every word of these songs, but the Ceilidh has now vanished into a thing of the past, and the songs so full of profound wisdow and high teaching have been frowned upon as sinful; and, therefore, the young of the present day, with all their knowledge of the three R's, are less educated than their ancestors were. Not only could the Highlanders sing the songs of their country, so full of sublime and noble thoughts, but they also could tell the names of the authors. They could give the right melody, and tell the story attached to each song, and the circumstances in which it was composed; and many a tear was shed and many a pang of sorrow experienced over the sufferings of those whose tale was told in such pathetic language, wedded often to the weirdest and sweetest of melodies. Of such tales was the one attached to the song "A Mhic-Neachdain an Dùin Bho thùr nam baideal." when Macnaughton of Dundarave fled to Ireland with his wife's sister-one of the Campbells of Ardkinglass-and the poor deserted wife's cry of pain echoes down to us through ages. Then there was the unhappy wife whose sister tied her hair to a stake on the sea-shore, where she was drowned, "Gheibh iad mise hug ò, Anns an làthaich hi ri ho ro, Such treachery was always execrated in the Gaelic songs and the sympathies won to all that was pure and noble, and as each of such stories had in them the power and interest of a great novel, the mind filled with them could be neither vacant nor uncultured. Love, faith, hospitality, bravery, energy, and mercy were praised in these songs, and every form of tyranny and wrong, cowardice, treachery, or meanness, was treated with the "hate of hate and the scorn of scorn." The description of scenery in the Gaelic songs is always beautiful. We cannot imagine any one further from the unappreciative Peter Bell, to whom a primrose was just a yellow primrose and nothing more, than a Highlander who could delight in the minutest details of Duncan Ban's CoireCheathaich, or some of Mac Mhaighstir Alastair's descriptive pieces. We regret very much that this cultivating influence has been wrested from the people, but we hope that even yet amidst this modern revival of Celticism our Gaelic bards will meet with renewed appreciation, and that no minister or elder will dare to wrest from the people the songs that were sung by those whom God had gifted specially to make the world wiser and better. God who gave the proud flash of the eye to the eagle, who gave his gay feathers to the peacock, his thrilling song to the lark, and even his spots to the tiger, rejoices in beauty; and, verily, if His eye rejoices in loveliness of the outward form-in the red of the rose, and in the scarlet of the poppy-He must also rejoice in the beautiful thoughts that make the soul blossom in freshness like a well-watered garden; and people might as well turn the garden into a desert as wrest by fanatic and ignorant hands from the hearts of men the loveliness and gladness of which God made them full-which made them tender and sympathetic, and filled their souls with a chivalrous love for heroic deeds, that made them emulate the bravery of former generations, and made them patriotic and virtuous. On the same date (the 25th March 1885) Mr Alexander Macdonald, audit office, Highland Railway, Inverness, read a paper on Celtic Poetry. We summarise it as follows: CELTIC POETRY. Celtic poetry includes the poetry of Britanny, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, but in this paper Gaelic poetry is taken as representative of the rest; the other countries, however, are occasionally referred to for illustration, confirmation, or addition. Poetry took literary shape before prose, for the simple reason that rhythmic language is almost necessary for the memory; and the memory was the only repository of literature in barbaric and savage times, before writing was invented. The Celts of ancient times were especially fond of poets; the classical writers continually refer to the bards that attended the chiefs and appeared at the feasts. And, if we may trust old Irish history, the poets were the most important class of men in the State; their privileges were extraordinary; they had right of hospitality from every person and the right of exacting gifts; they were themselves, on the other hand, divided into grades said to have been seven, and the highest poet had to know and recite, if called on, 350 tales or poems, the next, 175, and so on to the 7th, who recited 30 tales or poems. Some authorities give 10 or 11 grades. We know from Cæsar that the Druids taught poetry to their pupils, and probably embodied their doctrines in poetic form, which, as they did not commit them to writing, would facilitate remembrance. We know, too, that the poets used to appear in battle, inciting their own side and hurling taunts and detraction at their foes. So powerful, indeed, was their influence that they could even stop the combatants when drawn up and ready for fight: "So," says the old writer who records this, "among the wildest barbarians passion yields to art and philosophy, and Mars reveres the Muses." For ease of reference and for perspicuity's sake, we shall consider the subject of Gaelic poetry under the following heads :— The antiquity of Gaelic poetry; its heorism; its patriotism ; its love; its power of description; and, lastly, its poetic value. Much dispute has existed as to the antiquity of Gaelic poetry, and, indeed, all Celtic poetry that now exists. The Welsh claimed for their Triads and their Four Books of Wales, an antiquity that dates as far back as the 6th century. Indeed, Mr Skene thinks they actually were composed about that time, and handed on traditionally until the 12th to the 15th century, when they were written down. But, unfortunately for all such theories, their language is very modern; in fact, it is the language of the time at which they were written down, say the 13th and 14th centuries; and, again, their historical elements are too vague, legendary, and mythical to argue upon their intrinsic antiquity. The very same criticism applies to Irish literature; its earlist MS. is of the 10th or 11th century, say about 1100, and though the language does point to a century or two older for some pieces, yet little can be claimed with any degree of probability or regard to scientific accuracy, as older than the 9th century. Scotland is even worse off; passing over the Book of Deer in the 12th century, as of little literary though great linguistic importance, we come first to the Book of the Dean of Lismore, written about 1512. It contains poetry of two classes-the heroic and the contemporary. The contemporary poetry is of the ordinary mixed kind-elegiac, erotic, philosophic, religious, and, as is usual among the Gaels, genealogical or clannish. The heroic pieces deal with legendary and mythic characters, mostly the Féine. Some of them purport to be by contemporary authors, doubtless working in the old quarries of Fenian romance; but many are attributed to Ossian and several other Ossianic heroes. Prof. Windisch has shown the value of this reputed authorship of Ossian by a comparison with the older Irish tales and poems. In these tales or poems are introduced, after some narrative or descriptive passage, the char |