the Highlands is not generally understood, I fhall endeavour to lay a fhort fketch of it before the reader, from which he will eafily fee, how our ancient poems came to be preferved.

When St. Columba, in the fixth century, gathered the monks into monafteries, the Gaelic was the only language of Scotland and Ireland; and Roman learning began to be cultivated in thofe monafteries. As there was a conftant intercourfe between the inhabitants of both islands, as the defcendants of one common parent; and as their language was materially the fame it was reduced to writing in the fame character, and on the fame grammatical principles, by both. The policy of the clergy induced them to confine all learning to their own order; by which means they not only kept the vulgar in awe, with greater eafe, but often arrived at the moft eminent civil offices in the state. A's the genius of Chriftianity did not, like that of Druidifm, admit of a junction between the bards and the clergy, the former were prevented from partaking of the advantages arifing from the cultivation of letters. The poetic trade, however, continued not only honourable, but lucra tive. As books were unknown to the people,

the

the fongs of the bards became the only amufement of their leifure - hours. The authors were careffed, honoured, and rewarded, by a people enthufiaftically fond of the memory of their forefathers. As the mind was not ftored with. any other fubject of contemplation except these poems, they were learned with a degree of quickness, and preserved with a purity, which, to perfons accustomed to the use of books, not easily conceivable. His bard was to the ancient chief, what a library is to the modern one. Public academies were inftituted for the study of the poetic art; and it is not to be imagined, that candidates would be wanting for fuch an employment. When the pious Christian went on a pilgrimage to the tomb of his favourite faint, the bard, with equal enthufiafin, travelled to the habitation of his favou rite poet, to learn his compofitions. When the compofitions of one country had been acquired, those of another were fought after; Ireland and Scotland were alternately vifited by the bards of each nation.

*

Although literature was thus neglected by the bards, it was induftriously cultivated by the clergy of the Highlands and Ifles, before the (d). 2

Re

Reformation. But the art of printing was unhappily little practifed in our country before that period; and the manufcripts (a few excepted) fhared the fate of the monafteries, which perished by the enthufiaftić zeal of the times.

The modern state of the Highlands presents a view fomewhat different, which eafily accounts for the neglect of Celtic literature of late.

The people of fortune fend their children, when very young, to the Low Country, to be educated; who, as the Gaelic language is utterly unknown at the universities, have not an opportunity of learning it with other branches of education. The ends in view, and the means used, are the fame with thofe of the natives of the Low Country: the parent looks. with a wifhful eye to the SouтH, for the advancement of the child. On his knowledge of claffical learning and the English language, every promotion through life is thought entirely to depend. When his education is completed, he is fixed in fome profeffion, the knowledge of which takes up his next period of life. When he has time to look around him, and reflect on the beauties of his mother tongue,

he

he is too far advanced in years, to fit down to ftudy the rudiments of it; and his indolence is in fome meafure juftified by the fcarcity of books written in it, to which he can find accefs, He is therefore neceffitated to content himself with hearing and rehearfing the nervous compofitions it contains; which he can no more reduce to writing, than the unlettered bard can, who repeats them to him. Hence poetry, with a few exceptions, is neglected by the learned in the Highlands.

We

fhall next fee, by whom it is preserved.

When the rich fend their fons to the univerfity, to fearch for feience, the poor fend theirs to the mountains, to look after their cattle. Thefe, as the land is not in general favourable to agriculture, conftitute the principal wealth of the country; and, confequently, their prefervation becomes the firft object of attention. The mountains, on which they feed, being extenfive, little time is exhaufted in attending them. Leifure and retirement beget reflection; and the mind, undisturbed by the bustle of fociety, has full fcope to look back to the tales of other years. The fcenery in ancient poetry is familiar to the eye; and the breaft, hitherto

(d) 3

therto vacant, is ready for its reception. Thus the inferior fort of people fearch for perfons, who can rehearse those poems; and they learn them with incredible facility. And in this manner they acquire an early acquaintance with the illuftrious characters, celebrated in the tra ditions of their country.

But, to return to the fubject: Mr. Macpherfon, in an advertisement, prefixed to the originals, he has published as a specimen, fays, "The words are not, after the Irish manner "briftled over with useless and quiefcent confo"nants, fo disagreeable to the eye, and which rather embarrass than asfift the reader."

This drew upon him an attack from Colonel Vallancey, who is allowed to be an ingenious Celtic antiquarian. The Colonel endeavours to defend the Irish language from the imputation of briftliness, in the manner of a gentleman and a scholar. The paffage from Mr. Macpherfon, with the Colonel's criticifm, is quoted by Mr. Shaw with an air of the highest triumph and fatisfaction. He pronounces the difference of orthography ufed by thefe gentlemen, to be an unanswerable argument, that the Poems of Offian must be fpurious. Here one cannot perufe