"speak English, and partly because some of them are Scholars, and versed "in the Irish language."

This fact is amply confirmed by that learned Gaelic scholar, Dr. Shaw, a Highlander, and author of a Gaelic Grammar and Dictionary published in 1780. In his enquiry into the authenticity of the Poems of Ossian, he says that "Ireland had all sorts of schools and colleges, and thither the "youth of England and other countries went for education; and all the "popular stories of the Highlands, at this day, agree that every chieftain "went thither for education and the use of arms, from the fourth until "the fifteenth century. I Columbkill, a monastery on the island of Iona, was first founded by the munificence of the Irish; and until its dissolu"tion all the abbots and monks belonging to it, one abbot only excepted, were Irish. All the highland clergy not only studied but received ordina"tion in Ireland. The clergy of the islands especially, and those of the "Western coast, were frequently natives of Ireland. Hence it happens, "that all poetical compositions, stories, fables, &c. of any antiquity, which are repeated in the Highlands at this day, are confessedly in the Irish Gaelic, and every stanza that is remarkably fine, or obscure, is still called "Gaelic Dhomhain Eirionach, i.e. the deep Irish, or pure primitive lan'guage of Ireland." I am conscious (he adds) that without a knowledge "of Irish learning, we know nothing of the Earse as a tongue, the Irish “being a studied language, and the Earse only a distinct provincial dialect.”

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Dr. Johnson, in his account of the Western Isles, argues that the Earse or Scotch Gaelic was an unwritten speech, in which nothing that is not very short can be transmitted from one generation to another. The Scotch (he adds) had not even the Bible in their own dialect, but used the Irish translation, which they published in 1690, but printed in the Roman letter instead of the Irish character.

James Macpherson confirms the Doctor's opinion, for he states, in his Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, that "the inhabitants of the High"lands had fallen from several concurring circumstances, into the last "degree of ignorance and barbarism;" and Dr. Blair, following in his steps, says that "the inhabitants of the Highlands about two hundred years ago were in a state of gross ignorance and barbarity."

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No wonder then that their language became very much corrupted; and such has been the case, particularly within the last century, as we find by

their Grammars, which are drawn from the spoken dialect, and not from any ancient manuscripts.

But we are not to infer from this that they had no manuscripts, for the Committee of the Highland Society in their Report on the Poems of Ossian, have given specimens in fac-similes of several of their Gaelic MSS., in the Irish character which was common to both countries; and it has been lately ascertained that some of these manuscripts, still in the possession of several gentlemen in Scotland, are as old as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, all written in the Irish character, and in a corresponding style of language with those written in Ireland at the same periods; and in the pedigrees given in these, all the Celtic families of Scotland are traced up to Con of the Hundred Battles, King of Ireland in the second century. The earliest specimens of their printed works shew that they spoke and wrote the Gaelic language as purely as we did in Ireland.

Bishop Carsuel translated the Confession of Faith and some prayers into the Gaelic language for the Gaels of Scotland; and these were printed in the year 1567. His epistle dedicatory is in the purest Irish, as to orthography, syntax, and phraseology.

From this period the Albanian, or Scotch Gaelic, became gradually corrupted, as shown by their publications at different times. A marked deterioration is perceptible in the poems attributed to Ossian by Mr. Macpherson, but which in reality are only translations from his own English originals, for, as he had but an imperfect knowledge of the Gaelic, these translations are so barbarously executed, in point alike of rhyme, spelling and syntax, that the language employed appears to a Gaelic scholar to be nothing else than a miserable patois.

The Gaelic dictionaries of Scotland are certainly the most correct publications they have, because these have, in a great measure, been compiled from our Irish dictionaries; but the mode of spelling words is too frequently in accordance with the vulgarisms of the colloquial dialect, whence it is clear that any person, who wishes to acquire a thorough knowledge of the Scotch Gaelic, should first make himself master of the Hiberno-Celtic, in order that he may learn to discriminate between the mother tongue and a corrupted dialectic variety.

From the evidences adduced we may justly infer that if such a poet as

Macpherson's Ossian, a Gael (not a Pict,) be it remembered, wrote his poems in North Britain in the third century, he must have been either an Irishman or the descendant of Irishmen who had recently come from ancient Scotia to settle in that country; and his language must have been the pure Irish undefiled of that period, and not the corrupt patois ascribed to him by Macpherson.

We maintain, however, that there was no such Caledonian poet, and we shall hereafter endeavour to discover him elsewhere.

RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS:

ANGLO-SAXON AND SCANDINAVIAN.

By A. Craig Gibson, Esq.

(READ 10TH MARCH, 1859.)

It must be obvious that a subject on which many volumes have been written, in various languages, can scarcely be treated as its importance demands within the limits of one of our papers; but a cursory examination of the nature, origin and history of Runes, with notices of a few remarkable Runic monuments, and the relation they bear to portions of our early history, may possibly be compressed within allowable bounds, and induce us to extend further our researches into a highly interesting field of observation.

It is significant of the general neglect of this subject, that even the meaning of the word Runes is often misapprehended, and it is by no means uncommon to find that when Runic monuments are spoken of, persons otherwise well informed apply the phrase to the remains of some ancient people who have borne the name of Runes. For instance, I have seen a letter where the writer, a very intelligent person, says, "I have no doubt but there were freemasons amongst the Runes"! This being the case, it may be excusable to state in limine, that Runes, and its adjective Runic, are terms applying simply to the alphabets used by certain Northern nations before the settlement amongst them of Christian priests brought into general use the now ordinary Roman letters. The original meaning of the word Rûn was that of "a mystery or secret," and those possessing the power of using the Runic characters, who formed only a small portion of the community, were regarded as magicians, or practitioners of a secret art; the characters themselves being looked upon as "mysterious and awful symbols" not only by the uninitiated but even by those who understood and practised their use. Even after the light of Christianity was shed upon the races whose only literature had been Runic, their ancient alphabets long continued to be extensively employed in constructing charms and incantations, and being regarded as a remnant of Pagan superstition, their use was strongly discouraged by the priesthood.

Though there is abundant evidence to shew that in ancient times Runes were applied to a variety of purposes, it is chiefly in the form of inscriptions on monumental stones, commemorative either of individuals or of exploits, that they have come down to us; and the Runic inscriptions to which I am anxious to direct attention may be said to consist of two distinct varieties, Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic, and Norse, Danish or Scandinavian. That eminent Saxon scholar, the late Mr. Kemble, in a paper on this subject in the twenty-eighth volume of the Archæologia, gives specimens of a third Runic alphabet called Marcomannic or Norman; but as these closely resemble Anglo-Saxon Runes, and the people who used them-the Nordmanni-we -were the Saxons dwelling in the country north of the Elbe, in fact our own Anglo-Saxon forefathers, it is unnecessary to treat them as a separate variety.

Nearly all the monumental inscriptions in Anglo-Saxon Runes now in existence are to be found within the territories of the ancient kingdom of Northumberland, which up to the close of the eighth century was more advanced in civilization than any other Teutonic nation, and it is from these native monuments that I have collated the materials for the first alphabet in the diagram. Some of the Runic alphabets given by Mr. Kemble comprise more than thirty characters, but this, from the sources indicated, consisting of twenty-six letters, is sufficient for our purpose. The most remarkable features of this Saxon Runic alphabet are the complex form of some of the letters, and the number of characters representing vocal sounds. The first characteristic is well marked in the D, G, H, K, Y and the letter possessing the power of our N G. The number of vowels, without reckoning W and Y, is nine, four being diphthongal, but all possessing their own distinct sounds in the old Saxon tongue, adding greatly to its variety and expressiveness, and existing at the present day in some dialects of the English provinces or of Scotland. The Runic letters standing for these sounds, with two exceptions, may be said to be formed on the basis of the I; the A, O, E and EO appearing to be nothing more than slight modifications of the same figure, while the U is our U inverted. The B, I and R are similar to ours. The D resembles an H with a cross between the perpendiculars--the M differs from the D only in having the cross at the upper part instead of half way down the letter; the E is like the common M; the H has two diagonal cross strokes instead of one horizontal like ours; the N is simply an I with a diagonal bar across its