McLachlan, and the Rev. Donald Mackintosh,” and collections of “Ossianic poetry made by a schoolmaster at Kilmelford,” volumes of tales which belonged to Mr. Campbell of Islay, a collection of Gaelic poetry made by a schoolmaster at Dunkeld, the MSS. whatever these may be, written in “The old Gaelic hand!” the use of which, we are told, was discontinued about the middle of the last century. “Regarding the history of the great majority of these documents,” it is said “we are ignorant”--certainly at least, I am, most profoundly. It appears however, that “The Rev. Mr. Gallie saw in Macpherson’s possession” ‘several volumes, small octavos, or rather large duodecimo in the Gaelic language and characters’! Scarcely less authentic is the fact that Lachlan Macviurich “remembers well that Clanranald made his father give up the _Red book_ to James Macpherson,” and that Macpherson himself deposited certain MSS. with his publishers Messrs. Beckett and Dehondt which for a whole year remained in the custody of that firm. These manuscripts mentioned by Mr. Mackinnon were probably the Gaelic leases of Macleod of Rasay referred to by me in _Celticism a Myth_. The fact that Macpherson so prostituted his talents, and character for integrity was stated to me many years ago by an aged clergyman of the Church of Scotland, who vouched for his statement on the faith of his friend George Dempster of Dunichen, who was cognizant of the circumstance. Father Farquharson, it is alleged, made a collection of Gaelic MSS. before 1745, the last leaves of which were used to kindle a stove fire in the Roman Catholic College at Douay, a circumstance, as I think, not greatly to be deplored, while the “illiterate descendant” of the _Seanachies_ attached to the family of Clanranald describes the dispersion of the manuscript library accumulated by his ancestors, and the fate of certain parchments [? old leases] which were cut down for tailors’ measuring tapes. “He himself” (the descendant of the _Seanachies_) “had possession of some parchments after his father’s death,” but not being able to read, these disappeared from view. A valuable witness truly in the identification of doubtful MSS. “Such acts of vandalism,” we are told, “are not likely to occur again.” Probably not. Like Joshua arresting the Sun and the Moon, they are “things that have once been done but can be done no more.” The fact of the dispersion, however, and the fate of the parchments, leases, title deeds, literary treasures or by whatever name they may be called, rests on the testimony of this Celtic ignoramus who, it is to be feared, would not be too particular in any relation concerning the “glories and greatness” of his country, his personal consequence, or the departed grandeur of his clan. I well remember, many years ago, meeting with an ignorant Highlander of some property, who offered to sell for ten pounds an ancient claymore, with a pretentious, but unauthenticated