[34] _Camb. Descr._ l. 1, c. 4. _Col. de Reb. Alb._, p. 19, 20. _Innes_, “_Sketches, etc._,” p. 365 _et seq._ In the middle of the seventeenth century, the second son of the Earl of Argyle was fostered by Campbell of Glenurchy, ancestor of the Breadalbane family. “In the Lowlands,” says Mr. Innes, “the practice was evidently common under the civil law.” In fact, fosterage was not peculiar to the Highlanders and Celtic people in particular, though, like many other old customs, it remained in force amongst them long after it had disappeared elsewhere. By Ini’s Law (63), the _fosterer_ was one of the three dependants whom the Gesithcundman might take with him under any circumstances. The system was admirably adapted for implanting the members of a dominant amongst a subordinate race, who, in the course of a few generations, must have thus become united in the ties of interest and affection with the ruling “caste.” No such ties bound the _villein_ to his feudal lord; and the evils and advantages arising out of each system were totally different. It was this custom which above all others tended to render the Anglo-Norman lords “beyond the pale,” _Hibernis Hiberniores_. As much devotion was shewn to a _Geraldine_ as to a _MacArthy_. [35] _Adam._ _Vit. St. Col._, l. 3, c. 5. It was the _Vergobreith_, not the _Toshach_, who was “consecrated” by the Druids, _v._ p. 28, n. †. Giraldus Cambrenses has left an extraordinary description of the barbarous rites with which the inauguration of the princes of Cinel Conal was celebrated. He wrote from hearsay, and very probably heightened the colouring of a picture that was exaggerated in the first instance; for he fully participated in that rooted antipathy which seems to have long existed between the Welsh and the Irish. Still the words of Ailred shew that certain barbarous ceremonies on such occasions lingered amongst the Scottish Gael in the twelfth century, shocking the more fastidious ideas of David after he had “rubbed off his Scottish rust.” “Unde et obsequia illa quæ a gente Scottorum in novella regum promotione more patrio, exhibentur ita exhorruit ut ea vix ab episcopis suscipere cogeretur” (_Twysden_, p. 348). The conspicuous part still assigned at coronations to the Scottish “Stone of Destiny” is as well known as are the numerous tales and fables connected with it. In his “Essay on Tara” Mr. Petrie impugns the identity of the stone in St. Edward’s chair with the genuine _Lia Fail_, upon which the Ardrighs of Ireland were inaugurated at Tara; where, in his opinion, the mystic stone of the “Tuath de Danan” still remains in spite of the claims of the Dalriads and the fables of the Connaughtmen. It indeed seems extraordinary that a small and migratory tribe from the north of Antrim should have been permitted to carry off with them the “sacred stone” of the Irish kings, and I am inclined to look upon the Scottish _Lia Fail_ as the stone upon which the _Pictish_