in the Cardonell or "Thorkelin" print of the Ruthwell inscriptions, where the Scottish antiquary has given a more faithful version of the Runic than of the Latin legends. Notwithstanding the extravagant flights which Professor Finn Magnusen permitted his imagination to take relative to the supposed personages named on the Hunterston brooch, little blame can attach to him for having missed its true meaning with nothing but imperfect copies to guide him; but the fact that this inscription should have been copied from the original brooch by two Scandinavian scholars familiar with the Runic alphabet, without either of them detecting the name _Maolfridi_, so palpably engraved on it, proves how completely, though unconsciously, they were blinded by their knowledge of the old Norse language, and their belief that it must contain the word _Dalkr_, a brooch. The recognition, indeed, of this proper name proved to me the key to the whole inscription, as it immediately suggested the probability of the ᛚᚴ of former translators in the first line being also an ᛉ, and so led to a new and intelligible reading of the remainder. The word _dìol_, which I have rendered according to its significance as a substantive, is also employed as the verb _to avenge_. One Gaelic scholar to whom I shewed the inscription, accordingly suggested as a more characteristic old Celtic interpretation of the Runes: _O Malbritha, thou friend, avenge Malfridi!_ "The difference," he adds, "between the ancient and modern orthography is not greater than frequently exists between the present spelling of familiar terms, as written or pronounced in two contiguous Highland districts." It is a customary conclusion to a preface to crave the forbearance of the reader for all faults and shortcomings: the which, as readers and critics make an equally general custom of paying no attention to it, may as well be omitted. I can only say, that while writing this work with an honest and earnest desire for the discovery of truth, I have done it no less under the conviction that anything I could now set forth on the subject must be modified by more extended observations, and superseded, ere long, by works of a more complete character. EDINBURGH, _January 1851_. Lightward aspire: nor think the utmost height Of an attainable success is won; Nor even that the mighty spirits, gone With the bright past, in their enduring flight So won their passage toward the infinite, That they may stand on their far heights alone, A distant glory, dazzling to the sight, In which all hope of mastery is o'erthrown. No height of daring is so high, but higher The earnest soul may yet find grace to climb; Truth springeth out of truth; the loftiest flyer, That soareth on the sweep of thought sublime, Resteth at length; and still beyond doth guess Truth infinite as God toward which to press. SCOTTISH ARCHÆOLOGY. INTRODUCTION.