It may be seen from this that the learned Bishop naturally complained of the great disadvantage under which the Gael, both in Scotland and Ireland, laboured in their not being possessed of any book whatever in the Gaelic, as nothing hitherto had ever been printed in that language. It would have been both interesting and instructive to have had the annals of their country recorded in this manner, as they could not have depended so much on the still more vague and uncertain narratives to which were handed down from age to age by tradition. No doubt the bards and _seanachies_ had their manuscripts and parchments in which many important facts, and many ancient productions in poetry were recorded, but these were at best but comparatively few, and could benefit the community but to a small extent, compared with the productions of even such printing-presses as were made use of by the renowned Lekprevik. The want of the Holy Scriptures in the Gaelic language particularly in districts where it was the only spoken language, was a disadvantage which the good Bishop deeply deplored; and that want was no doubt the chief cause of his publishing his "Forms of Prayer, &c.," to facilitate his ministerial labours among the Highlanders. Had the Bishop been a prophet in a sense, and had he been able to have foreseen the keen controversies that were to take place two centuries after his time, relative to the poems that told of Fingal and his warriors, he would have given a more detailed account of the Ossianic poetry which was no rare thing in his day. Posterity would have felt very grateful to the learned gentleman if he had enlarged somewhat on the songs and tales of olden times, as he had every opportunity of hearing them rehearsed by the family bards of chieftains, as well as by the clan _seanachies_ who made such things their sole employment. Carswell seemed to think (as many clergymen have thought in latter times) that the Highlanders, among whom he laboured, paid too much attention to their songs and tales about warriors and Fingalian battles, and thereby neglected the more important preparations for a future world. In all probability he directed his eloquent addresses against such practices, although by no means successful in extinguishing them. For two centuries they descended from age to age, and were communicated from sire to son, until ultimately stamped out by the effects of adverse changes, and of the altered economy in the management of the Highlands and Islands. SGIATHANACH.