whatever they were. Then, he continued, the Gael loved the pipes as Edinburgh people loved tea, although the pipes had weakened for the first time “The strength of Diarmaid and of Goll.” The last bard known to have acted officially in battle was Mac Mhuirich, or Mac Vuirich, the Clan Ranald bard of the day, who recited at the battle of Harlaw, in 1411. Mac Mhuirich was disgusted at the growing popularity of the pipes, and composed a set of verses descriptive of the bagpipe and its lineage, which are more graphic, humorous and forcible than elegant or gentlemanly. Duncan Ban Mac Intyre, the bard of Glenorchy, has a poem on “Hugh the Piper,” who, it seems, had insulted the bard in some way. Hugh is compared to a wicked dog barking at the passers-by, and intent on biting their heels. He is to be hurled out of the society of bards and pipers as a fruitless bough is cut away from a flourishing tree, it is hinted that if he would quit the country it would be a good riddance, he is made the impersonation of all sorts of defects, and his musical efforts are compared to the cries of ducks, geese, and pigs. It should be added, however, that the same bard composed _Ben Dorain_, the most famous of his poems, to a pipe tune, dividing it into eight parts corresponding to the variations of the pibroch, and moulding the language into all the variations of the wild rhythm, so his spite must have been more at Hugh himself than at his music. The antipathy of the bards to the pipes is easily understood. They had all along been the acknowledged inspired leaders of the people, inciting the clans to battle with their wild verses. The pipes with all their war spirit could hardly match this, which is culled from a battle song supposed to have been written on the eve of the invasion of England that terminated so tragically at Flodden:— “Burn their women, lean and ugly! Burn their children great and small! In the hut and in the palace, Prince and peasant, burn them all! Plunge them in the swelling rivers, With their gear and with their goods; Spare, while breath remains, no Saxon, Drown them in the roaring floods.”