Four of the poems in the MS. are by Campbell, the Knight of Glenorchy, who fell in the battle of Flodden; three by the Earl of Argyll, and other three by the Countess Isabella. The compositions generally are very difficult to read, yet the book is not lacking in colour. Here are aphorisms from Phelim Macdougall, reflecting, no doubt, the fashionable virtues and vices and partialities of the age:— ’Tis not good to travel on Sunday, Not good to be of ill-famed race; Not good to write without learning, Not good is an Earl without English. Not good is a sailor if old, Not good a priest with but one eye, Not good a parson if a beggar. Not good is a lord without a dwelling, Not good is a woman without shame, Not good is fighting without courage, Not good is entering a port without a pilot; Not good is a maiden who backbites, Not good is neglecting the household dogs, Not good is disrespect to a father, Not good is the talk of the drunken, Not good is a knife without an edge, Not good is the friendship of devils; And thy Son, oh Virgin most honoured, Though he has saved the seed of Adam, Not good for himself was the cross. The Fernaig MS. is another Highland production that was not known in Johnson’s day. In 1807 it was in the west of Ross-shire, at the place whose name it bears, and afterwards came into the possession of Dr. Skene. This collection was made between the years 1688 and 1693, in the country of the Macraes, in far Kintail, and breathes the spirit of the times, politically and religiously, as then reflected in Highland Jacobite circles. The MS. consists of two paper volumes in brown pasteboard cover, containing 4200 lines of poetry. There are several leaves loose, and others blank, a few half pages written upon, and one folded in. The second part was never finished. In one place six leaves closely written on both sides have been neatly removed. Like the Dean of Lismore’s, the handwriting is in the current Roman character, and the spelling phonetic. The collection includes compositions by different authors within the area extending from South Argyll to the north of Sutherland, Bishop Carsewell being among the number. Some of the pieces date back to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Strange to say for a Highland gleaning, there is no love or drinking song. Wine and women have scant notice here. The Gaelic in great part is practically the dialect still spoken in Kintail and district. Little is indicated of the history of the book or of the author in the text itself. But on the first page of volume I. occurs the significant and suggestive superscription:—