A fresh start in the study of Celtic literature—Advent of foremost scholars—The new basis found by Zeuss—Resurrection of ancient texts—Unexpected light—H. d’Arbois de Jubainville and his mission to this country—The numbers, dates, and localities of Gaelic MSS.: (1) on the Continent; (2) in the British Isles—Subject matter—Examples of the oldest written Gaelic poetry in Europe—The great books of saga—Leabhar Na h’Uidhre—Books of Leinster, Ballymote, and Lismore—Quotations—Account of the Ancient Annals—Tighernach—The _Chronicon Scotorum_—The “Four Masters”—Romance of the fugitive documents. It is practically within the last fifty years that the great revival in the study of Celtic literature has taken place. About the middle of last century the foremost scholars began to arrive, and since then there has been quite a galaxy of experts, both on the Continent and in the British Isles, who have approached the subject on scientific lines, and by careful literary research have not only opened to us the treasures of the past, but have also thrown a flood of light on them. Prior to their advent, Celtic studies had no solid basis, for the sufficient reason that the materials were not available. Old-time convulsions had dispersed the documents to the four winds, and they remained where they lay, buried for ages from the public eye. Such learned men as occupied themselves with these studies before the middle of last century confined their attention in great part to the languages and literatures of the Neo-Celtic races—the Welsh and the Bretons. They sought in these light to dissipate the obscurity that hung over the early history of the Celtic race—the period anterior to the conquest of Gaul by the Romans. They consulted grammars and dictionaries published in Brittany, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, during the last three centuries. Of the texts themselves, the oldest they knew were Welsh, dating from about the thirteenth century; and some poems of Welsh bards preserved in MSS., of which the most ancient went no farther back than the end of the twelfth century. These were literary treasures indeed, with the characteristic Celtic flavour, as may be seen from the beautiful critiques of Renan and Matthew Arnold, both of whom were charmed by the spirit and sentiment they breathe. But in general it may be said that the early scholars had only mastered the more modern forms of the language, and it was from texts comparatively recent that they sought illumination of a past removed from them by more than nineteen centuries. Such was the stage Celtic study had reached—a kind of arrested development—when suddenly a unique resuscitation took place.