We need not follow this enthusiastic MS. hunter in his peregrinations through the British Isles and on the Continent, entering, as he frequently did, the precincts of ancient universities, cloisters, and museums, sitting in odd corners in libraries, poring over musty leaves, deciphering antique characters, looking at some documents through glass cases which he would fain see opened, handling others with eager, hurried scrutiny, while a verger or a monk mounts sentry over the inquisitive foreigner, watching the precious relics with jealous care, and limiting the time for observation. What concerns us most are the tabulated results; and we might look in the passing at some of the more striking facts which they exhibit. And first of all it is not a little surprising to learn that, while the libraries of the Continent possess twenty MSS., or more correctly twenty portions of MSS., written in the Gaelic language before the eleventh century, in the libraries of England and Ireland there are only seven of that remote age. But after that date the British libraries take the lead, since the number of their Gaelic MSS. before the seventeenth century amount to 133, whereas the total on the Continent down to the seventeenth century is only thirty-five. Of course this excludes the Celtic Latin MSS., of which there are upwards of 200 in European libraries. Altogether there are just fifty-six Gaelic documents that are known to be on the Continent of dates ranging from the eighth to the nineteenth century, and these are distributed as follows:— 8th century 2 Milan, Cambray. 8th to 9th century 2 St. Paul in Carinthia, Vienna. 9th century 13 Berne, Carlsruhe (2), Dresden, Laon, Leyden, Nancy, Paris (2), Rome, St. Gall (2), Turin. 9th to 10th century 1 Würzburg. 10th century 2 Paris. 11th century 6 Carlsruhe, Rome (2), St. Gall, Vienna (2). 11th to 12th century 1 Klosterneuburg. 12th century 1 Engelberg. 13th to 15th century 1 Rennes. 14th to 16th century 1 Paris. 16th century 1 Stockholm. 17th century 12 Brussels (11), Paris. 18th century 5 Paris (4), Rouen. 19th century 4 Paris (2), Rouen (2). Dates uncertain 4 Berne, Florence, Milan (2). Besides the number, antiquity, and wide distribution of these MSS., we are struck with two things. First, the fact that Milan and Cambray, two Continental cities, have the honour of possessing the two most ancient Gaelic MSS. now extant. One of these relics is a Latin commentary on the Psalms, the other a Latin sermon, but in both there are glosses in Irish or Gaelic written in the eighth century. Earlier than that we cannot go for actual writing still extant in the native tongue.