Though in point of antiquity there is none of all these British MSS. to compare with the oldest glosses on the Continent, there are two which come near it. They date from the ninth century, and are both located in Trinity College. These are the Book of Armagh and the Book of Dimna. Next in order, between the ninth and tenth centuries, come (1) the Irish Canons at Cambridge; (2) the Gospel of Maeielbrid Mac Durnâin, tenth century, at Lambeth Palace; (3) the Psalter of Southampton, end of the tenth century or beginning of the eleventh, at St. John’s College, Cambridge; (4) The Book of Deer, with its Latin, ninth to tenth, and Gaelic entries tenth to twelfth, also at Cambridge in the University Library; and (5) the Gaelic portion of the Missal of Stowe, bought by the British Government with the rest of Lord Ashburnham’s collection for their Museum. These seven MSS. are the most ancient, the only ones, in fact, in which you find Gaelic written before the eleventh century within the British Isles. Yet they are not Gaelic MSS., strictly speaking, but Latin ones in which are found some words or phrases or paragraphs written in the native tongue. The Gospel of Maeielbrid, for example, contains only a line and a half of Gaelic, the Book of Armagh four pages. To find what we would strictly call Gaelic documents, we must come down as far as the closing years of the eleventh century, which yields us four. Henceforth there is no lack of abundant and rich material. The twelfth century is credited with seven, the thirteenth with eight, the fourteenth with eleven, the fifteenth and sixteenth with ninety-six, the seventeenth with sixty-six, the first half of the eighteenth with seventy-seven. Total down to the year 1750, 276 MSS. in the British Isles of the whole number 953 catalogued by De Jubainville. So that the remainder, the vast majority of the British MSS., are of comparatively recent date, subsequent in fact even to the days of Macpherson of Ossianic fame. More important than the number, dates, and distribution is the subject-matter of our literary legacy, and this now falls to be considered. It is very difficult to classify the MSS. according to their contents, as so many of them are miscellaneous. Yet they do admit of being brought under certain categories. Leaving aside for the present all the later ones written after 1600, we have in all 168 Continental and British documents to deal with.