And now looking back over this long legacy of vellum, is there not something eerie in the thought of these old-world musty MSS. creeping out once more into the light, after ages of gravelike oblivion? If we could follow their actual history, from their slow genesis under the pen of ancient amanuenses through their subsequent fortunes, when perhaps some of them under the cloak of a fleeing monk, or in a shaky coracle at sea, barely escaped the fury of illiterate warriors or the waves; some of them other perils on land in their wanderings through the British Isles and the Continent,—what a revelation of life and destiny that would be! They have slept a long sleep through turbulent ages since then, apparently unappreciated, buried, neglected, and forgotten, but now in this new age, as we have seen, there is a mighty hunt and scramble for the resurrected relics. Many of them have been already published, and there is a movement afoot by the Irish Text Society to print the more important of the rest. Libraries and individuals compete with each other for possession of the originals. So that now, in the eyes of the wise and the wealthy, the hitherto obsolete MSS., often cast aside in odd chests and closets as mere brown rubbish, are more prized and coveted as rare treasure than even their rivals of to-day. And what a legacy of vellum all-told we owe to the old scribes of cell and cloister; from the legended Fenius Farsaid all the way down to the “Four Masters.” CHAPTER VII THE SCOTTISH COLLECTION OF CELTIC MSS. Cabinet in Advocates’ Library—Curious assortment of vernacular literature—Number and character—Origin of the collection—Highland Society and Kilbride MSS.—Subsidiary additions—Work for the expert—Fate of some luckless documents—Value of MSS. XL., LIII., and LVI.—Three literary monuments of the Western Highlands: (1) The Book of the Dean of Lismore—History, description, value, contents, extracts, names of contributors; (2) The Fernaig MS.—Characteristics—Interesting details of supposed author; (3) The Book of Clanranald—Quaint relic—Two MSS., the Red and the Black—History and contents, with specimen prose-poem and elegy. In a cabinet in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, may be seen what looks like the decayed and mouldering remains of some obsolete literature. Very rarely is the case opened, and only once in a while does the casual observer show any more than a passing interest in these faded and tattered remnants. Why should he? In comparison with the vast variety of neatly printed and handsomely bound volumes around, their appearance is uninviting. Handwritten, many of them with frayed edges, leaves missing, ink faded, words illegible, it is only too apparent they have not escaped the marks of age, damp, soot, and moths.