The name that stands first on the roll of the bards of the Middle and Modern Ages is that of MUIREADACH ALBANNACH. He is the author of several poems which have been preserved in _The Book of the Dean of Lismore_. Religious subjects are the theme of all his compositions. None of the old bards exhibits so much earnestness and intensity of feeling. There is also more subjectivity in his poems than in other productions of the period. His name signifies Murdoch of Albin, or Scotland, given probably to distinguish him from another Irish bard of the same name. Muireadhach became the ancestor of a family of senachies and bards who have been very distinguished in the literary annals of Gaelic Scotland. They were hereditary bards and senachies to the Clanranald family. One of them, Lachlan Mòr MacMhuireadhach or Vurich, accompanied Donald Balloch of the Isles in 1411 at the battle of Harlaw, reciting his grand war-incitement poem. The last of them, Lachlan MacVurich, gives evidence in the report of the Highland Society on Ossian, and traces his genealogy through eighteen generations to Muireadhach Albannach. Muireadhach appears to have lived between A.D. 1180 and 1220. I give here a metrical version of a short religious poem of his in the Dean of Lismore’s book. He is supposed to have been an ecclesiastic, as many of those who wrote in early times were. I praise Thee, Christ, that on Thy breast A guilty one like me may rest; And that Thy favour I can share; And on my lips Thy cross may bear. O Jesus, sanctify my heart, My hands and feet and every part; Me sanctify in Thy good grace,— Blood, flesh and bones, and all my ways. I never cease committing sin; For still its love resides within: May God His holy fragrance shed Upon my heart and on my head. Great glorious One vouchsafe relief From all the ills that bring me grief; Ere I am laid beneath the sod: Before me smooth my way to God. Another poem of Muireadhach is a curious dialogue between himself and Cathal Cròdhearg, King of Connaught, who lived towards the end of the 12th century. Both of them were then entering on a monastic life. It has been inferred from the dialogue that Murdoch was a man of high birth. Another poem of his in the Dean of Lismore’s book I have translated as follows:— ’Tis time to leave for Paradise Since it is hard this pain to bear,— To win unsoiled, the heavenly prize Which others cannot with us share. Now to thy priest thyself confess, And all thy sins recall to mind, Seek not His court with guilt-stained dress, For in that state none entrance find. None of thy many sins conceal, Though sore it be their ill to tell: Thy secret thoughts and deeds reveal, Lest thou incur His wrath in hell.