ISABEL, COUNTESS OF ARGYLL. In the Dean’s Book this lady is described as “Isabella Ni vic Cailein;” elsewhere she is called “Contissa Ergadien.” She was Isabel Stewart, eldest daughter of John, Lord of Lorn. She was married to Lord Colin Campbell, who was created Earl of Argyll in 1457, and died in 1493. The poems of these two ladies are interesting as showing that Gaelic literature was cultivated in fashionable quarters at that period. I have attempted a literal rendering in verse of the Countess’s poem:— Pity one that bears love’s anguish, Yet the cause that must conceal; Sore it be to lose a dear one, And a wretched state to feel. And the love I gave in secret I must ever keep unknown; But unless relief comes quickly All my freshness will be gone. Ah! the name of my beloved Ne’er to other can be told; He put me in lasting fetters;— Pity me a hundredfold. In surveying the arena of history we observe places geographically small sending forth the most prevailing of the forces that have fashioned the course of civilisation. A glance at one or two countries will readily illustrate the significance of the great factors at work in the making of the world’s annals. We discern in Judea, a small strip of land, the country whence the all-conquering religion and civilisation of the whole earth have come; we find in Greece—a small concatenation of tribes and provinces—a philosophic and æsthetic power which has supplied the minds of men with profound wisdom for centuries; for our laws and many of our customs and institutions we are indebted to Rome, Pagan and Christian—a city in a comparatively petty peninsula; in our own isles of the Gentiles, not excluding Man, Ireland, and St. Kilda, there has been developed the greatest moral force of the present, and it may be said of any millennium hitherto. Our British islands look small indeed on the chart of the world; and it is possible that our geographical insignificance may tempt everweening, inimical powers, and some of our own subject nationalities, to touch unkindly some day the mane of the British lion; but very vainly indeed as long as Christian manliness resides in the hearts of never-enslaved Britons.