It has been held that the Romish system of the celibacy of the clergy was not introduced or acted upon till a century or two before the Reformation. Whether or not this is true we have at all events quite a crop of clans whose progenitors must have been the sons of ecclesiastical persons. We have Mac-an-Aba, MacNab, from the son of the Abbot; MacVicar, from the son of the Vicar: MacPherson, from the son of the Parson, or Persona; MacTaggart, from the son of the Priest; MacMaster, from the son of the Maighstir or Minister. Other names come to us through those who devoted themselves to be the _servants_ or _gillies_ of God or of some saints. Mac-gille-Chriost is Gilchrist, or the son of Gilchrist, or the servant of Christ. Mac-gill’-Iosa, is Gillies, or the son of the servant of Jesus; Mac-gill’-Iain, or MacLean, is the son of the servant of Seathain, or John; Mac-gill’-Aindreais is the son of the servant of Andrew; Mac-gill’-Eóra (Gill’-an-Leabhair) is the son of the servant of the Book, Macindeor; Mac-gill’-Mhoire is Morrison, the servant of Mary, &c. The clerical element appears to have been a powerful interest at one time in the Highlands and Islands. Indeed, this may be said of Scotland as a whole, a characteristic which has not yet become invisible. The Dean’s book shows us the Highlands under the old order of things. A vast change was impending. The Catholic ecclesiastical dispensation was drawing to a close. The Church of Rome never gained a powerful hold of the people; so in general they contemplated its downfall with indifference. The intelligent of them who were interested in religion had more sympathy with the old native Church—the Celtic—which Rome supplanted or were ready to embrace the new faith of awakening Christendom. GILLICALUM MAC-AN-OLAVE.—This bard is the author of several pieces of fair merit in the Dean’s Book. He appears to have been one of the famous Beatons, _Clann-an-Leigh_, of Islay, Mull, and Skye. Of him and of several others in the Dean’s MS. we know little more than their names, some of which I now give:—John of Knoydart, who poetises on the murder of the young Lord of the Isles by the Irish harper, Dermid O’Cairbre, at Inverness in 1490; Duncan Mor, from Lennox; Gilchrist Taylor, Andrew Macintosh, the Bard Macintyre, John MacEwen MacEachern, Duncan MacCabe, Dougall MacGille Glas, Maol Domhnuich (Servus Domini), Baron Ewen MacOmie, MacEachag, and Duncan, brother of the Dean, Sir James Macgregor, who transcribed the most of the manuscript so famous under his brother’s name. There are a good few verses of a satiric character to be found in the Dean’s collection. The reader is rather surprised to find the religious Dean admitting such an estimate as the following of monks and monasteries into his collection:— I, Robert, went yesterday A monastery for to see; But to my wishing they said nay, Because my wife was not with me!