Celts or Scotsmen, touches with pathetic beauty in two or three sentences written upwards of a century ago, on the conditions under which, even in the heart of the Highlands and Isles, in times of old, the production of Gaelic literature was possible: “We are now treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. Far from me and from my friends be such a frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is not to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.” Dr Macculloch, again, speaks of our country as owing a “deep debt of civilisation, of letters, and of religion” to the same place. From that little isle, lying grandly with its white brows of sand on the bosom of the mighty Atlantic, learned men went forth twelve and thirteen hundred years ago to Ireland, to England, and to many places on the Continent of Europe, to found colleges and establish churches. Adamnan and Bede testify that at that period Gaelic and Latin learning was cultivated in “the Celtic colleges of Iona, Oransay, Ardchattan, Uist, Rowdill, and Melrose,” and then and subsequently also in a score of other academic centres of Gaelic learning and activity. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, when translations of Gaelic poetry brought the genius of the Celtic spirit in contact with the intellectual forces of modern Europe, many who hitherto despised our Gaelic literature, began to look into this neglected field. Lord Bute, a Scot, with Gaelic sympathies, was Prime Minister then. The extract to be immediately given from a letter by the distinguished Lord Bannatyne, who, as Sheriff of Bute, and subsequently as Judge on Circuit at Inveraray, became interested in Gaelic manuscripts, will show the attention bestowed on the subject by men of position. Lord Bannatyne used his influence to get the valuable Gaelic manuscripts of Major Maclachlan of Kilbride in Argyllshire transferred to the Highland Society, and in writing on the subject says:—“The result, you know, was, that by means of the Rev. Francis Stuart, minister of Craignish, I obtained confirmation of the fact that his family had once possessed a very large collection, of which he had given two or three to General Sir Adolphus Oughton and the late Sir James Foulis, both of whom were Gaelic scholars, and that there still remained above twenty in his possession.” Elsewhere we come across these and other titled gentlemen acquiring knowledge of Gaelic over a hundred years ago. It was the Earl of Eglintoun, with the approbation of Boswell and Johnson, that inspired the publication of the _Gaelic Analysis_ by Shaw, who describes the acquisition of the language