The character of the two races that blended into one through the agency of this Church and outward political pressure is not unfairly represented by Professor Rhys, when he says, touching first on the Gael or ancient Scot: “One of the lessons of this chapter is that the Goidel, where he owned a fairly fertile country, as in the neighbourhood of the Tay, showed that he was not wanting in genius for political organisation; and the history of the kingdom of Scotland, as modelled by Kenneth mac Alpin and his descendants, warns one not to give ear to the spirit of race-weighing and race-damning criticism that jauntily discovers, in what it fancies the character of a nation, the reasons why it has not achieved results not fairly placed within its reach by the accidents either of geography or history.” The other ancient race of Albin was neither Celtic nor Aryan in its origin. It has been generally known as Pictish, and constitutes the backbone of the Scottish nation. Mr Rhys calls it _Ivernian_. The following sentences state a fact and describe a process: “The trouble the non-Celtic Picts were able to give the Romans and the Romanising Brythons has often been dilated upon by historians, who have seldom dwelt on the much more remarkable fact, that a power, with its head-quarters in the neighbourhood of the Ness, had been so organised as to make itself obeyed from the Orkneys to the Mull of Cantyre, and from Skye to the mouth of the Tay, so early as the middle of the sixth century. It is important to bear this in mind in connection with the question as to how far the earlier Celtic invaders of this country may have mixed with the ancient inhabitants; since it clearly shows that there was no such a gulf between them as would make it impossible or even difficult for them to amalgamate; and it may readily be supposed that the Goidelic race has been greatly modified in its character by its absorption of this ancient people of the Atlantic seaboard.” The Latin hymns considered here are the remains of the devotional literature of these two races, and bind the history and memories of modern Scotsmen to the history and memories of a people among whom the fervid national genius of Scotland was first fashioned. [Illustration: (decorative end-of-chapter icon)] CHAPTER V. ANCIENT BALLADS. “Thoir an eachdraidh Mhaighstir Dòmhnull A tha chòmhnaidh ’n cois na tuinne; An ùrnuigh bha aig Oisein liath-ghlas Nach robh riamh ach ’na dhroch dhuine.” ENGLISH: _To Master Donald take the story; There he dwells beside the billow; The prayer said by Ossian hoary, Who was aye a worthless fellow._