It has been well remarked that each of the literatures of the two branches of our Celtic population was chiefly the utterance of feeling stirred by a great struggle for independence, and that each has at the heart of it “a battle disastrous to the men whose wrestle with an overmastering power is the chief theme of their bards.” The Gaelic struggle and literature began earlier, and its great battle is that of _Gabhra_, said to have been fought in 284 A.D. In the later Celtic literature of the Cymri the memorable battle described is that of Cattraeth, said to have been fought in 570 A.D. While _Cath Gabhra_ is the chief theme of the Gaelic bards, individual combats, adventures, and other battles are also rehearsed in the early ballads. Macpherson’s “Ossian” and Smith’s “Old Lays,” whose authenticity has been so fiercely disputed, are excluded from consideration at present. They will be afterwards examined under the dates of their production. The number of lines in these works and other two poems respectively is:— Macpherson’s Poems of Ossian 10,232 lines. Smith’s Old Lays 5,335 ” Clark’s Mordubh 758 ” MacCallum’s Collath 504 ” —————— Total 16,829 ” Laying aside these 16,829 lines of suspected poetry, there is still the 54,000 lines of ancient poems of unquestioned genuineness in Campbell’s “Leabhar na Féinne,” enough surely to sustain the literary character and genius of our early ancestors. The ballads which we are now to consider are all genuine and old, and may be found in manuscripts written ages before Macpherson was born. The Ossianic or Heroic Ballads will be found in the following publications:—The Dean of Lismore’s Book (1512, published 1862); Hill’s (1780); MacArthur’s (1784); Young’s (1784); Gillies’s (1786); Stewart’s (1804); Highland Society’s Report (1805); Turner’s (1813); Grant’s (1814); MacCallum’s (1816); Campbell’s great work (1872). Some of the ballads contained in these books were printed from old manuscripts; others were taken down during the last two or three centuries from the oral recitation of old men, living in all parts of the Highlands. These collections represent a good deal of industry and literary activity, which reflect very creditably on men who had not the stimulus of a vast reading public to work upon their minds. THE GENUINE GAELIC BALLADS. The place in time occupied by these compositions is one of considerable length—it extends at least as far back as the third century of our era. It is very interesting to note that this body of oral popular literature has been loved, preserved, and rehearsed by the Gaelic clans of Albin for at least a thousand years; for a much longer period, indeed, if we rely on fairly credible tradition.