The line of separation then between the Welsh or Pictish, and the Scotch or Irish Kelts, if measured by the occurrence of these names, would run obliquely from S.W. to N.E., straight up Loch Fyne, following nearly the boundary between Perthshire and Argyle, trending to the N.E. along the present boundary between Perth and Inverness, Aberdeen and Inverness, Banff and Elgin, till about the mouth of the river Spey. The boundary between the Picts and English may have been much less settled, but it probably ran from Dumbarton, along the upper edge of Renfrewshire, Lanark and Linlithgow till about Abercorn, that is along the line of the Clyde to the Frith of Forth. ----- It is probable enough that the princes who presided over these several aggregations of communities, had their traditional or family alliances and friendships, as well as their enmities, political and personal, and that some description of public law may consequently have grown up among them, by which their national intercourse was regulated. But we cannot suppose this to have been either very comprehensive or well defined. Least of all can we find any proof that there was a community of action among them, of a systematic and permanent character. A national priesthood, and a central service in which all alike participated, had any such existed, might have formed a point of union for all the races; but there is no record of this, and, I think, but little probability of its having been found at any time. If we consider the various sources from which the separate populations were derived, and the very different periods at which they became masters of their several seats; their constant hostility and the differences of language[2] and law; above all the distance of their settlements, severed by deep and gloomy forests, rude hills, unforded streams, or noxious and pestilential morasses, we can hardly imagine any concert among them for the establishment of a common worship; it is even doubtful—so meagre are our notices of the national heathendom—whether the same gods were revered all over England; although the descent of all the reigning families from Wóden would seem to speak for his worship at least having been universal. Again, there is reason to doubt that the priesthood occupied here quite so commanding a position as they may have enjoyed upon the continent, partly because the carelessness or hatred of the British Christians refused to attempt the conversion of their adversaries[3], and thus afforded no opportunity for a reaction or combined effort at resistance on the part of the Pagans; and partly because we cannot look for any very deep rooted religious convictions in the breast of the wandering, military adventurer, removed from the time-hallowed sites of ancient, local worship, and strongly tempted to “trow upon himself,” in preference to gods whose powers and attributes he had little leisure to contemplate. The words of Coifi, a