Hast thou left the blue course of the sky Faultless son of golden locks? The gates of the night are for thee, And thy place of repose is in the west. The waves gather slowly around To see him of fairest countenance; Raising their heads in fear. As they witness thy beauty in repose, They fled pale from thy side. Take thou rest in thy cave, O sun, and return with rejoicing. As the sunbeam in the winter time Descending quick on the slope of Lena, So are the days of the Fingalians. As the sun becoming darkened among showers, The dark clouds of the sky descended And bore away the joyous light from the huntsman. The bare branches of the wood weep, And the soft herbage of the mountain withers. But the sun shall return again To the beautiful forest of the fresh-clothed branch, And each bough shall smile in the early summer, Looking up to the son of the sky. The collection of the M’Callums was a real addition to the stores of Gaelic poetry, and is most helpful in bringing to a satisfactory conclusion the whole question of the ancient Gaelic poetry of Scotland. Were there no other Gaelic compositions in existence save those pieces which this volume contains, they would be sufficient to prove the high character of the heroic poetry of the Scottish Gael for everything that constitutes true poetic power. It would be wrong in such a sketch as this to overlook the interesting and ingenious contribution made to the discussion of the Ossianic question in the third and fourth volumes of Mr J. Campbell’s _Tales of the West Highlands_. The whole four volumes are full of interesting materials for the student of Gaelic literature and antiquities, but the third and fourth volumes are those in which a place is given to the ancient Ossianic poems. Mr Campbell, the representative of a distinguished Highland family, and unlike many of the class to which he belongs, an excellent Gaelic scholar, made collections on his own account all over the Highlands. He had as his chief coadjutor in the work Mr Hector M’Lean, teacher in Islay, and he could not have had a better--Mr M’Lean being possessed of scholarship, enthusiasm, and sound judgment. The result is a very remarkable collection of the oral literature of the Highlands, including selections from a large amount of poetry attributed to Ossian. This book is a truly honest book, giving the compositions collected just as they were found among the native Highlanders. We shall take occasion again to refer to the Sgeulachds, or tales, and shall only refer at present to the Ossianic remains presented to us by Mr Campbell.