This little volume is now scarce, but full of interest to the Gaelic student. Alongside of the Synod of Argyle, another indefatigable labourer in the same field was at work. This was Mr Robert Kirk, minister at Balquhidder. There seems to have been no Rob Roy in the district at the time, and Mr Kirk appears to have had a quiet life in his Highland parish; more so, indeed, than other Scottish ministers of the time, for he seems to have been engaged in his translation during the heat of the persecution of the Covenanters, and it was published in 1684, four years before the Revolution. Kirk is said to have been so anxious to have precedence of the Synod of Argyle, that he invented a machine for awakening him in the morning by means of water made to fall upon his face at a certain hour. His Psalter preceded that of the Synod by a period of ten years. Mr Kirk dedicates his volume, which is published with the sanction of the Privy Council, and with the approbation of “the Lords of the Clergy, and some reverend ministers who best understand the Irish language,” to the Marquis of Athole, &c., of whom he says that his “Lordship has been of undoubted courage and loyalty for the king, and still alongst inflexible to the persuasions or threats of frozen neutralists or flaming incendiaries in Church or State.” Kirk further states that the work was “done by such as attained not the tongue (which he calls Scottish-Irish) without indefatigable industry,” manifestly pointing to himself as one who had so acquired it. This little volume of the minister of Balquhidder is a most interesting contribution to our Gaelic literature. The language is what many writers call Irish, although there is no reason to believe that Mr Kirk ever was in Ireland, or conversed with speakers of Irish Gaelic. He knew and used the dialect which writers of the Gaelic language had used for centuries, and used at the time. No Irish writer could use a dialect more purely Irish than that found in Kirk’s Gaelic preface. Kirk concludes his preface with the following lines:-- Imthigh a Dhuilleachain gu dàn, Le Dan glan diagha duisg iad thall. Cuir failte air Fonn fial na bFionn, Ar garbh-chriocha, ’s Indseadh gall. _English Translation._ Go, little leaflet, boldly, With pure holy songs wake them yonder, Salute the hospitable land of the Fingalians, The rugged borders, and the Isles of the strangers. “The land of the Fingalians” was the Highlands generally; “the rugged borders” was the west coast of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire; and “the Isles of the Strangers” were the Hebrides, so called from being long in possession of the Norsemen.