1. A folio MS., beautifully written on parchment or vellum, from the collection of the late Major Maclauchlan of Kilbride. This is the oldest MS. in the possession of the Highland Society of Scotland. It is marked Vo. A. No. I. The following remark is written on the margin of the fourth leaf of the MS.:--“Oidche bealtne ann a coimhtech mo Pupu Muirciusa agus as olc lium nach marunn diol in linesi dem dub Misi Fithil acc furnuidhe na scoile.” Thus Englished by the late Dr Donald Smith:--“The night of the first of May in Coenobium of my Pope Murchus, and I regret that there is not left of my ink enough to fill up this line. I am Fithil, an attendant on the school.” This MS., which, from its orthography, is supposed to be as old as the eighth or ninth century, “consists (says Dr Smith) of a poem, moral and religious, some short historical anecdotes, a critical exposition of the Tain, an Irish tale, which was composed in the time of Diarmad, son of Cearval, who reigned over Ireland from the year 544 to 565; and the Tain itself, which claims respect, as exceeding in point of antiquity, every production of any other vernacular tongue in Europe.”[105] On the first page of the vellum, which was originally left blank, there are genealogies of the families of Argyll and Mac Leod in the Gaelic handwriting of the sixteenth century. The genealogy of the Argyll family ends with Archibald, who succeeded to the earldom in 1542, and died in 1588.[106] This is supposed to be the oldest Gaelic MS. extant. Dr Smith conjectures that it may have come into the possession of the Maclachlans of Kilbride in the sixteenth century, as a Ferquhard, son of Ferquhard Maclachlan, was bishop of the Isles, and had Iona or I Colum Kille in commendam from 1530 to 1544.--See _Keith’s Catalogue of Scottish Bishops_.