POETRY OF THE ANCIENT CALEDONIANS.

HE moft ancient poetry and fongs, in

THE

the Galic language, reach to the days of Fingal, a celebrated Caledonian hero, cotemporary with the Romans in Britain. Most of them are attributed to Offian the son of that monarch, and much has been faid for and against their authenticity. This controverfy has been honoured with several respectable names, among whom are Dr. Blair, Lord Kaims, and Dr. Johnson,

The proper writers, however, for difcuffing this fubject, are the natives of the Highlands, who from their knowledge of the ancient Galic, the traditions, proverbs and fayings of the people, the names of places, waters, ifles, caves, mountains, and other circumstances, have a great advantage over Englishmen, or Low Country Scotsmen, in the difpute. The former fpeak from facts, the latter from conjecture.

It is faid, that a fplendid edition of Offian's works is now printing in the original language, under the care of the learned tranflator, who will probably enter the field of controversy with many new lights, and with re

doubled

doubled vigour. Among other materials he will find confiderable affiftance in a new work, published in 1780, from which I fhall give the following extract.*

"The learned Dr. Johnson supposes the Caledonians to have been always a rude and illiterate people, who had never any written. language. But this affertion is manifeftly without foundation; for we can ftill produce a number of old manufcripts in the Galic language. When the Druids, who spoke this tongue, and were by no means unlearned, had been driven from the reft of Britain, those of Caledonia took up their refidence ✔ in Iona, one of the Hebrides, where they had a college, and lived and taught unmolested, till they

* Galic Antiquities: confifting of a hiftory of the Druids, particularly of thofe of Caledonia; a differtation on the authenticity of the poems of Offian; and a collection of ancient Poems, tranflated from the Galic of Ullin, Offian, Orran, &c. By John Smith, minister of Kilbrandon, Argylefhire.

The Rev. Mr. M'Nicholl, of Lifmore, Mr. John Clarke, of Edinburgh, tranflator of the Caledonian Bards, and feveral other judges of the Galic Language, have also taken a zealous part on a fubject, which, if the opinion of a Low Country traveller in the Highlands may be allowed to have the fmallest weight, is fo completely decided, as to require no farther defence.

+

they were difpoffeffed by St. Columba in the For feveral ages after that

fixth century.

period, Iona was one of the most famous
feats of learning which this, or any of the
neighbouring kingdoms could boast of; and
the language in which almost all this learning
was retained, and written, was the Galic. The
difference between this and the Irish, which
the doctor and fome others lay so much stress
upon, is of no very ancient date. The lan-
guage of Columba, who had his education in
the Irish schools, appears, from what remains
of his compofitions, to have been
pure Galic;
and the elegy of his Bard over the famous
Irish champion Murcha Macbrian, of an
older date, is no lefs fo. From this identity
of the language during fo many ages, and
from the conftant intercourfe between the
two countries, it may be inferred, that any
cultivation which the language received was
common to both kingdoms.

"To thefe obfervations I add a few facts, to prove that we had for a long time back a written language. In the Ifland of Mull, in the neighbourhood of Iona, there has been from time immemorial, till very lately, a fucceffion of Ollas, or Graduate Doctors, in a

family

family of the name of Maclean, whose writings, to the amount of a large cheft full, were all wrote in Galic. What remained of this treasure was, not many years ago, bought up as a literary curiofity, at the defire of the duke of Chandos, and is faid to have perished in the wreck of that nobleman's fortune.

"Lord Kaims (Sketches, B. I.) mentions a Galic manuscript of the first four Books of Fingal, which the tranflator of Offian found in the Ifle of Sky, of as old a date as the year 1403. Juft now I have in my poffeffion a mutilated treatise of phyfic, and another of anatomy, with part of a calendar, belonging probably to fome ancient monastery, all in this language and character. These pieces, when compared with others of a later date, appear to be feveral centuries old. I had the ufe of another equally ancient from Capt. M'Lauchlan, of the 55th regiment. It confifted of fome poems and a theological difcourfe. From thefe obfervations and facts, it clearly appears, that ever fince the time of the Druids, the Galic has been always a written language.

We

Α

"We now proceed, continues Mr. Smith, to those causes, to which we owe, for fo many ages, the prefervation of Offian. Of thefe, the institution of the bards deferve our first notice. In a country, the only one perhaps in the world, in which there was always, from the earliest period to almost the prefent age, a standing order of poets, we cannot reasonably be furprifed, either at finding excellent poems compofed, or, after being compofed, carefully preferved from oblivion. great part of the bufinefs of this order was to watch over the poems of Offian. In every family of diftinction, there was at least one principal bard, and always a number of difciples, who vied with each other in having thefe poems in the greatest perfection; fo that if a line was added, altered, or left out by any one, another would not fail to fhew his zeal and fuperiority, by correcting him. They had likewise frequent opportunities, in attending their chiefs to other families, of meeting in crowds and rehearfing these poems, which, at home or abroad, were night and day their employment.- -Should the inftitution of the bards last for ever, the poems of Offian could never perish.

"Nor