184 



learning, we can know nothing of the Earse as a tongue, (the Irish 

 being the studied language, and the Earse only a distinct provincial 

 dialect,) I cannot but express my astonishment at the arrogance of 

 any man, who, to make way for the production of 1762, would 

 destroy all the archives, which the Irish, acknowledged by all the 

 world to have been in the eight century the most learned nation in 

 Europe, have been for ages labouring to produce. When the High- 

 lander knows nothing of Irish learning, he knows nothing of himself; 

 and when Irish history is lost. Highland genealogy becomes very 

 vague. 



" Until the Reformation they" (the Irish) "had all sorts of schools 

 and colleges ; and it was not until Elizabeth ordered English to be 

 taught in all schools, and erected Trinity College, at Dublin, that 

 these were extinguished. Thither the youth of England and other 

 countries went for education ; and all the popular stories of the 

 Highlands at this day agree, that every chieftain went thither for 

 education and the use of arms, from the fourth century until the 

 Reformation. Icolumkill was first founded by the munificence of the 

 Irish ; and all the abbots and monks belonging to it, one abbot only 

 excepted, until its dissolution, were Irish. All the Highland clergy 

 not only studied but received ordination in Ireland. The clergy of 

 the islands especially, and those of the western coast, were frequently 

 natives of Ireland. Hence it happens, that all poetical compositions, 

 stories, fables, &c., of any antiquity, which are repeated in the High- 

 lands at this day, are confessedly in the Irish Gaelic, and every stanza 

 that is remarkably fine or obscure; is still called Gaelic dhomhain 

 EiRioNACH, i. e. deep Irish." 



It- is unnecessary to make any observation on Doctor Shaw's 

 opinions ; the authority of such a man speaks volumes against such 

 a writer as Mr. Macpherson. 



