304 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. V. 



Gaels — Gaels in language, Gaels in character, and Gaels in their rightful 

 determination to regard Albion as their ancestral home, and to act on 

 the belief, when they fought and put forth their prowess in the strife of 

 arms, that they were in very truth fighting pro aris et focis. Mr. 

 Nicholson, by his indefatigable labours and by his wonderful success in 

 interpreting the Ogam Inscriptions which are to be found, so far as 

 Scotland is concerned, in localities where the Picts are known to have 

 had their homes in the days of old, has done much, and very much, for 

 which he is entitled to receive the gratitude of Gaels everywhere — to 

 furnish corroborative evidence of a very rare and cogent character that 

 the Picts were Gaels, that Albion was the country of their ancestors, 

 that their language and traditions were purely Gaelic, and that their 

 position among the historical peoples of Great Britain and Ireland, is 

 very honourable, by reason of its very antiquity, is illustrious owing to 

 their being the descendants of the earliest Gaelic occupants of those 

 countries, and is henceforth to be acknowledged as the position of a 

 people that was Gaelic in language, in traditions, in country, and in 

 everything that is characteristic of the Scottish Gael of several centuries 

 ago. 



