52 



GAELIC LANGUAGE 



GAETA 



is more or less phonetic, a method adopted partly 

 perhaps in ignorance, partly from impatience, of 

 the strict and highly artificial rules of trie schools. 



The MSS. in the Scottish collection frequently 

 supply valuable variants, sometimes welcome 

 additions, to the large Irish collections. The 

 subject- matter of several is religious lives of 

 saints, such as Columba and St Margaret ; passions 

 and homilies, such as are found in the Leabhar 

 Breac, or 'Speckled Book.' In MS. I. (Skene's 

 catalogue) is the Passion of our Lord as revealed 

 to Anselm, written down in 1467 by Dugald, son 

 of the son of Paul the Scot, a treatise not to be 

 found in the 'Speckled Book.' A few deal with 

 philology and kindred matters. In MS. I., for 

 example, is preserved a copy of the Books of 

 Primers ( Uraicecht nan Eigeis), as in the Book 

 of Ballymote. Several MSS. contain translations 

 of portions of the heroic history of Greece and 

 Rome : the destruction of Troy, the labours of 

 Hercules, the expedition of Jason ; also the wars of 

 Pompey and Cfesar. The genealogies, tales, mythi- 

 cal and legendary, of the peoples and races that 

 inhabited Ireland, and of Lochlannaich or Scandi- 

 navians, are endless. The most imaginative 

 pieces, such as the voyage of Maelduin and the 

 adventures of Conall, are in prose, with verse 

 interspersed. Several historical documents and 

 even calendars, such as that of Oengus the Culdee, 

 are, on the other hand, thrown into the form of 

 verse. Gaelic poetry is all lyric, the epic and the 

 drama, as literary forms, being unknown to the 

 people. The line as a rule is smooth and flowing, 

 with an exceeding richness and variety of verse. 

 In poetry as in prose the style is frequently in- 

 flated ; and the language, whether of praise or 

 blame, unmeasured, exaggerated. The literature 

 shows that the Scottish Gael is witty rather than 

 humorous, and that his perception of the beauti- 

 ful in external nature is ever lively and true. 



The most characteristic features of the Scottish 

 collection are the almost total absence of annals, 

 and the great richness of the medical section. Two 

 folios relating to Irish events ( 1360-1402) bound up 

 in MS. II., and the history of the Macdonalds of the 

 Isles (MS. L.) are, apart from genealogies, pretty 

 nearly all that deal with affairs within historic 

 times. That records were written in Gaelic we 

 know from various sources, though the memora'nda 

 in the Book of Deer and the Islay Charter of 1408 

 are almost all that survive. On the other hand, 

 fully a third of the whole Scottish collection is 

 medical or quasi-medical. These MSS. consist of 

 treatises on anatomy, physiology, botany, and 

 pharmacy. Several are translations with com- 

 mentaries of portions of Aristotle's works, of Galen, 

 Hippocrates, Bernard us Gordonus, Averroes, Isidore, 

 &c. ; but the strictly medical discussion frequently 

 branches off now to metaphysics and theology, now 

 to astrology and alchemy. The greater part of 

 these scientific documents were at one time the pro- 

 perty of the M'Bheaths or Beatons or Bethunes, 

 for many generations family physicians in Islay, 

 Mull, and Skye. These medical books may not 

 perhaps claim to be of great scientific value ; but 

 they are of high interest and importance as a most 

 reliable piece of evidence regarding the state of 

 learning and culture in the West Highlands during 

 what we complacently call the dark ages. 



The first book printed in a Gaelic dialect was 

 John Knox's Liturgy, translated into Gaelic by 

 Bishop Carsewell or Argyll, and published in 

 Edinburgh in 1567. Up to the middle of the 18th 

 century not more than twenty Gaelic books were 

 printed, and these consisted mainly of successive 

 editions of the Psalms, Shorter Catechism, and 

 Confession of Faith. The number of separate pub- 

 lications now amounts to several hundreds. A 



very complete and accurate account of Gaelic books 

 printed before 1832 is given in Reid's Bibliotheca 

 Scoto-Celtica. Professor Blackie, in his Language 

 and Literature of the Scottish Highlands (1876), 

 has given admirable translations of the best efforts 

 of modern Gaelic authors. These consist for the 

 most part of a succession of lyric poets who have 

 rlourisned during the last 300 years. Foremost 

 among them are Mary MacLeod (nigh'n Alastair 

 Ruaidh ), who was born in Harris in 1569 or there- 

 abouts, and attained, so tradition relates, to the 

 great age of 105 years; John Macdonald (Iain 

 Lorn ) of the Keppoch family, who witnessed the 

 battle of Inverlocny in 1645, and survived Killie- 

 crankie ; Alexander Macdonald (Mac Mhaighstir 

 Alastair), the celebrated Jacobite poet, born about 

 1700, received a university education, became 

 schoolmaster in Ardnamurchan, and afterwards an 

 officer in Prince Charles Stuart's army, published a 

 Gaelic vocabulary in 1741, and a volume of poems 

 in 1751; John MacCodrum, a native of North 

 Uist; Robert Mackay (Rob Donn, 1714-78), the 

 Reay Country bard ; Dugald Buchannan of Rannoch 

 (1716-68), religious poet and evangelist; Duncan 

 Ban M'Intyre (1724-1812), the famous poet-game- 

 keeper of Beinn-ddrain, fgught at Falkirk in 

 1746, and in his old age was a member of the 

 city guard of Edinburgh; William Ross (1762-90), 

 schoolmaster in Gairloch ; Allan MacDougall 

 (Ailean Dall, 1750-1829); Ewan M'Lachlan of 

 Aberdeen (1775-1822), scholar and poet; and 

 William Livingstone (1808-1870), the Islay bard. 

 Of quite recent Gaelic poets may be mentioned, 

 nmon" others, the veteran Evan M'Coll of Kingston, 

 Canada ; John Campbell of Ledaig ; Mrs Mary 

 Mackellar ; and Neil Macleod. Of late years the 

 most notable Gaelic works published have been The 

 Beauties of Gaelic Poetry, edited by John Mac 

 kenzie ; Caraid nan Gaidheal, being a selection of 

 dialogues and articles contributed by Dr Norman 

 Macleod the elder, the best of Gaelic prose writers, 

 to several periodicals and books ; J. F. Campbell's 

 Tales of the West Highlands (4 vols. 1860-62), and 

 the same author's Leabhar na Feinne or ' Ossianic 

 Ballads ' ( 1872 ) ; the Book of the Dean of Lismore, 

 edited by Drs M'Lauchlan and Skene (1862); 

 and Sheriff' Nicolson's Gaelic Proverbs (1881). 

 Scholarly clergymen of a past generation the 

 Stewarts of Killin, Luss, and Dingwall, and Dr 

 Smith of Campbeltown made an excellent trans- 

 lation of the Scriptures into Gaelic. The grammars 

 of Stewart and Munro, and the dictionaries of 

 Armstrong ( 1825 ) and the Highland Society ( 1828 ), 

 though requiring to be rewritten in the light of 

 modern science, are works of great merit. Among 

 the most prominent of recent scholars in the field 

 of Scottish Gaelic were Dr Thomas M'Lauchlan of 

 Edinburgh, Dr Archibald Clerk of Kilmallie, and Dr 

 Alexander Cameron of Brodick. See CELTS, PICTS, 

 OSSIAN, IRELAND, DEER. 



tiaeta (Lat. Caieta), a strongly fortified mari- 

 time town of southern Italy, in the province of 

 Caserta, is picturesquely situated on a lofty pro- 

 montory projecting into the Mediterranean, 50 

 miles NW. of Naples. On the summit of the pro- 

 montory stands the circular Roland's tower, said 

 to be the mausoleum of Lucius Munatius Plancus, 

 the friend of Augustus. The beauty of the bay of 

 Gaeta, which almost rivals that of Naples, has 

 been celebrated by Virgil and Horace. On the 

 dismemberment of the Roman empire, Gaeta be- 

 came an independent centre of civilisation and 

 commercial prosperity. The town has been be- 

 sieged on several occasions, as by Alphonso V. of 

 Aragon in 1435, by the Austrians in 1707, by 

 Charles of Naples in 1734, by the French in 1806, 

 by the Austrians in 1815, and by the Italian 

 national party in 1861. In 1848-49 it was the 



