PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE, 



75 



In the centuries that have gone, there must have been a continuous intimacy 

 between the Gaels of Ireland and the Gaels of Scotland. A reciprocal influence 

 must have been thus created in the development of the literature and customs of 

 the Irish and Scottish Gaejls. 



" Ultonian Hero Ballads, collected in the Highlands and Western Isles of 

 Scotland from the year 1510 and at successive periods till 1870"; such is the desig- 

 nation of a book which was published some time ago by Hector MacLean, under 

 the auspices of the Islay Association. The Gaels of Islay evince a laudable willing- 

 ness and liberality to honour and befriend any native of their island who succeeds 

 in making a name for himself in the domain of Gaelic learning. To that number 

 belonged the late Hector MacLean, who arranged and translated the UUonian 

 Hero Ballads. He has rendered in other respects important services to the cause 

 of Gaelic literature. He was an able coadjutor of the late Mr. Campbell, who 

 compiled " Leabhar na Feinne." "The large amount," Mr. MacLean writes, "of 

 Irish Saga literature belonging to the Ultonian cycle dates in its form back to the 

 tenth century, and there is MS. tradition of part of it extending back to the seventh 

 century. Dififerent forms of the same Saga can be discriminated as far back as there 

 are means of research, and these Sagas have undergone the same harmonising 

 process, but not the same euhemerising process as the earliest annals. The same 

 mediaeval school was conspicuous in this one case as in the other. These ballads 

 have for many centuries been sung and rehearsed in the Highlands." Mr. MacLean 

 has made an important beginning ini^ investigating, a department of literature which 

 concerns Irish and Scottish Gaels alike, and which demands much more extensive 

 study than it has yet received. 



Iain Lom Mac Donald is one of the most talented and satirical poets in the 

 entire range of Gaelic poetry. The largest and best collection of the poems of 

 this famous bard was published some time ago in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The 

 Rev. A. MacLean Sinclair, who prepared the collection in question, has already 

 gained for himself a great reputation for his unremitting devotion to Gaelic litera- 

 ture, and to the perpetuation of Gaelic poetry. He takes an afYecting leave of his 

 labours in behalf of Iain Lom in these words: " Beannachd leat Iain Luim, chuir 

 mise d'orain a mach cho maith 's cho ceart 's a b' urrann mi. Tha mian doch 

 as gu tig aon eiginn am dheigh a ni na's fhearr." 



" Lyra Celtica " is the name of an anthology of representative Celtic poetry, 

 which is edited by Elizabeth A. Sharp, with an introduction and notes by William 

 Sharp. The " Lyra Celtica " was published during 1896. It is a large, varied and 

 interesting collection of Celtic poetry, containing, as it does, ancient Irish and 

 Scottish poems, ancient Cornish and early Armorican poems, early Cymric anci 

 mediaeval Welsh ; Irish modern and contemporary Scoto-Celtic (middle period), 

 modern and contemporary Scoto-Celtic, contemporary Anglo-Celtic poets (Wales), 

 contemporary Anglo-Celtic poets (Manx), contemporary Anglo-Celtic poets 

 (Cornish), modern contemporary Breton, the Celtic Fringe. Miss Sharp has 

 accordingly travelled over a very extensive field in her desire to gather poetical 

 flowers for her Celtic anthology. It is remarked in the preface, that the volume 

 '• is no more than an early, and in a sense merely arbitrary, gleaning from ani 

 abundant harvest." 



Of recent years, we have had many works of the greatest value in Celtic 

 ethnology, philology, history, archaeology, art, legendary ballads and romance, 

 folk-lore and literature. In the national libraries of Great Britain alone it is esti- 

 mated that if all the unedited MSS. were printed, they would fill at least 1.200 or 

 1,400 octavo volumes. Though the songs and poems and ballads that the " Lyra 

 Celtica " contains appear in an English dress, it is possible, however, for tlio 

 student to discern the peculiarities of the mind and heart, of the thoughts and 

 feelings, customs and manners of the various Celtic races. There are to be found 



