452 



of Irish origin that they owed their first acquaintance with 

 the Gospel of Peace ! In both countries are still to be found 

 many memorials of aboriginal times, which had once their 

 resemblances in England, but which have there disappeared 

 under " the tramplings of three conquests," and the march 

 of modern improvement. I refer, particularly, to those re- 

 mote times when Druidism bore its mystic sway. Its usages 

 yet linger in customs of popular superstition, although obli- 

 vion has long since fallen on the meaning attached to them by 

 a crafty, powerful, and domineering hierarchy. Many an age 

 has passed since its oracles became dumb ; but the nomencla- 

 ture of its religious creed is still employed to express, by the 

 unwitting Gael of the present day, some of the mysteries of 

 his purer faith ! We have still the mysterious " temple," with 

 its massive " cromlech," the poetry of the solitary moor, and 

 seldom-trodden height, — many of which have been protected 

 by our landed proprietors, with commendable feeling, disre- 

 garding not the protest against eviction of those adscripta 

 glehce, and refusing to abandon to 



' Hands more rude than wintry winds,' 



relics which have braved the buflFetings of countless storms." 



Mr. Petrie remarked, that he thought the Academy 

 should feel great pleasure at every effort made by the Scottish 

 antiquarians to illustrate their antiquities, which were so 

 intimately connected with those of Ireland ; and that they 

 should be grateful to Mr, Ramsay for communicating to their 

 Institution his very ingenious attempt to decipher and ex- 

 plain the remarkable inscription at St. Vigean's. 



Mr. Petrie regretted, however, being obliged to state, that 

 he could not, by any means, concur either in Mr. Ramsay's 

 reading of this inscription, or his conclusions as to its age. 

 He did not believe that there were any abbreviations of words, 

 or varieties of language or alphabetic writing, in it, such as 



