in the light of a more current language, the hidden treasures of their own, seems equally unaccountable.

One who, like the writer of these pages,. is not absolutely a native, nor entirely a stranger, but has added the observant curiosity of the latter to the facilities of enquiry enjoyed by the former, might best, if otherwise qualified, explain this paradox. An attempt at such an ex-planation, will form the subject of the next Essay.

ESSAY II.

On the Obstacles, which so long prevented the Le-gends and Traditions, preserved in the Celtic or Gælic Language, from becoming the objects of learned research; and on the Causes which prevented those who understood them from giving them their due value and importance, in what regards General Science.

Be mine to read the visions old,
Which thy awakening bards have told.

WERE I to date back my observations to remote ages, a field of discussion, would be opened much too wide for my present consideration. The poetry of a people of such ancient origin, and unmingled identity, is, however, valuable and curious on many accounts.

First, as it includes so much of their history as continues to exist, or indeed has existed.

Second, as it is a kind of document, for establishing many facts, relative to the manners and sentiments of remote times: and,

Finally, as the great quantity of it, and the singular beauty of much that still remains, account for a certain chivalrous dignity, and refinement of sentiment, not known to exist among the lower classes of any other country.

This is so commingled with the language and the poetry, of which that is the vehicle, that in losing these memorials, the courtesy of manners, and elegance of thought and expression connected with it, is also lost irrecoverably.

That a warlike, musical, and poetical people, should, without the use of letters, in the course of ages, attain those heightened sentiments, and generous feelings

of which I speak, will seem less wonderful as it is more nearly considered.

The Celta appear, as far as we can trace them, to have been a spirited, warlike, and self-righted race. Driven back in process of time, to the rocks and fastnesses of their country, by a people whose military skill overpowered their unthought valour, the common suffering formed a stronger bond of union. They loved each other the better, for having endured calamity together.

Their exile from the plains and forests, in which they were wont to roam at large, served both to exasperate them against the common enemy, and to exalt their patriotism, thus concentered within the bounds of these natural fortressess. Courage and freedom were all that remained to them; and the sense of other privations, made them value more highly the blessings that were left. Enured to all the hardships of the chace,

their only remaining means of sustenance, war had for them no terrors, but those attending the loss of friends, endeared to them by sharing the same dangers and privations, and being urged on by the same wrongs, and animated by the same lofty and honourable feelings.

Amidst their perils and wanderings the imagination was exercised and called forth. They became social, from sharing the same hazards and sufferings, and did not become selfish, because they neither had, or coveted any property, but such as their pre-eminence in valour, and dex-terity in hunting procured.

This is exactly the period in which heroic poetry is born and these are the scenes fitted to awake the sensations that nurse its infancy, and adorn its more advanced state.

Those, who had no possessions but their wives and children, loved these with all the ardour of concentrated affection. As