PREFACE.
It is hoped that the readers of the following chapters will bear in mind the fact that this is the first complete account of Gaelic literature that has yet been offered to the public, and that it must inevitably exhibit traces of the natural imperfections of all pioneer works. To other workers in the same field I am of course greatly indebted; and if any of them had published a fairly full history of our Highland literature it is quite unlikely that the present volume would ever see the light.
The names of about one hundred and eighty composers of Gaelic poetry alone occur in this volume, while not more than a third of that number will be found in any previous work on the subject. Still I am aware that some mistakes and omissions will be met with, but these, I trust, will not elicit so much reprehension as material for correction hereafter.
On the subject of the science of language and race movements glanced at in the Introduction, the student will find the latest views in the works of Penka, Schrader, Sayce, Hyde Clarke, and others. The “Ultonian Hero-Ballads” of Mr Hector MacLean and the Reliquæ Celticæ of the late Dr Alexander Cameron will be prized by those interested in the fields on which the great Cuchulin fought and Ossian sang.
My studies in the Celtic field have been carried on in the midst of duties of a sacred and exacting character; and I have often been hindered by the thought that the attraction in this direction ought to be resisted. Still I have felt like many others the need of making a speciality of some helpful study; and what for me could be more natural as a mental exercise than to be found searching out in those obscure fields of an ancient literature for the intellectual products of my forefathers?
I am much indebted to several friends who encouraged me from time to time. It gives me great pleasure to mention among these the name of Dr Stoddart, late editor of The Glasgow Herald whose kindness and generosity to myself personally I will always cherish with gratitude, and whose sympathies with all that is good and noble in any people were the natural outcome of the cultured heart of a gentleman and a Christian. To him I owe the title of this book as well as the privilege, through the columns of his influential journal, of showing some of the treasures of our Gaelic literature to the great English world beyond our Highland Israel. With his name ought to be associated in this matter that of the able manager of the paper, Mr Alexander Sinclair, an Argyleshire Highlander. The articles then published in 1881 were the first of the kind to appear in a newspaper of such high standing. The names of other gentlemen from whom I have received kindness occur to me also as I write: Mr D. H. Macfarlane, ex-M.P.; Mr Fraser-Mackintosh, M.P.; Dr R. Macdonald, M.P.; Mr Duncan Macneill; and Mr John Mackay, C.E. I have also much pleasure in acknowledging the readiness with which the Messrs Nisbet, publishers, London, have granted me permission to use in the following chapters some articles I contributed to The Catholic Presbyterian.
This book may be described as the child of the peaceful Highland revolution on which the political and Christian genius of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone stamped imperial sanction and approval in the Crofters Act of 1886. Its growth and delivery in various lectures, magazine articles and otherwise, during seventeen years, have been coincident with the workings of the spirit of racial fusion and union which recent political struggles after a Brito-Irish brotherhood have well-nigh perfected. On the following pages, therefore, I am occasionally an advocate of the just rights and claims of a noble race and an obscure literature; but at the same time I remain a lover of the great English people. I have learned during a residence of upwards of ten years to appreciate and love the generous qualities of my English fellow-citizens.
N. MACNEILL.
67 Lady Margaret Road, London, N.W.