Blair Collection > Celtic gleanings, or, Notices of the history and literature of the Scottish Gael

LECTURE III. 81
of the ignorance and false pretension that Iiave
characterized much of the discussion in matters
of Celtic antiquity.
Dr Johnson, in a well known letter of his to
Dr Charles O'Connor of Belnagare, a distin-
guished Irish scholar, in speaking of ancient
Ireland, makes use of these words : — " DrLe-
land begins his history too late: the ages which
deserve an exact inquiry are those times (for
such there were) when Ireland was the school
of the west, — the joint habitation of sanctity
and literature. If you could give a history,
though imperfect, of the Irish nation from its
conversion to Christianity to the invasion from
England, you would amplify knowledge with
new views and new objects.'' The same writer
while maintaining at one time — in speaking
of the "Poems of Ossian" — that "this is the
age in which those who could not read have
been supposed to write, and in which the giants
of antiquated romance have been exhibited as
realities," could say at another, in speaking of
lona, in words sufficiently well known, " We
were now treading that illustrious island which
was once the luminary of the Caledonian
regions, where savage clans and roving barba-,
rians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the
blessings of religion." Let these two statements
F