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

LECTUKE lY. 127
LECTURE lY,
GAELIC ETi'MOLOGY— THE DIFFICULTIES ATTEXDLS'G IT— PROSE
WORKS rX GAELIC SINCE THE DISCOVERT OF PRIXTIXG—
MODERN GAELIC POETRY, ^^^TH NOTICES OF THE AUTHORS
—JACOBITE POETRY— RELIGIOUS POETRY— LYRICAL POETRY
—CONCLUDING REMARKS.
We now proceed to give some notices of the
more modern literature of the Scottish High-
lands. This subject would naturally divide
itself into two branches : a sketch of the few
prose works which have appeared since the
discovery of printing, and the more abundant
poetical compositions which have been pro-
duced by the modern bards. But ere proceed-
ing to these, there is a subject of a cognate
character which cannot well be overlooked, —
the subject of etymology, in reference to the
Gaelic names of places and persons. This is,
indeed, the only kind of Celtic literature which
many of our modern Highlanders seem dis-
posed to study. The name of a village or a
lull, a glen or a river, often gives rise to the