Blair Collection > Dictionarium scoto-celticum > Volume I

INTRODUCTION. xiii
though we decline discussion on the amount, or the age, of their poetry. It is native ge-
nius alone, that can surmount the formidable disadvantages of situation and circumstances;
and it is language alone, the vehicle of sentiment, that can support genius itself, and help
to secure its unperishing reward. That the Gaelic language was equal to the task that ge-
nius imposed upon it, is sufficiently perceptible, even from the quotations that are scatter-
ed through the following work : but, of which, circumstances already alluded to have li-
mited the number. At the commencement of this undertaking, it was expected that,
as a source of authorities for illustration of the language, the ancient Gaelic Manuscripts,
belonging to the Highland Society of Scotland, would be brought into immediate and im-
portant use. And it is but justice to the memory of a very learned and ingenious gentle-
man, the late Mr. Ewen Maclachlan of Aberdeen, to state that, he bestowed much assiduous
labour on the deciphering of some of these, under disadvantages which scarcely any thing,
but his own singular ardour, could have surmounted : he died before his task was com-
pleted ; and in him the Highland Society lost one of the compilers, to whom they
looked with much confidence and hope. The labour he bestowed was however in a great
measure lost, by its not having been so far advanced, as to be directly serviceable in the fur-
ther compilation of the present work. The business of paleography must necessarily be slow ;
and in the particular department of the more ancient Gaelic writings, it has been very rare-
ly an object of study in Scotland, from the small number of manuscripts preserved. It may
also be observed, that the materials or contents of the manuscripts mentioned, so far as de-
ciphered, were not found to be of such a kind, as to make them desirable for authorities in
general, and they have therefore been comparatively but seldom appealed to. The titles
of several volumes, used for this purpose, ai-e carefully noted at the end of each quotation.
Where any particular meaning of a word has occurred in a written work, and when the quota-
tion could not well be given, for reasons already alluded to, the title of the volume and the
particular page are specified. In producing authorities, or in supplying examples from the
phraseologies of modern speech, the compilers have been studious, rather to avoid, than to
multiply their quotations unnecessarily. It is true, that by deriving authorities from com-
mon speech, it would have been easy to illustrate every word by a quotation j but the
nature of the work seemed to confine this demand for illustration to peculiarities
of phrase, of idiom, and of technical terms, elucidating the structure of the language.
Such as these have been recorded with care ; and where a word occurred, in the ordinary
use of which no special peculiarity was observable, and where no apposite example from
writings in the language could be found to illustrate its use, the term " Common Speech"
has been appended, as a guarantee for its wonted and ordinary use in the language ; and it
is hoped, in every instance, with sufficient accuracy and caution. In following out the ori-
ginal plan of the work, rendering the significations of Gaelic words into a literal transla-
tion in English and Latin, it became necessary to translate every quotation also into these
two languages : and into each of them the translation has been made as closely literal
or verbal as could be ventured upon, to convey the precise meaning in Gaelic, and