J. F. Campbell Collection > Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland, appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian

312 ACCOUNT OF MSS
The thing not to be found in Erin nor Albion nor in
Europe nor in Africa nor in Asia, with the compass of
Greece and Scythia and Insi horc with the Pillars of
Hercules and the Tower of Breogan and the Isles of
Gades. Extract from fol. xxxv. rect. ad notul.
All the Gaelic MSS. in the possession of the Society
written from the earliest period till after the ISth century
(with the single exception of the Dean of Lismore's vo-
lume) are written in the very ancient form of character
which was common of old to Britain and Ireland, and
which was adopted by the Saxons at the time of their con-
version. For the last forty years it seems to have been dis-
continued in Scotland ; the last specimen which the Society
have received of it, being a volume of Songs, in which is
included one of Duncan Macintyre's, — entitled, udfi Taileir
Mac NeachdaÌ7i, which hei composed in 1752, between
which and the year 1768, it is probable that the volume. in
question was written, because the first edition of Macin-
tyre's Songs was published in that year.
A Deed of Fosterage in this collection between Sir Nor-
man Macleod and John Mackenzie executed in the year
1645 shows that the Gaelic language was not disused in
legal obligations at that period.