Blair Collection > Vestigia celtica

a wonderful embellishment. To the Eliza-
bethan printer of English it was as dear as
it is to-day to our purists in the mint and
cummin of Celtic scholarship. But no
printer of English out of Bedlam would
now dream of returning to a practice so
rude and disfiguring. And why should
not we too have the courage to dismiss it
to the limbo of technical superstitions ?
The practice is not only in itself an un-
seemly disfigurement of our Gaelic books.
It tends to repel, on the threshold of their
first attempt, many who, but for it, would
learn to read in Gaelic ; and its fancied
difficulties have prevented many a High-
lander of promising parts from ever
attempting to commit to writing, in his
mother tongue, thoughts which otherwise
might have greatly enriched the literature
of the Gael.