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

'8 LECTURE I.
and Normans, for a period of ten centuries, af-
fected the purity of the Celtic races ; but it is
vain to deny that it must have done so to a
large extent. At the same time it may be quite
true that, with regard to the latter, their pre-
sence affected to a very small extent the gene-
ral mass of the population ethnologically. They
consisted of a few leading families, whose mar-
riages would have been into families of equal
rank with their own.
That there are clans, however, wdiich, not-
withstanding the qualifications imjjlied in the
above remarks, may with perfect propriety be
called Celtic, requires little demonstration. No
race is more truly so than the Campbells, not-
withstanding all that has been said of their great
ancestor, the Norman " de Campobello." Carse-
well, the Superintendent of the Isles in the
reign of Queen Mary, in his dedication of his
Gaelic translation of Knox's " Prayer-Book" to
the then Earl of Argyll, has preserved what
was known as the Gaelic surname of the family.
He addresses the Earl as " An triath cumhach-
dach, ceart-bhreathach, ciuin-bhriathrach, Gil-
leasbuig Ua-Duibhne larla Earraghaidheal."
" The powerful, just, and mild Archibald
O'Duine, Earl of Argyll." The real patronymic
of the family is O'Duine ; nor do Highland ge-