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

LECTURE III. 91
With the revival of letters among the other
nations of Europe, they also revived among the
Celts of Scotland. Ireland, less exposed than
Scotland to foreign invasion, has remains of a
continuous literature from the days of St Patrick
downwards. Fragments of poems, and other
compositions of bards and ecclesiastics, are
known to exist. From about the 12th century
we have similar fragments of Celtic literature
in Scotland. These are many of them tran-
scripts from Irish MSS. One effect of the inva-
sions of the Northmen was to extinguish the
Scottish schools of learning, and to trans-
fer the sources of education and consequent
knowledge almost entirely to the sister Isle.
That which had been the glory of lona became
the glory of Armagh, and similar establish-
ments ; and Ireland, instead of sending her sons
to Scotland for the acquisition of learning,
became the great seat of learning herself.
Hence the fact which has staggered so many
with respect to tbe ancient literature of Celtic
Scotland, that the MSS. are in the Irish dialect :
the conclusion to which they have been led by
this fact being, that there was no such litera-
ture in Scotland at all. But the inference w^as
incorrect, — the existing MSS. are in the dialect
of the Celtic used by literary men of both