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

100 LECTURE III.
great progenitor of the race would seem to be
a certain Ferghus Fionn, or Fergus the Fair,
probably the Fergus M'Yeagh or Bethune who
lived in the year 1408, and was physician to Mac-
donald of the Isles in Islay. We have several
MSS. belonging to this family. One of these is a
small quarto in vellum, now in possession of
David Laing, Esq., of the Edinburgh Signet Li-
brary. It is in a beautiful handwriting, and seems
to have been written by John Beaton, who flou-
rished in 1530. It is full of comments on the
writings of Giraldus, Constantinus, and other
medical continental writers of the period. It
contains also a long treatise on Astrology, so
much studied at the time, and another on the
phenomena of colour as an indication of health or
disease. Another MS. which apparently be-
longed to the Beatons, contains extracts from
Aristotle, under the name of "The Philoso-
pher," from Jaques de Forli, a distinguished
physician and astrologer of Padua ; from Avi-
cenna, the Prince of Arabian physicians, and
author of the Canons ; and from Averroes of
Cordova, one of the best known medical writers
of his day. These writings indicate an amount
of cultivation in the Gaelic, to qualify it for
being the language of science, from which it has
sadly declined now. Many of the words used to