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

138 LECTURE lY.
Gaelic Psalms, — a work we will notice here,
altliough not coming under the class of prose
works. In this little volume the so-called Irish
dialect is still in use, and several interesting
notices are given in the preface, more especially
as to the character of the sacred music then in
use. Next followed the whole Psalter, Kirke
of Balquidder's Psalter, and several editions of
the Shorter Catechism.
In 1750 appeared the first work ever published
in the Scottish dialect of the Gaelic — " Bax-
ter's Call to the Unconverted," translated by the
Eev. Alexander M'Farlane, minister of Kilnin-
ver in Argyleshire. This work is interesting
as the production of a native of the very same
district of the Highlands with Carsewell, who
wrote 200 years before in the other dialect.
The most important work, however, of the
kind under review to which we have to advert
is the translation into Gaelic of the Holy Scrip-
tures. About the year 1690 three thousand
copies of Bedell's Irish Bible were printed in the
Koman character, for the benefit of the Scottish
Highlanders. In many parts of the Highlands
this was the Bible which continued long in use
among the people ; and, along with the English
Bible, from which some ministers and others
translated as they read — often very in correctly