J. F. Campbell Collection > Original collection of the poems of Ossian, Orrann, Ulin, and other bards, who flourished in the same age

PREFACE. xlJx
their country is universally known by the name
Scotland; they have no other name for their own
race than the Scots. Scot is a very general proper
name, and is often incorporated with the name of
places. 3, Among the Gael, on the other hand,
the term Scot is utterly unknown; they never call
themselves by this name, they never call their
country Scotland. Scot is never used as a proper
name among the pure Highlnndcrs; nor does the
appellation of a single town, valley, or river, shevf
that it was known to their language. Buchanan
expresses his surprise at this strange circumstance,
that one half of the nation should completely have
•forgotten its own name. 4. The Highlanders
universally call themselves the Gael, their own
nation Gaeltachd; the kingdom of Scotland at
ilarge, they know only by the name Ali)in(Albion),
:ind its inhabitants by the name of Albanich, the
term of Albin is employed as a proper name, and
it is often incorporated with the name of places,
Bredalbin, &c. 5. On the other hand, the word
Albin, or Albion, is utterly unknown among the
common people of the Scots, who have not learnt
it from books, or from their northern neighbours,
rJ. The natural inference from these circumstances
IS, that the Gael and Scots, are a distinct race;
1 hat the Gael are the race who possessed Cale-
donia in the time of the Romans, and Albin in
the time of the Greeks. These observations,
drawn from circumstances of which every one may