Inglis Collection of printed music > Printed music > Scottish songs > Volume 1

xW HISTORICAL ESSAY
this was a body of Scots, or Irish, (Scotix and
Hibernia being at that period fynonymous,) who
Carrick, Kyle, Cunningham, and Renfrew, and perhaps a
part of Clydefdale (Innes, i. 160). It had its own feudal
princes and peculiar cufioms, and its inhabitants are ufually
diftingiilhed, in ancient charters of the Scotifli kings, from
their other fubjecls, by the titles of Gahvjefes, or Galo-vidi-
erfes. (Seelnnes's Effny, i. 38, 162, 164. Crawfurds Hi/lory of
tie Stewarts, 2) Thefe Picls, or Galwegians, claimed the
right of making the onfet at the battl; of the ftandard, as their
due by ancient cuitom. They were a tuibulent, rebellious,
and barbarous people, and the ivild Sc,t of Galloiu.:y tecame
proverbial. (See Rofs's Fortunate Jhepherdefs, (a curi jus paem)
p. 51,87.) The old inhabitants of the province of Murray,
feem al'b to have been entirely Pi els, being fo very unruly
as to oblige one of the Scotifli kings to difperfe them in other
parts, and plant the country with mo e tradable fubjecls,
about the year 1160. (Innes, i. 159.) The vulgar language
of this provi ice is called, by its hiftoiian Mr. Shaw, "the
broad Scottifh or Buchan dialecl, which," fays he, " is ma-
nifeftly the Pidifli." That the Celtic, however, has been ma-
nifestly fpoken throughout this province, as well as in Bu-
c' an, and other parts of the eatt coaft, is clear from the pe-
culiar pr nunciation of the prefent inhabitants ; who, like
the Highlanders, ufe f inftead of nvh, as fa, fan, fat, for
ivbo, ivhin, ivbat, and the like: an infallible fymptom
of a Celtic foundation. The Gaelic indeed, is now fpoken
in Aberdeenfhire, which is on the fame coaft. (Macpherfons
Difjertat.oits, p. 62.) The Buchan dialecl, therefor, as
extant in a few poems, which have been published therein,
differs little from the lowland Scotifli, and neither of them
fo much from common Englifli, as the Lancafliire or Exmoor
dialecl will be found to do; whereas, had the Piclifli been
Gothic, and the Buchan the Piclifli, the difference between
that dialecl and the Englifli would, at this moment, have been
as wide and radical, at lead, as that which exifts between the
languages of England and Denmarkor Sweden.*Mr.Pinkerton,
* " For the wonderful affinity between the Swed-
ifh and Englifli, fee Mr. Coxe's Travels. Had Siveden been
where Ireland is, the SWEDISH would alfo have been called
English." ! ! ! EJJ'ay on the origin of Scotijh poetry, (prefixed
* 0" Ai dent S^otip Jongs," I786,^p. lxx.