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partisan of that race might collect hints and reasons to the contrary. A writer with whom I and the readers of this magazine are acquainted has done justice, in a way that the world has recognised, to the virtues and claims of the Saxon family of the Browns. "For

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centuries," he says, "in their quiet, "dogged, homespun way, they have "been subduing the earth in most 'English counties, and leaving their mark "in American forests and Australian up"lands. Wherever the fleets and armies "of England have won renown, these "stalwart sons of the Browns have done yeoman's work. With the yew-bow "and cloth-yard shaft at Cressy and Agincourt-with the brown bill and "pike under the brave Lord Willoughby "-with culverin and demi-culverin

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against Spaniards and Dutchmen-with "hand-grenade and sabre, and musket "and bayonet, under Rodney and St. "Vincent, Wolfe and Moore, Nelson and Wellington-they have carried their "lives in their hands; getting hard "knocks and hard work in plenty, "which was on the whole what they "looked for, and the best thing for "them; and little praise or pudding, "which indeed they and most of us are "better without. Talbots and Stanleys, "St. Maurs and such like folk, have led "armies and made laws time out of “mind; but these noble families would "be somewhat astonished-if the ac"counts ever came to be fairly taken"to find how small their work for "England has been by the side of that "of the Browns." Well said for the Browns! But will nobody take up the cudgels for the Joneses, or the Hugheses, for example? The Joneses outnumber the Browns, and even the Smiths, I believe, in the London Directory; and something might be made out of that. Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson are the four popular types of English wandering and hard English work-one of them a Celt, it will be perceived, but not one of them a Norman. Is the proportion, and is the omission, significant? Who knows? But, if Jones is

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in our national constitution, though it would be as difficult to calculate the influence of the submerged Celt in the national character and career, as it would be to calculate the activity of the Joneses of the last three centuries in relation to the Smiths, the Browns, and the Robinsons, yet the admission of some influence cannot be avoided. Historical generalizations, a little vague and rash perhaps, might even be made, indicating the nature of the influence. What, for example, if something of that difference which has distinguished and still distinguishes the national character of the Scotch from that of the English should depend on the fact that the mixture called Scotch consists more of a union of the Scandinavian or Norse variety of the Gothic with the Gaelic variety of the Celtic; and the mixture called English, more of a union of the Saxon variety of the Gothic with the Cambrian or British variety of the Celtic? Again, it might be averred, with some backing of evidence, that much of the peculiar history of Scotland, especially in relation to England, from the Norman Conquest downwards, might be construed as the activity of Saxons and Normans coming in aid of a Celtic sentiment-a Celtic tradition of nationality-which inhered in the very region they occupied, and making good that sentiment and that tradition against their southern kinsmen. The standard which the Teutonic or Norman Wallace bore against Edward Longshanks, and which the English-born Bruce bore against his successor, might have had a Celtic blazon.

What the Celt has done in and from the portions of these islands in which he has been more peculiarly cooped up, is more appreciable than what he has done in his submerged capacity as Jones of the London Directory.

In respect of what he has done in those regions, there is certainly a sad side to the story. Rich green Welsh valleys, with broken wheels, tin pans, bits of crockery, and every slatternly thing tumbled through them, and the most illiterate form

exercise of their natives; large tracts of fertile and picturesque Ireland wretched and restless, a confusion of mud cabins and dilapidated villages, more wildly under the sway of the priests than any other spot of Roman Catholic Europe; the beautiful Scottish Highlands, save where tracks of comfort have been carved through them for the tourists, still fastnesses of native laziness and squalor, equally under the régime of that zealous UltraCalvinism which has penetrated into them and possessed them, as in the days when the Presbyterian Lowlands regarded them as Popish and heathen-these are the pictures uniformly given us of the still Celtic portions of our islands. It is, indeed, with reference mainly to such contemporary descriptions of the Celt at home that there has grown up the doctrine of the worthlessness of the Celt; and the accompanying assertion generally is that, not till the Saxon has taken possession of these regions with his energy and capital, will they be brought up to the mark. There might here, of course, be a discussion, in behalf of the Celt, how much of his backwardness in his native regions may have been owing to insurmountable conditions, geographical and political. Coop up a race apart, it may be said, in a region of hills, and that accumulation of capital which is the necessary agent in all material progress, cannot so easily take place as might be thought-capital must come into it from the flat lands. With the faith which we have, however, that man may almost anywhere be master of his conditions if the proper stuff is in him, this kind of argument, though it may apply in part, will be of less avail on the whole than the testimony borne by those who have known and studied the Celt at home to the many interesting and even noble qualities observable in him, despite circumstances so unpromising to the Saxon. Of Irish wit, brilliant sociability, inquisitiveness, and readiness in all kinds of intellectual acquisition, even the most difficult, we have evidence on every hand. To the good qualities of the Welsh a long line

beginning with Shakspeare-who evidently loved the Welsh while he quizzed them; for there is no Welshman in his plays but is a right good fellow, with all his pepperiness, and capable of turning the tables against any swaggering Pistol that offends him. And that the virtues with which Scott invested the Scottish Gael in his poems and novels were not the mere strong colours of the artist, studying picturesque effect, but a deliberate rendering of his own intimate acquaintance with the Gaelic character, rests on his own assurance. To Scott's high tribute throughout his works to the character of the Scottish Highlanders, others might be added-such as the testimony of school-inspectors to the aptitude of the Highland children for learning, or Hugh Miller's more emphatic testimony in behalf of those Rossshire and Sutherlandshire men with whom he had mingled. In relation to the very matter already mentioned of the backwardness of the Highlanders in material respects, their aversion to change, their contentedness with their poor shielings which a Saxon would have scorned, Hugh Miller's testimony was that he had known the inhabitants of these shielings better than most people, and that, with all the poverty of their environment, they were, as strongly as he could phrase it, a race of men.

Corresponding with these accounts of the Celt in his native regions is the impression derived from the retrospect of their activity as manifested from these regions. True, this activity has consisted, in great part, in fitful bursts athwart and against the general current of British policy, so that again and again the Saxon has had to wrestle to his ends with the Celt clinging round his neck. But is there nothing considerable on the other side in the very desperateness with which the Celt has maintained this chronic, though unavailing, struggle? Can it be that that is altogether a paltry race, which has dashed across the equable course of British domestic history, during the last hundred and fifty years, almost the only events charged with the

-those Jacobite Rebellions and the like, which yet fascinate our memory, and to which our novelists and dramatists go back, as by instinct, when they seek for subjects? And then, the splendid, and more satisfactory, story of Celtic activity in co-operation with the Saxon, in the service of that imperial unity which includes them both! Since the day when Chatham, among his other feats of statesmanship, showed how the Celt might be reconciled and utilized, there has not been a single military enterprise of Britain in which Celtic courage has not performed a part, not a single extension of the Empire to which Celtic blood and Celtic talent have not contributed. From the wars of last century down to that of the Crimea and to those eastern wars which now engage us, the deeds of Irish, Welsh, and Highland regiments in the field of battle have been chronicled with generous admiration by their English comrades, till these regiments have become, in a manner, pets with the British public. But, indeed, those who are least partial to the Celtic race have never denied to it the possession, in a signal degree, of the military virtues. Perhaps it is because it has been easier to observe the Celt so acting, side by side with the Saxon, in distinct masses on the battle field, than to trace him individually in his dispersed state through civil society beyond his native precincts, that proportionate justice has not been done to his abilities and success in other walks than the military. In addition, however, to what might be claimed for the Celt in virtue of the influence (scarcely calculable) of what we called the submerged Celtic element in the national constitution-represented in the Joneses and others who have been mixed with us from time immemorial, and whose Celtic descent is concealed and nullified by length of time-something might be claimed (and I hand over the fuller prosecution of the claim to some one who, as a Celt himself, may be more interested in it) in virtue of the numerous instances that could be

phisticated from their native regions, or removed from them by so short an interval as still to be traceable as Celtic particles in surrounding society, who have attained eminence in that society, and, in competition with others, emerged well. We would hardly advise a Welshman, at this time of day, to claim Oliver Cromwell as his countryman. Yet he

certainly was a kinsman of the Welsh Williamses, to whom Bacon's predecessor on the woolsack, the famous Bishop Williams, belonged; and, in youth, more than once he signed his name "Oliver Williams." But what of the numberless Lloyds, Llewellyns, Prices, &c., whose names diversify the directories of all our towns, and many of whom appear in prominent enough positions? I do not know how it is to be explained, but I have myself observed that an unusual proportion of eminent actuaries and others connected with the businesses of life-insurance and banking in this country, have been Welshmen. So, the Scottish-Highland names at present eminent in the world of British commerce, from Glasgow southwards, would make a pretty long list; to which, pursuing the traces of the Scottish Celt in another and more special direction, one might add some literary names, ending with Mackintosh and Macaulay. to some extent, the preference of the Irish Celt for a career of opposition to the Saxon has made his career in cooperative rivalry with him less satisfactory, we can at least point to such facts as the remarkable success of native Irish students in the recent Civil Service competitions, and the large amount of native Irish talent in connexion with the London press and the English bar, as proving the co-operative capacity of the Irish Celt also, when the right way is open to him, and he chooses to take it. Finally, as if to prove that there is some truth in the theory that the British Celt at home has been kept back by the too great stringency of his conditions, there is the phenomenon of Celtic success abroad-of the prosperity of the Celt, and the rapid development of new

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American and Australian fields over which he has begun to expatiate. That the Irish Celt in the colonies and in the United States should retain so much of the anti-Saxon sentiment is to be accounted for by the circumstances in which he has parted with us here at home; but this, though we may anticipate its reaction upon ourselves, should not prevent us from hearing of his success with sympathy and pleasure.

Although it so chances that, of all the three remaining fragments of the Celtic race in these islands (four, if we include the Manx), the Scottish Gael has the lion's share of popular interest, this is owing rather to what has been done for his literary representation and recommendation by the genius of Scott and others than to any recognition of him through the medium of native literary relics. Welsh bards are more than mere shadows to the student of our literary history; Irish annalists have been heard of with respect; but of printed or manuscript remains of the Scottish Gael the rumour has been of the faintest. Since the days of the Ossian controversy, indeed, it has been as much as a man's character for sanity The was worth to talk of such things. rough horse-criticism which trampled out Macpherson's pretensions in respect of the special Ossian poems had trampled out also all belief in the possible existence of any old Gaelic legends or poems whatever. Of late, however, a suspicion has crept in that the horsecritics were too summary in their treatment of the question. Arguing from a kind of a priori principle that every race must have its poems and legends, people have been disposed to believe in the existence of Gaelic poems and legends, still perhaps recoverable, some of which might throw new light on the Ossian controversy. Actual search, it seems, has confirmed the belief. Mr. Campbell's opinion on this point will be received with attention.

"I believe that there were poems of very old date, of which a few fragments still exist in Scotland as pure traditions. That these

heroes before the Celts came from Ireland, and answer to Arthur and his knights elsewhere. That the same personages have figured in poems composed, or altered, or improved by bards who lived in Scotland, and by Irish bards of all periods; and that these personages have been mythical heroes amongst the Celts from the earliest of times. That 'the poems' were orally collected by Macpherson and by men before him, by Dr. Smith, by the Committee of the Highland Society, and by others; and that the printed Gaelic is old poetry, mended, and patched, and pieced together, but on the whole a genuine work. Manuscript evidence of the antiquity of similar Gaelic poems exists.... Macpherson's 'translation' appeared between 1760 and 1762, and the controversy raged from the beginning and is growling still; but the dispute now is whether the poems were originally Scotch or Irish, and how much Macpherson altered them. It is like the quarrel about the chameleon; for the languages spoken in Islay and Rathlin are identical, and the language of the poems is difficult for me, though I have spoken Gaelic from my childhood. There is no doubt at all that Gaelic poems on such subjects existed long before Macpherson was born; and it is equally certain that there is no composition in the Gaelic language which bears the smallest resemblance in style to the peculiar kind of prose in which it pleased Macpherson to translate. . . . The illiterate [Gaels] seem to have no opinion on the subject. So far as I could ascertain, few had heard of the controversy; but they had all heard scraps of stories about the Finne, all their lives; and they are content to believe that 'Ossian, the last of the Finne,' composed the poems, wrote them, and burned his book in a pet, because St. Patrick, or St. Paul, or some other saint would not believe his wonderful stories." 1

It is not, however, of such Ossianic legends or traditions of the Finne that Mr. Campbell's present collection mainly consists, but of more miscellaneous popular tales, still current in the West teller present, they are Highlands, where, when there is a good listened to by young and old through whole winter nights. Their character is indicated by the titles prefixed to them"The Young King of Easaidh Ruadh," "The Battle of the Birds," "The SeaMaiden," "Conal Cra Bhuidhe," "Conal Crovi," ""The Brown Bear of the Green

1 See a Skye version of the legend of Ossian and his poems, as told by Mr. Alexander Smith, in his paper "In a Skye Bothie," in Macmillan's Magazine, for December, 1859. It may be compared with a version given in one of the stories

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Glen," "The Daughter of the Skies," "The Girl and the Dead Man," "The King of Lochlann's Three Daughters,' "The Slim Swarthy Champion,' "The Shifty Lad," "The Smith and the Fairies," "The Queen who sought a drink from a certain Well," "The Origin of 'Loch Ness," "The Three Widows," "The Sharp Grey Sheep," &c. &c. As these titles will suggest, the tales are, as nearly as possible, the Gaelic counterparts of Dr. Dasent's Norse translations

exactly the same kinds of stories about kings' sons and daughters, younger and elder brothers, giants, fairies, enchantments, magic horses, talking beasts and birds, miraculous swords, golden apples, &c., as compose Dr. Dasent's volume; with this difference, that there the manner of thinking, the tone, the colour, the whole air and scenery, are Norse, whereas here they are Gaelic. On the whole, as tales-whether because here we have what came first to the net in a water not previously fished, whereas in Dr. Dasent's volume we have the picked specimens of the Norse stories

-the contents of the book are not equal to those of Dr. Dasent's. The Gaelic tales want the breadth, the hearty humour, the open freshness of their Norse counterparts; in reading which we seem to be among the fairhaired Scandinavians, free and ruddy under their cold blue skies. These are more narrow, concentrated, sly, and sombre, as of a people living in glens, and by the lips of dark deep lochs, though with woods and mountains of heather and fair green spots all round and at hand. For mere pleasure a grown-up reader will go through fewer of Mr. Campbell's than of Dr. Dasent's stories continuously-finding them, after one or two specimens, of a more puerile order of interest, with fewer of those strokes of really new invention, and those gleams of shrewd significance for the intellect, which are necessary to lure most grown-up readers through stories of the kind. But some of the stories are really good as stories; most of them would be favourites with children, if

the element in all is poetical; and not unfrequently there are situations and fancies full of suggestion, which the cultured ideality of a poet like Tennyson might effectively appropriate and develope. What Mr. Campbell says of the ethical spirit of the tales is also worthy of notice. "Amidst curious rubbish," he says, in his dedication of the tales to the young Marquis of Lorne, "you will "find sound sense, if you look for it. "You will find the creed of the people, as shown in their stories, to be, that "wisdom and courage, though ́ weak,

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may overcome strength, and ignorance "and pride; that the most despised is "often the most worthy; that small "beginnings lead to great results. You "will find perseverance, frugality and "filial piety rewarded; pride, greed, and "laziness punished. You will find "much that tells of barbarous times; "I hope you will find nothing that can "hurt or should offend." On the whole, the book, as a book of stories, is of a kind to be welcome in all households at this Christmas season; at which season, by immemorial custom, fairies, giants, and all the supernatural beings of the extinct mythologies-whether those that flutter beneficent in the air above us, or that moan imprisoned in the midnight blast, or that haunt our knolls and woodlands, or that dwell hideous in pools and caves, or that tenant the depths of Tartarus and clank, far underground, their white-hot chains-revisit our pitying gaze, and whirl once more through the thoughts of men. For, according to the poet, is not this season the anniversary of their banishment and doom? In that hour of wonder when the star which led the Magi stood still over the Judæan hut, what consternation, he says, among the old mythologies! The oracles were dumb; Apollo fled from his shrine; the nymphs were heard weeping on the mountains; conscious of a greater power near, Peor, Baalim, and all the false gods of the East, forsook their temples.

So, when the Sun in bed,
Curtain'd with cloudy red,

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