We learn from Rymer, Vol. II. p. 543, that in the reign of Edward I. anno 1291, the English chancellor, in his conference with the Scottish parliament, spoke in French; which was the language commonly made use of by all parties on that occasion. Some of the Scotch, and almost all the English barons, were of French origin; they valued themselves upon it, and affected to despise the manners and language of the island. The French language, as then spoken and written, would scarcely be understood by Frenchmen of this day.

There are not wanting authorities from modern writers to prove, that the Gaelic was a written language in Scotland and Ireland at a very remote period. Bishop Nicolson, in his Historical Scottish Library, also Innes, and Sir Robert Sibbald, bear ample testimony to this fact.

At the period of the Reformation, the Gaelic being confined to a small portion of Scotland, and for many centuries before having ceased to be the language at court, it did not participate in the advantages which the other languages of Europe derived from the invention of printing. Ireland and Scotland had anciently such constant communication and intercourse with each other, that the language of both countries was nearly or altogether the same; and even at the present day they do not radically differ in their principles, although some innovations in the orthography have been introduced. In Ireland, the people enjoyed their own laws and customs, until the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.; and it was not till that late period, that the Gaelic (or Irish, as the

natives term it) ceased to be generally spoken by the Irish nobility and gentry, which may be said to have been at least six hundred years after it had ceased to be spoken at the court of Scotland. The Irish, therefore, had more Gaelic books printed than the Scots, and, it is believed, that there are many more ancient MSS. extant in that country than in Scotland. The ingenious Edward Lhuyd, in his Archæologia Britannica, published in 1707, gives an ample list of Irish MSS. existing in Trinity College, Dublin.*

About the middle of the fifteenth century, the art of printing was discovered on the Continent, and was first introduced into England in 1468, just before the commencement of the civil wars, which for some years retarded its progress. The first book, known to have been printed in England, is in the public library at Cambridge; it is a small volume, of forty-one leaves quarto, with this title, Expositis Sancti Ieronimi in simbolum Apostolorum ad Papem Laurentium; and, at the end, Explicit Expositis, &c. Impressa Oxonie et finita Anno Domini M.CCCC. LXVIII. XVII die Decembris. In 1488, twenty years after this book had been printed at Oxford, Homer's works were first printed, in folio, at Florence.

Although an English translation of the Bible was first completed by Tyndal in 1527, and an Irish version first printed in 1685; yet no Gaelic translation was published in Scotland till within these twentyfive years, in the execution of which, the Rev. Dr. Stuart, Minister of Luss, had a considerable share.

See Notices of Gaelic and Irish MSS. at the end.

This translation has great merit, and is considered the standard of the Gaelic language. The translation of the Bible by Tyndal has tended to preserve, more than any other circumstance, the purity of the English language; yet it has since undergone some trivial alterations in its orthography. Many books, formerly printed in the black letter, are scarcely intelligible to an Englishman of this day. Mr. Barrington, however, thinks, that it was not the translation of the Bible that settled the English tongue, but rather the statutes, which he apprehends have spoken in a purer dialect than any other production.

The Count Algarotti has made a remark on this subject, which, though rather whimsical in the comparison, appears on the whole to be just; namely, that the translation of the Bible is the test and standard of the language in England, while the standard in Italy is the Decameron of the lively Boccacio.

What is now called the standard of the Gothic language, is also that venerable monument, the translation of the Gospels. The MS. which is still preserved, is called Codex Argenteus, or Codex Aureus, from being written in silver capital letters, with a mixture of gold, and it is now in the library at Upsal, in Sweden. † A specimen of the writing may be seen in a work published by Serenius, titled Dictionarium Anglo-Swethico-Latinum. This translation is generally attributed to Ulfilas, otherwise

Barrington on the Statutes.

+ Celsius, Bibl. Upsal Historia, p. 86, 116. Printed at Hamburgh, 1734.

Ulphilas, Bishop of the Gothic Christians in Dacia, Thracia, and Mœsia. He filled the episcopal see from the year 360 until about 380, and is said to have invented the Gothic letters, as well as to have translated all the Scriptures into that language. Mr. Astle, however, remarks, that the ancient Gothic alphabet is very similar to the Greek, and is attributed to Ulphilas, Bishop of the Goths, who lived in Masia about the year 370 after Christ; and that, as he translated the Bible into the Gothic tongue, that circumstance might have occasioned the tradition of his having invented those letters: but Mr. Astle is of opinion, that those characters were in use long before his time. † There has been recently published in quarto, at Leipsic, a new translation of the Bible in the Gothic language, by Ulfilas; with a literal interlined Latin translation, accompanied by a grammar and glossary, by B. F. C. Fulda.

The history of Scotland, from the earliest period to the death of James the First, in seventeen books, by Hector Boethius, was originally written in Latin, and the first edition of it was printed in folio at Paris in 1526. The next edition, with the addition of the eighteenth book, and part of the nineteenth, was printed in folio at Sausan in 1574. Thus far the author himself continued it, but what follows was the work of J. Ferrerius, a native of Piedmont, who

* Astle, Origin and Progress of Writing, 2d Edit. p. 58.

+ There exists another MS. translation of the Bible in the Gothic language, called Codex Carolinus, discovered in 1756 in the library of Wolfenbuttle, and published in 1762. This appears to have been written in Italy towards the end of the fifth century.

carried it down to the end of James the Third's reign.

Boethius' history was translated into the Scottish language by John Ballanden, Archdeacon of Murray, who died at Rome in 1550. R. Holinshed published it in English, in his English Chronicles, Vol. I.

We have, in the Notices of Books at the end of these Observations, given a short account of the writings of Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, John Lesly, Bishop of Ross, and Sir David Lyndsay, who flourished in the sixteenth century; in this place, therefore, it is unnecessary to dwell upon

them.

The translation into Gaelic of the forms of prayer, and administration of the sacraments, and catechism of the Christian religion, as used in the reformed church of Scotland, by John Carswell, Bishop of the Isles, first printed at Edinburgh in the year 1567, is one of the earliest books of piety translated into Gaelic, in Scotland. The Bishop, in his preface, mentions the existence of Gaelic MS. poems of the ancient bards from remote periods, and he censures the preference given to such worldly histories over the godly books which he had published.

The pious Bishop expressly mentions Gaelic MSS. concerning warriors and champions, and Fingal the son of Cumhall with his heroes. But, as it may be gratifying to some readers, the following extract is a close translation from the Bishop's Gaelic, as taken from the preface to the ingenious Mr. Alexander Campbell's Tour through parts of North