your assistance in enabling them to lay before the public, I took occasion, in going to Inveraray, to call on Mr. McKinnon at Glendaruel. Reminding him of what had then passed, and asking whether he had himself seen the Kilbride Collection, he told me he had not, but that he had then by him a Gaelic manuscript, got from some country people in his neighbourhood, which had once, they said, made part of that collection, which appeared to him very ancient, and though he could not easily read it on account of its numerous contractions, he found it to contain Histories, Tales, and Poems.

This manuscript, as you know, I prevailed on him to send by me for the use of the Society. It is generally understood to be of considerable antiquity, as the late Mr. William Robertson of the Register Office supposed, not later than the 13th century.

The circumstance of this manuscript also being supposed to come out of the Kilbride collection, induced me to make inquiry, what part of that collection still remained in the possession of Major Mac Lachlan, who was my personal acquaintance. The result you know was, that by means of the Rev. Francis Stuart minister of Craignish, I obtained a confirmation of the fact, that his family had once possessed a very large collection, of which he had given two or three to General Sir Adolphus Oughton, and the late Sir James Foulis, both of whom were Gaelic scholars, and that there still remained above twenty in his possession.

Of these he allowed Mr Stuart to bring a few to my house in Bute for my inspection, all of which appeared to me to be of some antiquity. Those were returned; but, at my request, Mr. Mackintosh was, as you know, allowed to take inspection, and bring the Society an account of these and the other MSS. in Major M'Lachlan's possession. Part of these the major afterwards sent to the Society, and

the remaining part are not unlikely to be obtained from Capt. Sime of Stuck garvan, his nephew and heir.

It is foreign to the subject of this letter to enter into particulars now much better known to you and the other members of the Committee than to me, while the examination made by Mr. Donald Smith, with the aid of Mr. Mackintosh, shows their contents to be in many respects curious and interesting. I feel some satisfaction in having been the accidental instrument of bringing under the notice of the Society, and probably preserving from being irrecoverably lost, what is perhaps the most valuable remains of Gaelic manuscript now existing in this country.

I cannot conclude this letter without remarking, that independently of the various accidents to which, even with every care for their preservation, such MSS. as those in question must have been exposed from the destruction of the religious houses at the Reformation, from the subsequent feuds and civil wars, and latterly the two Rebellions, during which the houses and the property of the first families in the Highlands so often suffered devastation and plunder, and their proprietors were driven into exile, or suffered on a scaffold; the state in which this Kilbride Collection was found, exhibits a striking proof of the destruction to which such papers were exposed from the carelessness of their owners; and affords a strong presumption that the MSS. accidentaly recovered, bear a very small proportion to those which once existed in a country where they were equally liable to perish by violence or by neglect. I always am,

My dear Sir,

Your very faithful and obedient Servant,
WM. MACLEOD BANNATYNE.

No. XIX.

ACCOUNT

Of the PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS now in the Possession of the Highland Society, relating to the Subject of the Committee's Inquiries,

BY DR. DONALD SMITH.

THE oldest Manuscript in the possession of the Society appears to be one of the late Major John M'Lachlan's of Kilbride, written on vellum, and marked Vo. A. No. I.

On the margin of its fourth leaf is the following remark : Oidche bealtne ann a coimhtech mo Pupu Muirciusa agus as olc lium nach marunn diol in linesi dom dub Misi Fithil acc furnuidhe na scoile. The English of which is this:The night of the first of May in the Coenobium of my Pope Murchus, and I regret that there is not left of my ink enough to fill up this line. I am Fithil an attendant on the school.

The sense in which the word Pupu, equivalent to Pope or Papa, is here used, may lead one to form a judgment of the age of the MS. The primitive signification of Papa is Father,

and in this venerable sense it was applied to Bishops in the early ages of the Church, as we learn from St. Augustin and some succeeding writers quoted by Du Cange under the word Papa. In the Eastern Church it was, at one period, given to Abbots, and even to Priests or Presbyters. When the Bishops of Rome acquired the direction of the Western Church, they affected an exclusive right to the title of Pope, which they continued to assume from the time of Leo the First, or Great (A. D. 440—461.), while others received it only as matter of courtesy. So in the Eastern Church, too, it came in process of time to be monopolized by the Patriarchs of Alexandria; which made some Roman Pontiffs take the title of Universal Pope, as John VIII. is styled in the council held at Pavia in the year 876*.

To apply this information to our purpose: The Scots and Picts, as we are expressly informed by Bede, derived their Christian profession from St. John the Evangelist, according to the usage of the Churches of Asia, and the writings of Anatolius, who was Bishop of Laodicea in Syria about the year 280, and wrote, among other works, a learned book on the observance of the Pasch, a fragment of which is preserved by Eusebiust. Their clergy, accordingly, long opposed the peculiar rites and tenets of the Romish Church with so much zeal, that they would not even eat in company with churchmen of that persuasion, whom they, as well as the ancient British and Irish, whose Christianity was derived from the same source, regarded as little better than Pagans ‡.

• Carol. Dufresne Domini Du Cange Glossar. ad Scriptor. med. et infim. Latinitat. in Voc. Papa.

+ Bed. Histor. Ecclesiast. Lib. III. c. 3. 25. Euseb. Pamphil. Hist. Eccles. Lib. VII. c. 31.

Bed. Hist. Ecclesiast. L. II. c. 4. 20.

The church discipline of this ancient Scots institution differed remarkably from the Romish in this respect, that an Abbot, or even a Presbyter, was equal in authority to a Bishop; though it should seem that by the age of Bede, this privilege was confined to the Abbot of Iona or I Cholum Chille. "That island," says he," has an Abbot, "who is a Presbyter, for its ruler, to whose direction all "the province, and even the Bishops, contrary to the usual "method, are subject, according to the example of its first "teacher, who was not a Bishop, but a Presbyter and "Monk+." And thence it happened that in the early period of the Scots and Irish Church, Ab, Popa or Pupa, denoted Lord, and Master, as ancient Glossaries of obsolete words inform us ‡.

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In 710, Naitan King of Picts, was prevailed upon by a letter from Ceolfrid, Abbot of Girwy, to recommend the Romish observance concerning Easter and the Tonsure to the clergy of his dominions. "The nineteen years circles ❝ or revolutions were sent throughout all the provinces of "the Picts to be transcribed and observed, instead of the eighty-four years revolutions. All the ministers of the "altar, and the monks, had the crown shorn, and the cor"rected nation (as Bede expresses it) rejoiced, as being "newly put under the instruction of Peter, the most blessed "prince of the apostles, and to be secured under his pro❝ tection *."

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In 716, Ecgbercht, an English priest, went from Ireland to Iona, in order to effect the like change in the religious usage of the Scots. The monks of that island, to whom the Church of Scotland was subject, gave him a welcome

+ Id. L. III. c. 4.

Lhuyd. Archæolog. Britann. Tit. II. in vocib. Dominus, Magister, et Tit. X in vocib. Ab. Popa.

Bed. Histor. Ecclesiast. Lib. V cap. 22.