opportunity for the bards to celebrate the virtues of the deceased, and rehearse his noble descent, thereby improving the occasion by setting before others the advantages of a wellspent life. The Goths conducted their funerals in the same manner,-Theodoric, Jornandes tells us, was buried amid songs of praise. The expression of sorrow by the relations was manly and becoming. Of the Germans, it is said, "Wailings they soon dismiss, their affliction and wo they long retain. In women it is reckoned becoming to deplore their loss-in men to remember it." This was the feeling of the Highlanders, who left the duty of mourning to the females, thinking it unmanly, whatever they felt, to betray their sorrow by shedding tears, or show a want of fortitude by the indulgence of excessive grief. They were, however, far from not displaying a becoming sorrow. "Three days" the Caledonians "mourned above Carthon," and for some much respected individuals, annual commemorations were appointed. The Gaël of more recent times have shown extreme grief at the death of some of their chiefs; it is related, even of the rude inhabitants of St. Kilda, that, on one occasion when they heard of the death of Mac Leod, they abandoned their houses and spent two days sorrowing in the fields.

The Celts, who were so partial to music, thought it indispensable on occasion of death. The bards always attended at the raising of a tomb, besides singing the praises of the dead in the circles; and the poem, or rather both it and the music, was called the coronach. Without its due performance, the soul was supposed to wander forlorn about its earthly remains; but although the practice of repeating it continued so lately, if it is indeed entirely exploded among the present Scots, religion formed no part of the subject. The ancient custom of addressing a dead body in broken and extemporary, but forcible verses, is believed to have been given up in the Highlands and Isles for more than half a century; but the lament is still performed, and the coronach, or expressions of wo, that may be so termed, are, in some remote districts, still to be heard at funerals. The coronach was, for the most part, a voluntary effusion, repeated on the way to the churchyard, in which the good deeds of the deceased and glories of his ancestry were extolled. At intervals, numerous females of the clan, who followed near the coffin, burst into paroxysms of grief, tearing their hair, beating their breasts, and making the most woful lamentations. It resembled the cine, or keen, of the Irish, which is still performed in their native land, and may occasionally be heard when the body is waked, in London. This wild and melancholy dirge has been termed "the howl," and gave rise to the expression among the English of "weeping Irish." It is an extempore composition, descanting on the virtues and respectability of the deceased. the end of each stanza, a chorus of women and girls swell the notes into a loud plaintive cry, which is occasionally used without the song. These Cina, in Hebrew, is a lamentation. Kuyn, in Welsh, is a complaint.

*

At

ciners are women, and many officiate professionally. At one of their wakes, where I was present, the widow was the leader, and was assisted by one or two who had been hired. Others, however, occasionally took part, and the excessive grief displayed by them as they stood wringing their hands over the inanimate body, and exhibiting other symptoms of bitter sorrow, had an impressive effect. The Irish in remote parts, before the last howl, expostulate with the dead body, and reproach it for having died, notwithstanding he had a good wife and a milch cow, several fine children, and a competency of potatoes. One of the Gordon Highlanders told me, that having, when in Ireland, gone with some others to a wake, the widow spoke with displeasure to the body of her husband, because he would not take notice of those who had come even from Scotland to see him! In the Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland, we find that the elegy which the bards wrote, enumerating his riches and other happiness, the burden was always, "Oh! why did he die?"

The vocal lamentations in the Highlands are now almost confined to the act of sepulture. The Statistical Account of Avoch in Ross-shire, says, "the lamentations of the women, in some cases, on seeing a beloved relation put in the grave, would almost pierce a heart of stone."

The practice of singing at a funeral was retained by the Christians, who substituted their psalms and hymns for the Celtic laments, and it was usual on some occasions to employ a whole choir, who preceded the corpse. Waldron says the Manx funerals are met about a quarter of a mile from the church by the clergyman, who walks before, singing a psalm, and in every churchyard is a cross, round which the company pass three times. The Welsh played the Owdle barnat before a corpse on its way to the churchyard.

The singing of the coronach appears to have given place to the playing of the bagpipes among the Highlanders, but it would seem that both were used for some time. The bagpipes were more suitable to the military character of the people, and well adapted to produce those wailing notes, according with the solemnity of the occasion, and adding so much to the effect of the scene. The Cumhadh, or lament, as already shown, is a family tune of a most plaintive character, and often very ancient, and its performance is in sympathy with the emotions of the company. General Stewart says that the funeral of Rob Roy was the last in Perthshire at which a piper was employed. In Lochaber and some other parts, these musicians, I believe, are occasionally engaged; in the Highlands of Aberdeenshire, the most inland district in Scotland, I can assert that the employment of pipers is by no means uncommon. I, of course, speak of the continuance of the ancient practice, not of its revival by the influence of individuals or societies. The funeral of the late Sir Eneas Mac Intosh, of Mac Intosh, who died at a patriarchal age, was

attended by six bagpipers, who preceded the body, which was followed by a numerous cavalcade, playing the affecting lament of the clan.

The Scots gentry have usually family burial places on their own lands, and often in the vicinity of the mansion. That of the Laird of Mac Nab, near Killin, in Braidalban, is, like most others, imbosomed in wood, and in a situation from its seclusion and natural gloom, in fine accordance with the melancholy scene-the conclusion of life's eventful drama.

THAT the Celts, at least the Druids, were acquainted with the use of letters is certain. The roll found in the camp of the Helvetii, containing the numbers of men, women, and children who composed the expedition, is a sufficient proof that they could write, were we possessed of no other. The principles and practice of the Druidical priesthood were adverse to literature as the medium of instruction, and they did not trust their mysteries to writing; but is it to be inferred that so learned a body were ignorant of this most useful art? The signs or hieroglyphics which priests and philosophers of all ancient nations used, were of themselves

KNOWLEDGE OF LETTERS.

491

a sort of language, and must have led to the formation of a regular system, by which a mutual communication was established. The Celts, however, had the use of letters at a very early period; the Turdetani, a people of Spain, according to Strabo, declared that they could produce not only traditional poems, but written documents of 6000 years' antiquity.

Lhuyd asserts that the Britons had letters long before the time of Tacitus, which they imparted to the Irish; and Leland, Pits, and Bale, give accounts of many learned men who flourished and wrote about the era of redemption and even before; but the early use of writing does not altogether rest on the biographies of the above authors, whose authority, I am aware, is often doubtful. The Leccan records of Irish history say, that Saint Patrick burnt no less than one hundred and eighty Druidical tracts, and a uniform tradition has been preserved among the bards, that Colan, or Columba, on his establishment in Iona, burnt a heap of books written by the Britons.* Their historians affirm that a large colony, who had taken refuge in Britany on the Saxon invasion, carried with them the archives that had escaped the ravages of those illiterate rovers, which circumstance Gildas, who wrote in the sixth century, alludes to with regret.

That national annals and other records did exist is undeniable. Nennius, writing in the middle of the ninth century, says he compiled his work, among other documents, from the writings of the Scots and English, which, however, had in frequent wars suffered great mutilation. Gaimar, a Frenchman, who wrote on the Saxon kings, refers to a work on British history now lost; but, in the prefatory chapter, the use of letters and cultivation of literature by the ancient Celtic inhabitants of these islands, has been satisfactorily shown.

The Helvetian Roll is said to have been written in Greek characters, from which it would appear that the Celts understood that language. The same authority, however, informs us, that on one occasion he engaged a Gallic horseman by promise of great rewards, to convey a letter to Cicero, which letter was written in Greek, lest, if it fell into the hands of the enemy, it might be intelligible, which is so directly in point, that there is no getting over it. We can only suppose that the characters resembled those used by the Grecians, for that the Gauls did not know Greek, and but few of them Latin, is very certain. Divitiac, the Æduan, for whom Cæsar had a particular friendship, could not converse with him, but by the assistance of an interpreter. Those Gauls who lived near Massilia learned the Greek letters from that colony, but this is

*Davies' Celtic Researches. Conla, a Brehon, or Judge, of Connaught, is said to have written a book against the Druids.

+ Ellis's Specimens of Metrical Romances, i.

+ Cæsar.

§ Ib. et Dio. Yet Greek inscriptions were reported to exist in Germany, (Tacitus,) and even in Britain.