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.*

+ Within the last fifteen years the editor has attended two funerals at which the pipes were played in the old fashion. The first was the funeral of Mrs. MacDonald, of Achtriachtan, daughter of the last of the old Glenavis Camerons. The other was the funeral of the late Sir Duncan Cameron, Bart., of Fassiefern and Callart. The effect of the music was solemn and striking. ED.

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, embosomed 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF LETTERS AMONG THE CELTS.

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 number 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 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 record 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.

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

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 a particular case. Few, or perhaps no remains, it is to be observed, of the Celtic language, either on monuments or elsewhere, remain to prove what characters they did use. Origen, in his answer to Celsus, said it was uncertain whether any writings of either Gauls or Getes then existed.

C

z Ellis's Specimens of Metrical Romances, i.

a Cæsar.

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

Strabo, iv. p. 181.