LOCH ETIVE.*

OF the many reactions and reversals of former judgments on historical and other questions wisich this generation has soon,. there is none more noteworthy than that which has come over men's estimate of the Celtic race. When Dr. Arnold wrote his historical works, forty years ago, he was never tired of enforcing the contrast between Saxon and Colt, to the glorifying of the former, and to the disparagement of the latter. To the Teuton belonged whatever was manly, vigorous, truthful, and effective ; to the Celt, excitability which led to nothing, the untruthfulness found in the weaker races, extravagance always destined to failure. In his son's estimate, all this is, as nearly as may be,. reversed. In his delightful volume on Celtic literature, Mr.. Matthew Arnold has put down the finest aroma of English, poetic imagination to the dash of Celtic blood and Celtic spirit which has entered int the composition of the English people,.

t -white their large amoy t of coarse and phlegmatic Philistinism he lays to the credit bf the preponderating Saxon element that is in them.

Whichever of these two estimates may be the truer, no one

can fat. to remark the growing interest in' all that pertains to- Celtic archosology and literature. Our Celtic kinsmen and neighbours are no longer regarded as barbarians, whose records are unworthy of serious regard, nor their language as an unin- telligible jargon, fit only for savages. After having nearly ex- hausted the study of Greek and Roman antiquity, thoroughly sifted the early records of Goth and Teuton, and gone far into, the archasologies of Egypt, of Assyria, and of India, we have at last turned to a people nearer home, to whom we are more, nearly allied in place and in blood than to any of these. Each of the two great divisions of the Celtic family has found within living memory able investigators and expounders. What numerous Welsh scholars have done for the Cymri of 'Wales,. and Vicomte de la Villemarqu6 and M. Ronan have done for the Cymri of Britany, what the late Professor O'Currie did for the Gael of Ireland, that Mr. Skene has done for the Gael of' Scotland. In his Flititory of Celtic Scotland, which waits only the third. volume to complete it, Mr. Rene will have placed the' cope-stone on a long life's work, devoted to that Celtic portion of his country's history which all the abler historians before. him had slurred over, if not despised.

The present work, whose title-page withholds the name of the author, follows, in the main, lines laid down by Mr. Skene,. and everywhere refers to himb. with deference as the paramount authority on his own subject. The unnamed author tells us in his preface that his "book was begun as the work of holidays,.

* Loch Mitre, and the Soo of Erisneach. With Illustrations. London: Macmillan. and 00.

and was intended to be read on holidays, but there is not the less a desire to be correct. The primary object is to show what is interesting near Loch Etive, and thus add points of attach- ment to our country." From the loving care and minuteness -with which every old cairn and rock is dwelt on, we should guess that the author must have some ties of more than merely intellectual or aesthetic interest to bind him to that romantic region ; while from the thoroughly scrupulous and exact manner in which all evidence is dealt with and weighed, we should .gather that he must have a mind well trained in scientific as well as in critical method. And yet science and criticism, however much he may possess of these, have not been allowed to overpower that natural and imaginative interest without which the scenery of Loch Etive would be seen, and the legends heard, in vain.

Of all the sea-lochs or fiords with which the Atlantic cleaves 'the West Highland coast, none winds so far into the mountains as Loch Etive, or has gathered round itself more interesting human memories. At its outset it sweeps round the promon- tories on which stand the castles of Dunolly and Dunstaffnage; it laves the broad bases of the twy-peaked Ben Cruachan ; it winds its way past Ben Stern, and other mountains of the Black Mount group, till it has receded so far from the sea as to have almost lost its ocean character, and stilled itself to "a 'soft, inland murmur." Well might such a region awake a deep, imaginative interest even in a stranger, much more in one who was native to its borders. But although the shores, headlands, -and islands of Loch Etive are the main region of the author's research, he wanders from it all down the coast of Argyll, wherever the Delriadic Scots, who immigrated to those shores from Ireland, have left their traces. For he is fully possessed by the truth which Mr. Skene enforces, that there was "a period in the history of the two countries, Erin and Alban, -before a political separation had taken place between them, when they were viewed as parts of one territory, though phy- sically separated, and when a free and unrestrained intercourse took place between them." During this period, race, not territory, was the bond of association, and the movement of the popula- tion from the north of Ireland to Argyll had a freedom and an ease which, even at this day of perfected locomotion, is not equalled. Bearing this in miud, that the early history of the north -of Ireland and of the west of Scotland is inextricably intermingled, -the author has cast his book into the, form of dialogues, main- tained on the ancient sites, between a Scottish Gael, Cameron, an Irish Gael, O'Keef, and a cool-headed Lowland Scot, Loudon. The first two represent the traditions and urge the claims of their respective countries ; the third holds the balance evenly between them. If this form gives full scope to the statement of all sides of questions, which candour and science require, it also enables the author sometimes to leave the questions he dis- cusses in a vague, unsettled state, rather tantalising to readers 'anxious for definite statement and. fixed conclusions. But as most of the ground which the author traverses lies only in a legendary and prehistoric twilight, it is well not to draw dog- matic inferences from uncertain premises.

The first place to which our guide conducts us is the site of the ancient fort Dun Add, near Loch Crinan, on which the first Dalriadic Scots settled, when they invaded Argyll, towards the end of the fifth or early in the sixth century. The chief man of this race was King Aldan, the contemporary of Saint Columba, blessed by that Saint, who was himself of the same race. He then leads us to a promontory on the north shore of Loch Etive, where, right opposite to Dunstaffnager stands a -vitrified fort, called in the language of the country Dun

Uisneach. Round this fort has gathered layer on layer of legend or fiction. It has been called Beregoniun, Dun Mac Uisneachan, Usny, and Uiston, and many more names than need be noted now. To clear away the accumulations, both physical and legendary, with which ages have surrounded it, and to lay bare, as far as may be, the basis of truth, is the central piece of work to which the author addresses himself. The place has been called the Capital of the Pictish Kings, also the Halls of Selma, in which Fingal lived and Ossian sang, with the Falls of Lora (Connel) sounding hard by ; also the capital of Queen Hynde, who lived there in high civilisation, and with a Christianity earlier than that of Ireland, All these our author puts aside as groundless fancies, and holds it to be, what the local name implies, the Fort of the Sons of Uisneach. Who were the sons of Uisneach? There lived in Ulster, during prae- Christian times, a maiden of great beauticalled Deirdre, whom Conor, King of Ulster, intended to make his wife, when she had come to age. But she preferred Naisi, the eldest of the three sons of Uisneach, and he taking her for his bride, fled with his two brothers, Ainli and Ardan, and their whole clan, to the wilds about Loch Etive. These three brothers, who were among the most valiant of Irish nobles, wrought famous deeds in Alban. King Conor pretended to miss them greatly for the sake of their country, and sent Fergus, an Irish chief, to persuade them to return. This chief found them living at the fort, which still bears their name, fishing in the loch, hunting on its mountains, and giving their names to island, rock, and wood all around, which names they bear to this day. Evidently they led a life of as much happiness in that region as many a visitor there has since lived. Fergus persuaded Naisi and his brothers to re- turn, though Deirdre, forewarned by a dream, strove to prevent them. When they sailed away, Deirdre accompanied her hus- band, and sang a pathetic lament for the land they were leaving, which is said to be the oldest song preserved in the Gaelic lan- guage. it is found in a MS. that dates from the thirteenth century. This is a part of the song she sang, literally trans- lated :—

" Beloved land, that eastern land, Alba, with its wonders !

Oh that I might not depart from it ! But that I go with Naisi!

Glen Hassan! 0 Glen Hassan! High its hula and fair its boughs. Solitary was the place of our repose, On grassy Invermassan, Glen Etivo 0 Glen Etive There was raised my earliest home. Beautiful its woods at sunrise, When the sun struck on Glen Etive Glen-Da-Ruel ! 0 Glen-Da-Ruel !

I love each man who dwells there.

Sweet the voice of cuckoo on bending bough On the hill above Glen-Da-Ruel.

Beloved is Draighen, and its sounding shore; Beloved the water, over pure sand.

Oh that I might not depart from the East, But that I go with my beloved !"

The tragic end of the story may be guessed. Deirdre's heart foreboded too truly. Conor treacherously put the three brothers to death, but failed to obtain Deirdre, who slew herself with her own hand on her husband's grave. This legend, which is quite distinct from any legend of the Ossianic cycle, and which is probably older—Irish authorities place the occurrence about the Christian era—James Macpherson incorporated with his Fingalian Poems, changing the name of Deirdre to Darthula. This, like other legends, it would seem, has been reduced, according to the method now in fashion, into a sun-myth. This theory our author puts quietly aside, showing that though the sun and his influences are near us, human hearts and their doings and sufferings are still nearer. After the legend, we are then led to the fort which takes its name from the sons of Uisneach. Its situation, features, size, measurements are given in the most exact detail, and the whole theory of vitrified forts is thoroughly gone into. In the precision with which all this is done, we see the work of a scientific adept. From the sons of Uisneach, who form the backbone of the book, our author leads us on, through old Christian burial-places, now returned to the wilderness, but still haunted by memories of Columba and other saints ; through stone circles called Druidical, up to the head of Loch Etive, and through the wild mountains that wall-in its glen ; and at every step of our path he tells some old story, and gives its meaning or discusses its genuineness. The Ossianic Poems come in for a treatment more sceptical than that which they have received from Mr. Skene, on most points the author's chief authority. The poor Druids, of whom the country people make so much, and the antiquarians so little, are reduced to forms more shadowy than ever. One cannot but feel for these dethroned powers,—they have suffered so much at the hands of the arclueologists during this century.

The book closes with a valuable dissertation on the Celtic race, ethnologically considered. Here the author is evidently at home. For if it might be hard to say what is his foible, it is clear that ethnology and anthropology are his forte. Every one who knows the Scottish Highlanders, must have observed that while dark hair and swarthy complexion are predominant among them, and especially in the most western districts, Lochaber and Moidart, there is still an intermingling of genuine red-haired, florid people, red with a hue quite different

from that found. among Lowlanders. Every one remembers the " mune. caesariea " which Virgil attributes to the Gauls ; and speaking of Virgil, let the author in a second edition correct his misquotation of that poet, at page 357. The view, which is here maintained on sufficient evidence, is that the Celts, who came from the Baste were a tall, red-haired, fair people ; that in Scotland and Ireland they found a smaller, dark-haired race, whom they conquered, and with whom they ultimately inter- mingled ; that these two races were further modified by immi- grations from Denmark and Scandinavia. This view would well account for all the diversities of aspect which we find in the Gael of the present day. Our author doubts whether the red-haired, conquering Celts were an unmixed Aryan race, in- deed whether there were any such first pure race of Aryans ; -while the dark-haired people whom they found. in the West were probably not Aryans at all,—pree-Aryans, if we may call them so.

All these discussions are agreeably relieved by being carried on in the open air. Everywhere you are sensible of the pre- sence of Ben Cruachan and blue Loch Etive, and of the refresh- ing breezes blowing in on you from Morven, Mull, and the Atlantic. It is not exactly a holiday book, for an idle tourist, who does not care to use either his eyes or his brain about anything. But for one who desires not only to see, but to know, and bear away an intelligent and lasting impression of a rielightful region, we know of no book which would he at once so pleasant a companion and. BO suggestive a guide.