Library, but can no where observe this book, Houston's Ecosse Française, therefore will be most particularly obliged to Mr. Pinkerton to obtain a reading, for an hour, of it.

General Stuart has the most indubitable proofs of this William having been the brother killed at Verneuil, and that another brother, Alexander, was the person who fell with Sir John, the constable, at the battle des Harengs, abandoned by the jealousy or the cowardice of Le Comte de Clermont, (the immediate ancestor of the Bourbon reigning family,) during the siege of Orleans, 1428.

But General Stuart is in search of every minute particular concerning Sir John of Darnley's force, carried from Scotland, in 1419-20, with the names of his brothers and principal officers who accompanied him to France, made part of his regular corps, or were distinguished or extinguished either at Baugé, Crevant, Verneuil, or Orleans; and of the monuments erected to them, particularly at Bourges, Tours, Angers, or Orleans. In this last place, where a Scotsman was bishop during the siege 1428-29, there was a monument erected for John Stuart, of Darnley, whose body was brought from the field by the famous Count de Dunois, Bâtard d'Orleans, who himself was wounded in the same action where Darnley was slain, with his brother Alexander, as before mentioned. General Stuart has heard of a work by Symphorien Guyon, entitled "Les Antiquités d'Orleans," but can no where get it.

Every thing that is known in the best French histories concerning Bernard Stuart d'Aubigny,

who commanded the French auxiliaries to Henry of Richmond, at Bosworth field, and was Charles the VIII.'s and Lewis the XII.'s lieutenantgeneral in Naples, and of Robert Stuart, Marshal d'Aubigny under Francis I., descendants of John of Darnley, are also known to General Stuart; but there are many things yet unknown, which might be discovered in Houston's Ecosse Française, and other works, which, by industry, 'tis hoped, may yet be discovered; and these Mr. Andrew Stuart, General Stuart's brother, will find, perhaps, at the Vatican, as he is now at Rome.

MR. DEMPSTER TO MR. PINKERTON.

July 18th, 1789.†

As an admirer of the extent of your learning, as well as the depth of sagacity and research in your late account of the ancient inhabitants of Scotland, I beg leave to mention a curious enough passage I met with yesterday in Aristophanes's

*Geo. Dempster, of Dunnichen, Esq., was educated for, and practised at the Scotch Bar, on quitting which he represented the boroughs of Forfar, &c. in four Parliaments, from 1768 to 1790. He was author of some papers in the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Highland Society of Scotland, besides a Discourse, containing a Summary of the Proceedings of the Directors of the Society for Extending the Fisheries of Great Britain, printed 1789.

Just at this time, Mr. Pinkerton printed his Vitæ Antiquæ Sanctorum Scotia: the letter from the Society of Antiquaries, returning him thanks for a copy of it, bears date 9th July, 1789.

play, The Clouds, which, as far as one custom goes to prove any thing of the origin of nations, shows our Celts to have been of Eastern origin. It is in the second scene of the fifth act, 10th and 11th line. I give it in the Latin translation, because I foolishly neglected the Greek language, after having pretty nearly overcome its difficulties at College.

Ipse vero statim velut obsoletum esse dixit citharâ canere ; Et canere potantem tanquam mulierem hordea molentem. Now, the corn in the Highlands is still ground by the women, who accompany the operation with a song; and this corn is generally barley. If our common friend, Dr. Thorkelin, has not presented you with a little Discourse of mine on the subject of Improving the Highlands, I shall be happy to send you a copy of it. But I think he got one from me the other day for the purpose of asking your acceptance of it..

MR. DEMPSTER TO MR. PINKERTON.

Knightsbridge, July 22nd, 1789.

I cannot conceive how my Discourse has happened not to be delivered to you at the same time with my letter; as I put both with my own hand into the Post-office, and both with the same address. I now accompany this with a second copy. I have only skimmed the surface of the subject of improving the Highlands, which is my professed

object, as a member of the British Society of Fisheries, from a conviction that a numerous body of fishers, any more than other manufacturers, can never be found in a wild, rude, uncultivated, barbarous country, and from a full conviction of the highlands of Scotland being as improvable as the highlands of England or Wales; if the people were but as free, as well governed, and as well protected in the one, as they have been, since Henry the Eighth's time, in the other. But many of the Society think the fisheries may be a solitary improvement.

I thank you for your observations on the corngrinding song. I did not set down that coincidence of customs, as a strong proof of the origin of our Celts. I agree with you in thinking a few words go farther to ascertain the origin of a nation than a hundred customs; for all nations must grind corn, row boats, bury their dead, and beget successors to themselves; but no nation can use ten words as the meaning of the same things, without some original connexion between them. One is naturally led to inquire about their grandfather; and, having found him out, to extend their inquiries farther: but a Scotchman's inquiries on these subjects lead him very soon into mist and fog, and barbaric darkness and fable. Your writings were the first that led me to believe our invaders, the Danes, were opposed by their own countrymen, settled here at an earlier period. A remark of my own on visiting the Hebrides struck me very much. In the Lowlands, all the ancient names are, with great submission to you, Celtic;

and the inhabitants radically and fundamentally Goths. But, when I went into the Highlands, I found this order of things quite reversed, and the names of all the islands, at least, Gothic, and the inhabitants Celts. Leod House, Cannay, Staff-ay, Bar-ay, Colons-ay, High Skers, Jurr-ay, Combray, Jerner-ay, Benbecul-ay, Ay-Kolumbkill.

That the aboriginal Celts should have been driven back among the hills by Gothic invaders, is natural to suppose; for so were the Welch, and probably, the Britons and Biscayeners. But how to suppose the Highlanders to be from Ireland, and at no very remote period, puzzles me also. Or how to suppose it otherwise: when we Lowlanders call their language invariably Erse, and when all their ancient songs that I heard, were allowed, by the best judges among themselves, to be rather Irish than Gaelic, and all their traditions represent Fingal as coming from Ireland, and most of the pedigrees, as reported or recorded or repeated by the genealogists whom I saw, remount their chiefs to Irish origin. I expect your second volume today, and promise myself no small satisfaction. from its perusal; the first having afforded me a great deal, saving the abuse of the Macphersons, unless they have been the aggressors, which I do not know.

I cannot conclude without mentioning to you, that every thing I met with in the Highlands, led me to credit Shaw's account of the poetry of that country -all, all, Irish!