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forgotten that the ancient Gaelic polity had been found to beincompatible with the authority of law, had obstructed theprogress of civilisation, had more than once brought on theempire the curse of civil war. As they had formerly seen onlythe odious side of that polity, they could now see only thepleasing side. The old tie, they said, had been parental: thenew tie was purely commercial. What could be more lament-able than that the head of a tribe should eject, for a paltryaixear of rent, tenants who were his own flesh and blood, tenantswhose forefathers had often with their bodies covered his fore-fathers on the field of battle? As long as there were Gaelicmarauders, they had been regarded by the Saxon populationas hateful vermin who ought to be exterminated without mercy.As soon as the extermination had been accomplished, as soonas cattle were as safe in the Perthshire passes as in Smithfieldmarket, the freebooter was exalted into a hero of romance. Aslong as the Gaelic dress was worn, the Saxons had pronouncedit hideous, ridiculous, nay, grossly indecent. Soon after ithad been prohibited, they discovered that it was the mostgraceful drapery in Europe. The Gaelic monuments, the Gaelicusages, the Gaelic superstitions, the Gaelic verses, disdainfullyneglected during many ages, began to attract the attention ofthe learned from the moment at which the peculiarities of theGaelic race began to disappear. So strong was this impulsethat, where the Highlands were concerned, men of sense gaveready credence to stories without evidence, and men of tastegave rapturous applause to compositions without merit. Epicpoems, which any skilful and dispassionate critic would at aglance have perceived to be almost entirely modem, and which,if they had been published as modern, would have instantlyfound their proper place in company with Blackmore’s Alfredand Wilkie’s Epigoniad, were pronounced to be fifteen hundredyears old, and were gravely classed with the Iliad. Writers

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