Volume 1

The Scotish Gaël; or, Celtic manners, as preserved among the Highlanders: being an historical and descriptive account of the inhabitants, antiquities, and national peculiarities of Scotland; more particularly of the Northern, or Gaëlic parts of the country, where the singular habits of the aboriginal Celts are most tenaciously retained / [James Logan].

  • Logan, James, 1794?-1872.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Scotish Gaël; or, Celtic manners, as preserved among the Highlanders: being an historical and descriptive account of the inhabitants, antiquities, and national peculiarities of Scotland; more particularly of the Northern, or Gaëlic parts of the country, where the singular habits of the aboriginal Celts are most tenaciously retained / [James Logan]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    this, can only be appreciated by those who have been en¬ gaged in a similar pursuit. The variety of authorities which I have consulted is indicated by the quotations and references, but numerous works were necessarily perused without obtaining any thing to repay the trouble. The Celtic race were scarcely less celebrated for their acquirements in arts than for proficiency in military tac¬ tics, The studies of all laudable sciences, says Marcelli- nus, flourished highly in Gaul, being strictly cultivated by the sacred order of Eubages, Bards, and Druids. The former, searching into nature’s highest altitude, endea¬ voured to explain its operations ; and the Druids, of a more refined imagination, were addicted wholly to questions of deep and hidden matters. The Celts, as will be seen throughout the present work, were by no means barbarous, in the common acceptation of the word, but were the in¬ ventors of numerous useful and ingenious contrivances, for which surrounding nations were indebted to them. 661 am tired,” says a learned writer on the language of this peo¬ ple, “ of always hearing the Romans quoted, when the commencement of our civilization is spoken of; wdiile no¬ thing is said of our obligations to the Celts. It was not the Latins, it was the Gauls who were our first instruc¬ tors.”0 Some of the ancients had the candour to make the same confession. Aristotle declared that philosophy was derived by the Greeks from the Gauls, and not imparted to them. So far is it from true that the Celtas were “ totally un¬ able to raise themselves in the scale of society,” as the author of the ii Enquiry” boldly asserts, that numerous in¬ dividuals obtained high and well deserved honours in the Roman empire. The race was, in fact, remarkable for c Julius Liechtleu.