their language, and the trouble of maintaining two languages gradually made the minority yield to the majority. At the time when, as has been popularly alleged, the Saxons and Norsemen invaded Britain, the island had been long well peopled. Julius Cæsar (Book v., chap. 12) says he found it swarming with men, their buildings very numerous and their cattle very plentiful. "Hominum est infinita multitudo, creberrimaque ædificia; pecorum magnus numerus." He speaks of the whole island, and marks, as did the Saxons, its triangular form: "insula natura triquetra." It is not to be rationally supposed that the immense multitudes would be nearly exterminated and their language superseded in the whole of the level country by invaders. It is at least more natural to conceive that the British coasts had been peopled almost as soon as the shores of the opposite continent, and by men speaking the same language. Roman occupation of the island during three or four centuries hardly at all affected the speech of the people, although they eagerly imitated their conquerors in the fashion of dress and houses and style of living. The Norman-French did affect it to a small extent, but the cause of difference is intelligible. The Roman army of occupation was chiefly composed of Belgians and other German speaking peoples, and partly of Spaniards and Italians, and the Roman policy was to leave the landowners and occupants in possession. The Normans of William sought to acquire all the land, and to occupy it as far as they could by French labourers. They tried to force their language on the people through the church and the law courts, through fashion and favour; but they only produced a fusion, of which French was an inconsiderable element. Eight hundred years have passed since then; twenty generations have lived since William's day, and only within the present century has the language of the Scottish lowlands. begun to yield much from what it was in his time. Eight centuries before the conquest of England by William, that language, with slight variety of dialect, was the speech of all the peoples on the opposite coast, except a third part of Gaul in its centre. The exceptional language of Gaul was probably at the same time the exceptional language of Britain, just as it is now, and the users of it, probably, were located in the same districts as now. Any proffered evidence to the contrary has, when examined closely, turned out little more than special pleading. Divested of this, the facts tendered consist mostly of names of men and places, assumed to be exclusively Celtic; but a knowledge of the old Teutonic dialect shews that those words were common to Saxons or Scandinavians also. In the ab

sence of proof very much more reliable, the strong probability remains that, after all and on the whole, the Saxons did not drive out or drive back the Celts, but that the island was, from its first discovery, occupied almost simultaneously by Saxons and Celts.

Another feature of the book may be noticed before closing these remarks-namely, the frequent application of abusive terms. The word barbarous, for example, is used about fifty times, and in nearly all these times unwarrantably, if it be meant in a discrediting sense. No doubt it has been the fashion of every nation to call every other with whom they have a quarrel, or who speak a different language, barbarous; but in a sober relation of long past events, we do not expect such want of discrimination. There is no satisfactory evidence that any of the neighbouring nations were at any time much more or much less civilised than Britain, or that one part of Britain was greatly less enlightened than another. Accounts to the contrary are abundant, but they will not stand comparison with more trustworthy documents, nor with each other. Many of them are by monks, who did not always personally witness what they relate, and what they did see they chose to state rather with a view to the glorification of themselves or their party, their monastery, their order, or Church, than to strict impartiality. They had, indeed, seldom access to know the springs of action among the feudal barons around them, or among foreign potentates and overlords. But they were always ready to abuse whomsoever they were in any degree opposed to. They wished to hold themselves exempt from payment of tributes, and when a poinding was used, so that their farms or their fisheries were interfered with, they were loud in calling the exactors barbarians, pirates, robbers, rievers, and every other bad name imaginable. While we read and reflect upon what remains to us of their writings, we may gratefully acknowledge their many important services to society and to individuals. It were best to forget their failings and errors, and, in using their writings for the illustration of facts, to leave out what is bad in their style.

Only one more observation. No part of Mr. Innes's teaching is more worthy of our attention than this-that we should study our own history and archæology not only from the writers of our own country and from the examples to be found immediately around our own locality, for we will never be able correctly to understand and fully to appreciate these without carefully comparing them with what is to be seen and what has been intelligently observed and described in other countries. Without a fair knowledge of the

history and general literature of the neighbouring nations, and some acquaintance with their geography, topography, statistics, and arts; their social condition, and laws, and customs, internal and international; their habits of trade, manufactures, and commerce, and their relative state of wealth and power at the time when the particular works under our examination were executed, or to which they refer, we cannot form correct opinions on their objects of antiquity. In the department of ethnology and comparative philology more than all this is necessary. Really to understand well the structure of our own common language, we must have studied various cognate ones; we must have laboured long at the old Roman, and followed it down in the Italian, the Spanish, and the French; and still more at the Teutonic, tracing it through old and modern, high and low German, Flemish, Dutch, and Frisian, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian, Anglo-Saxon, English, and Scotch. If we are to extend our inquiries into the Celtic class, we may have as much trouble in mastering its five living dialects as in acquiring twelve of the Italic and Teutonic. The Hellenic or Greek is almost indispensable; but it involves the study of only one dialect, or at all events the old language having been long a dead one, the dialects of Northern Europe are not affected by its varieties. The field of study and observation for archæologists is wide and varied. No one man need aspire to familiar acquaintance with the details of all its departments, but each, according to his genius, his opportunities, and his assiduity, may contribute somewhat to the general stock of knowledge. In relation to the medieval history of our fatherland, Mr. Innes is an encouraging example. The darkness of the previous periods has been found too dense for the feeble power of the lights yet introduced; but this is the age of wonders, and who can say what may come? As we advance in researches, more and better illuminating materials may be discovered, and more skill in applying them may be attained. During the last fifty years many false lights have been extinguished; a few yet remain, and serve to hinder instead of to assist. Before another half century shall have closed, Scotland's early history may stand revealed at least as clearly as does that of Italy or of France; and the relative subjects regarding which so much remains to be learned may have been elucidated and illustrated in a manner and to an extent of which at present we have no conception.

NO. XI.

NOTES REGARDING A DRINKING CUP WHICH BELONGED TO THE OLD KILSYTH LIVINGSTONES, AND OTHERWISE RELATIVE

TO THAT FAMILY:

BY

DR. STEWART,

KIRKINTILLOCH.

[Read at a Meeting of the Society held at Glasgow on 10th December, 1860.]

KILSYTH, a parish now in the middle of Stirlingshire, was until 1649 part of Campsie Parish, bearing the district name of Moniabroch, or Monæbrugh, and until about 1310 it was topographically designed as occupying the south-eastern extremity of Dumbartonshire, or of the Lennox. Malcolm Fleming of Biggar, who assisted at the murder of Cumyn in Dumfries on 10th February 1305, was afterwards rewarded for his attachment to Bruce by a grant of Cumyn's forfeited lands of Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, and, having been appointed governor of Dumbarton Castle, he procured the disjunction from Stirlingshire of these two parishes, and in lieu of them Campsie and some other parishes were given off from Dumbartonshire. In 1503 an act of parliament was passed restoring these parishes to their original counties. Six years afterwards an act was passed repealing the arrangement of 1503. In 1539 another change was attempted by the Montrose family and others, which was opposed by the Earl of Mar, then Sheriff of Stirlingshire, and was accomplished afterwards by the 73rd act of James VI; but by an act passed in 1641 these parishes finally took their place as they now stand. The ancient designation of the Kilsyth district was retained until about the middle of last century. The communion cups, dated 1731, are marked "Kirk Monæburgh," and the kirk tokens of 1755 bear the impress M.K. The name may have come from a stream called the Abroch, which rises in the Barr Wood, a mile or two east of the present village, whence Abroch Moor, or Moniabroch. It is probable that in very early times, perhaps even in the days of the Druids, a sacred place had been near the village, for tradition points

to such a conclusion. Tumuli containing urns and ashes have been found near Chapel Green there, and the name Kilsyth is by some believed to indicate a holy grove, or side, or site, or seat; while the name of the river, the Kelvin, which takes its rise from springs in the locality, is supposed to denote that it flows from a place held in reverence.

Crawford, in his remarks on the Ragman Roll, says he had seen a charter by Malduin, Earl of the Levenax, to his nephew and son-inlaw Malcolm, son of Duncan of the lands of Glasswell, and part of the land of Kilsyth, with the patronage of the Church Monæbroch, dated 1217; also, a charter of confirmation to Malcolm, son of Duncan, dated 1239, of lands in Glentarvin, Monæbroch, Kilsyth, and Glasswell, which he had by the grant of the Earl of Lennox, and of the lands of Calynter, which he had from the king in free forestry. Malcolm was succeeded by his son Aluin. A successor about 1330, viz., Patrick de Calynter, having attached himself to the Baliol party, brought on his estate a forfeiture by David II., who granted the lands of Kilsyth to William Livingston, son-in-law of Patrick.

The Livingston family have assumed that they came originally from Hungary about 1075, and that a Living-perhaps Liebling or Liebchen, from Liebe, love, a name meaning darling or pet,-held some lands under David I.

The first of them who greatly distinguished himself was Sir Alexander Livingston or Livingstoun, who, Pitscottie tells us, was, at the time of James I.'s murder, 1437, Knicht of the Callendar, "But becaus the King (James II.) was not sufficient to governe the realme for inlake of aige," this Knight was, by the "Lordis at ane conventioun, maid governour over all the realme. In this meane tyme, Alexander, Earle of Douglas, being uerie potent in kine and friendis, contemned all the Kingis officeris in respect of his great puissance, and caused proclamie publicklie that no man within Annerdaill and otheris boundis quhatsoever pertaining to his dominiones, not to obey any of the Kingis officeris under the paine of dead. The wholl youthis of Scotland begane to raige in mischiefe, and meikle hirschip and stouth was in land and borrowis, great crueltie of nobles amongest themselffis, for slauchter, theft, and murther was than patent, sau that he was estemed the greatest man of renoun that was the greatest brigant, theife, and murther."

The chancellor, Sir William Crichtoun, "keiped both the Castle of Edinburgh, and als our young king thair-intill. Vpon the other