presented and delivered to the said John Mackay, Bailly in that part, desiring and requiring him to execute the office of Bailliary thereby committed to him, and the said Bailly perceiving the said request to be just and reasonable, received the said heritable bond into his hands, and delivered the same to me, Notary Publick, to be read and published with the precept of Sasine therein mentioned in audience of the bystanding witnesses, which I accordingly did, and of which precept of Sasine the tenor follows verbatim.

Written on 6 pages of stamped vellum by Daniel Forbes, and signed by Lord Reay in presence of Hugh Mackay of Bighouse, and Patrick Doull of Winterfield. Declaring as it is declared in the foresaid heritable bond that the lands and others foresaid shall be redeemable by the said Lord Reay, his heirs and successors by payment making to the said Mr Walter Ross, spouse, daughter or foresaids at the term of Whitsunday or Martinmas thereafter (within the New Kirk of Edinburgh, being the place of consignation or redemption) of the said principle sum 4000 pounds and annual rents thereof that shall be resting at the time on premonition of six months at their dwelling by a Notary Publick. Laus sit Deo."

The part Mr Ross took in the matter of the abridgement of the Communion has been already referred to. When he demitted office in 1761, he was succeeded by Mr John Mackay, minister of Eddrachillis. Lord and Lady Reay were very anxious to get Mr Mackay settled, and it is not a little amusing at this time of day to read of the means used to get a quorum of Presbytery. Writ ing at Ribigill, in Tongue, on the 15th May 1762, Mr Macdonald says, "On my arrival at Port Chamil (west side of Loch-Eriboll) I found an express with a letter from Mr George Munro, entreating me to come to Tongue, as our correspondent from the Prebytery of Dornoch, without whom there could not be a quorum, would come no further. In the letter there was, by order of the Grandees here, a boat to be sent for me next day, but finding myself greatly the worse of my walk to Port Chamail, I returned the express who was to be at Tongue in such time as might hinder the offered boat from setting out. In expectation whereof, I went the next day to Island Chorie, to which place notwithstanding all my precautions, the boat came at night with a feather bed and blankets for my accommodation at sea from Lady Reay, together with a second letter from the minister of Farr earnestly pressing me to come over all impediments to the Presbytery's seat, by the positive orders of said lady in absence of her lord. However surprising and disconcerting this new command

was, finding the sea so very mild on the morning of Wednesday, I came off early and before 12 o'clock we arrived at Tongue."

In Farr, Mr John Skeldcch was the first of whom Mr Macdonald writes. Mr Skeldoch was translated from Kilmonivaig in 1732. He was a man of the world," and was rather unpopular with his own people. He farmed or held in tack one or two of the townships of Strathnaver, and bought the cattle of the common people, who regarded him more as a drover than as their own pastor. He was reproved for his conduct in this matter, but all to no purpose. Mr Macdonald notes- "The brother who was at odds with his Presbytery and people, and whose cause I espoused beyond the allowance of some, who set up for my directors, is found daily to get the better of his opponents, and his innocence is more and more cleared up according to the promise-Psalm 37."

The case was frequently before the Presbytery, and seems to have been one of worldliness and inattention to ministerial work. In April 1737, the case was debated at a meeting of Presbytery, and Mr Macdonald states that the affair was one arising from "malice of hearts and scourge of tongues." He goes on to make reflections on the case, and says that the accusers were so "malicious that their indignation and revenge are more and more whetted by every new disappointment, but they are egg'd up to all by the doctrine of some who plainly declare that good intentions will justify bad practices, or that God will never impute to a man his honest error."

The ecclesiastical machinery was set in motion, and on the occasion of the Communion in Durness in the summer of 1737, the members of the Church of Farr had either to receive tokens of admission to the Sacrament from their own minister or not communicate. Many accepted the terms of the Church, and it is with more than ordinary satisfaction that we have it stated that this mode of procedure not only cured the disaffection in Farr, but opened the eyes of the sympathisers of the malcontents to the untenableness of their position. But ten years afterwards the same parties were before the Church Courts again. This time the man Mr Skeldoch sent south with the cattle of the small tenants, disappeared, and the money having gone also, raised the whole of the people against Mr Skeldoch. Mr Macdonald attended "two meetings of Presbytery, held within three days of each other, on the affairs of a certain member of our small number who gives himself and others a great deal of trouble, perhaps unexcusably, nay, unaccountably. I have been this man's friend, while it was possible for me to do so, consistently with charity and honesty;

and this from a conviction of the hard measures I thought he always had from his parishioners, whose ways with him are to this day somewhat odd, ever lying at the catch for his halting, which should teach him the most cautious walk; but instead of this, when I find him continually involving himself in things that common prudence might make him shun, nay, when his worldly mindedness breaks out in such glaring instances, as might even be reckoned faulty in a Laick, and all this in opposition to the warmest admonitions to the contrary from myself and others privately and publicly, I must in all likelihood change sides, and that without the imputation of a feeble or uncharitable disposition, as far as I can be a right judge of my own actions." Again, on the 8th June 1747, the following entry appears:-"This day se'en-night I set out for a meeting of Presbytery, which met at Farr on the perplexed and thorny affairs of one of our few members, who is like to involve himself more and more notwithstanding the many reproofs he gets, and the many resolutions under which he pretends to put himself from time to time." He was libelled by the Synod of 1747, "by reason of his strange conduct in secular affairs, as to which he never gets better though often reproved." The Synod, which met in Thurso in the summer of 1748, suspended him for a time. A motion to depose him was lost by a small majority. By an entry, dated 8th July 1750, we see a little further into Mr Skeldoch's affairs-"There are still more traces of his worldly than spiritual industry about his house. Everything goes on with the utmost exactness that concerns the outward man, though he has the least call of any man of my acquaintance so to vex himself or others, and yet though he be now from home upwards of three months few of his people wish for his return. O! may I be more and more reduced as to the things of a present life, rather than be in such an otherwise situation."

Mr Skeldoch died on the 25th June 1753, having been minister of Farr for twenty years. He was succeeded by Mr George Munro, who was ordained 23rd May 1754. He seconded the attempts made by the minister of Tongue to curtail the Communion "occasion," and Mr Macdonald generally calls him the "shadow" of Mr Ross of Tongue. "His failings," says Mr Macdonald in 1761, "are greatly drowned in that one consideration of his shining benevolence."

The scrappy form in which I have presented these notices makes me feel ashamed of the injustice my haste and want of time have done the writer of the Diary. If these notes add a few facts to the history of the places or person they treat of they have

a certain interest, but I trust they have not proved wearisome nor altogether void of interest to any of you.

Mr Campbell, in reading the paper, gave some interesting traditions relative to Mr Skeldoch and Mr Munro, the minister of Farr, and he also quoted the following notes, relative to some of the ministers, referred to in the paper from "Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticana":

1726-Murdoch Macdonald, A.M., born 3rd May 1696; elected Irish Bursar by the Synod of Fife, 28th September 1720; obtained his degree at St Andrew's University, 9th May 1722; licensed, 15th September 1725; became tutor in the family of Mackay of Rhmenic; presented, 24th August, and ordained 28th September 1726; died, 23rd August 1763, in his 68th year and 37th of his ministry. "A most melodious and powerful singer;" had four sons and seven daughters, with such a family, and a stipend of £44. 8s. 103d. it is not to be wondered that this pious and good man did not repine under "straitened circumstances" and, "wordly affairs much in disorder."

1754 and 1779-George Munro, minister of Farr, got a church built in 1774; as a man he was distinguished by simplicity of character, frankness, sincerity, benevolence, and hospitality. As a minister, by an ardent zeal for the glory of God and the good of souls. An Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile. 1762 John Mackay, minister of Tongue. "He was a preacher of the first order, and Lord Reay used to observe "that for preaching, praying, and singing, he could match the Presbytery with any other in Scotland."

1730-Mr Walter Ross, Tongue. "He was a man of fine preaching talents, but whose reserved manners and secluded habits were not calculated to gain upon the rough, frank Highlander."

29TH APRII. 1885.

On this date the following new members were elected :-Dr D. U. Urquhart, Widnes, near Liverpool, Honorary; Serjeant A. Fraser, Kingussie; and William Durie, the Custom-house, Inverness, ordinary. The Secretary thereafter, on behalf of Mr D. Mackinnon, Professor of the Celtic Languages and Literature in the University of Edinburgh, read a paper on the Fernaig Manuscript. Professor Mackinnon's paper was as follows:

THE FERNAIG MANUSCRIPT.

The collection of Gaelic poetry, known as the Fernaig Manuscript, was made by Duncan Macrae in the year 1688 and the years immediately following. The MS. consists of two small volumes of paper in pasteboard cover-about eight inches long by three broad. Several of the leaves are loose, although it does not appear that the volumes were ever much used, and one or two are double leaves, folded in. At present the collection contains about 4200 lines. At one time it contained 600 lines additional, for six leaves, closely written upon both sides, have been very neatly The latest date to be found in it is the year 1693. the first volume one page is left blank, which the writer evidently meant to fill up at some future time. The second volume contains several blank leaves at the end. Whether the compiler grew weary of his self-imposed task, or whether the material at his disposal was exhausted, or whether sudden death brought his labours to a close, we shall probably never know.

cut out.

In

Little is known regarding the history of the Manuscript. In the beginning of the present century it was in the possession of Mr Matheson of Fernaig, father of Sir Alexander Matheson of Lochalsh. In the great edition of Ossian's poems, published in 1807, the late Rev. Donald Macintosh describes the MS. as follows (vol. iii. p. 572):-" Mr Mathison of Feernaig, Ross-shire, has a paper MS. written in the Roman character. The orthography is very bad, like the Dean of Lismore's poetry; it is dated 1688, and consists of songs and hymns by different persons, some by Bishop Carswell, Bishop of the Isles." The Manuscript afterwards disappeared; and when Mr Skene wrote, in 1862, the introduction to the book of the Dean of Lismore (p. xlii.) he stated that it was at the time amissing. It fell somehow into the hands of the late Dr Mackintosh Mackay, who was in Australia when Mr Skene wrote. On the death of Dr Mackay, his trustees handed the little MS. over to Dr Skene, whose property it now is.

I have said that the Manuscript was written by Duncan Macrae. The first volume contains on its first page the following title:

"Doirligh Loijn Di

Skrijvig Lea Donochig
Mack rah 1688."

Who this particular Duncan was cannot be affirmed with absolute certainty.

There were no doubt many of the name alive