Note 73 — THE BOOK OF THE DEAN OF LISMORE.

This line refers to the liberal rewards which the Bards usually received among the Celts. A eulogy was sometimes rewarded by the Chief with a silver cup. Even poetry had need to be purchased; and probably were it not for the hope of reward of some kind, many of the noblest Poems which have adorned human history would never have seen the light. At a meeting of Skye gentlemen on some public occasion some years ago, the question was put, “Where are the bards?” One of the company replied, “They are gone.” “No,” said Nicolson of Scorrybreck, “they are still with us; but the men who fostered them are gone.”