From the preface: ""Heureux le peuple dont l'histoire ennuie," say the French, and if this be a just criterion of national prosperity, it must be confessed that the Highlanders of Scotland have no mean claim to be considered as one of the happiest people in Europe. Just as this remark may be with regard to Highland history, it would not be easy to assign a reason for it, still less to account for the general neglect which the history of that people has experienced, in an age when the early annals of almost every nation have been examined, and their true origin and history determined, with a...