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THE 
 
 CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 
 
 @xamt»wtt anJJ Slpprcctateti : 
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SCOTTISH AND IRISH POEMS 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDER THAT NAME; 
 
 IN WHICH 
 
 THE QUESTION OF THEIR GENUINENESS AND HISTORICAL 
 CREDIT IS FREELY DISCUSSED : 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 SOME CURIOUS PARTICULARS 
 
 RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 STRUCTURE AND STATE OF POETRY IN THE CELTIC 
 DIALECTS OF SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 
 
 By the Rev. EDWARD DA VIES, F. R. S.L., 
 
 CHANCELLOR OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE IN BRECON, 
 AND RECTOR OF ST. MARY'S IN THE GROVE, AND BISHOPSTON. 
 
 Nothing extenuate, 
 
 " Nor set down aught in malice." 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Printed for the Author, by H. Griffith, 17, Wind-street : 
 
 AND SOLD BY LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER-ROW, 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 1825. 
 
% 
 
 <& 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 -> 
 
 ^ 
 
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, 
 
 THOMAS BURGESS, D. D. 
 
 LORD BISHIP OF ST. DAVID'S, PRESIDENT; 
 
 THE VICE-PRESIDENTS AND COUNCIL 
 OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE, 
 
 THIS VOLUME, 
 
 WITH THE TRUEST SENTIMENTS OF 
 GRATITUDE AND RESPECT, 
 IS SUBMISSIVELY INSCRIBED AND DEDICATED, 
 BV THEIR MUCH OBLIGED, 
 
 AND MOST HUMBLE SERVANT, 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
AD VER T1SEMENT. 
 
 .During the eighteen or twenty years which have 
 elapsed since this Essay was written, the ardour 
 of public debate upon the poems of Ossian has, 
 indeed, considerably subsided : yet the Author can- 
 not regard this as a sufficient reason why his tract 
 should be suppressed, or be deemed wholly out of 
 season. 
 
 The question may pause, but it is not decided. 
 A learned and respectable body of our Northern 
 neighbours still maintain the cause of their na- 
 tional Bard. Many of their arguments remain 
 unanswered, and Ossian is confidently quoted as 
 historical authority. 
 
 The work, moreover, is not limited to this simple 
 question. It embraces various elucidations of the 
 general state and progress of poetry in the Galic 
 
VI. ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 dialects of Scotland and Ireland. The subject may 
 therefore be considered as forming an essential 
 link in the chain of Celtic Antiquities. 
 
 It is conceived that it may not only prove inter- 
 esting to those Cambro- Britons who are at this 
 time rummaging the old stores of a sister dialect, 
 but that it will present them with some useful hints, 
 and salutary cautions. 
 
 For these and the like reasons, the Essay has 
 been printed. About two hundred copies only of 
 this edition are offered to the public at large, — the 
 remainder being reserved for private distribution. 
 To the learned members of the Highland Society 
 the author would respectfully observe — That he has 
 shewn no disposition to detract from the intrinsic 
 merit of their national poetry. Upon the subject 
 of its antiquity alone, and its historical importance, 
 he has candidly declared an opinion, which arose, 
 not out of prejudice but from probable grounds. 
 If it can be shewn that his grounds are fallacious, 
 he will with equal candour, retract an error, and 
 subscribe to their well chosen motto — 
 
 MAGNA EST VERITAS ET PRCEVALEBIT. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 
 
 EXAMINED AND APPRECIATED 
 
 Being an Essay to ascertain, whether the poems ascribed to the 
 Caledonian Bard, are to be regarded as genuine remains of 
 antiquity, and authentic historical documents, or merely as works 
 of modem invention. 
 
 Sect. I. On the internal marks of recent composition, in the poems 
 published by Mr. Macpherson, under the name of Ossian. 
 
 Sect. II. On the alterations which Mr. Macpherson appears to have 
 made, in the Galic poems, which he is acknowledged to have collected ; with 
 remarks upon the arguments which have been adduced, in support of the 
 genuineness of those poems. 
 
 Sect. III. On the origin of the Galic poems, with some conjectures, 
 relative to the principal hero whom they celebrate. 
 
 Sect. IV. On the principles of versification in the Galic poems ascribed 
 to Ossian. 
 
 Sect. V. — first additional. On the general evidence disclosed in 
 those volumes which contain the original Galic. 
 
 Sect. VI.— second Additional. On the Galic text of the poems 
 ascribed to Ossian. 
 
SECTION I. 
 
 On the internal marks of recent composition^ in the poems published by JH/r, 
 Macpherson, under the name of Ossian, 
 
 Introduction to the subject. — The editor's account of his originals unsatis- 
 factory. — The anachronisms, upon the face of the poems, create a suspicion 
 of their character — this suspicion confirmed — by the relation of fabulous 
 events — by the description of the armour, characters, manners, and senti- 
 ments of the heroes— by the introduction of palpable fiction — by the ascribing 
 of the same romantic adventures to a variety of characters— by the art of 
 the poet, which does not accord with the age assigned to Ossian — by the 
 representation of extemporaneous composition— by Ossian's personal dis- 
 qualifications—and, by the want of adequate means for the preservation 
 of such poems. Recapitulation of particulars, concluding with a general 
 acknowledgment, that certain Galic poems were collected by Mr. Mac- 
 pherson. 
 
THE 
 
 CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 
 
 The present Essay has, in its subject, a retro- 
 spect to the year 1761, a new sera in Celtic poetry, 
 when Mr. Macpherson surprised the learned world 
 with the first publication of his Fingal, a regular 
 Epic poem, in six books. This extraordinary 
 work was announced as a literal translation from 
 the Galic of Ossian, a Royal Caledonian Bard, who 
 flourished in the third century of the Christian sera, 
 and lived to the commencement of the fourth. At 
 a moderate interval, Fingal was followed by a 
 considerable collection of other poems, literally 
 translated from the same author. These pieces 
 would have done credit to a writer of any age or 
 country. The history of their original production, 
 and the novelty of their style, attracted curiosity, 
 whilst their intrinsic merit secured to them a favour- 
 able reception from the public. Immediately after 
 the appearance of these works of Ossian, the anti- 
 quaries of Caledonia, unknown before, and silent 
 
7 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 as the Bard who had celebrated their illustrious 
 ancestors, began to assume a commanding tone. 
 Ossian enjoyed his fame ; but his friends were not 
 satisfied in contemplating their favourite Bard, who 
 was now gliding down the stream of renown, at the 
 head of his peaceful brethren of Ireland and Wales : 
 the stream must be wholly consecrated to the bark 
 of Selma.* 
 
 What provocation the Irish had given, any farther 
 than a single advertisement in a newspaper, | and 
 that without signature, I have not been able to learn ; 
 but throughout the notes and dissertations, with 
 which Mr. Macpherson illustrated his publications, 
 he has attacked them with no small degree of 
 apparent resentment. As for the Welsh, notwith- 
 standing their proverbial irascibility of temper, they 
 received the new claimant of fame, with the utmost 
 complacency and good humour, and with a humility 
 which, it might have been expected, would have 
 blunted the edge of jealousy.— -Was Ossian excel- 
 lent? They boasted of nothing that could rival his 
 merit. — Was he as old as the third century? — They 
 could produce nothing of a date earlier than the 
 fifth or sixth. — From this period, they had treasured 
 up some relics of their ancestors, such as they 
 
 * Ossian's Palace, in the Western Highlands. 
 
 t In Faulkener's Dublin Journal, 1st Dec. 1761, Mr. Macpherson says, 
 this was two weeks before his first publication appeared in London.*-- Diss. 
 on the Poems of Ossian. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, S 
 
 were. These they cherished as family curiosities; 
 but they admired Ossian. 
 
 The Welsh Bards, however, obscure and rustic as 
 they are acknowledged to be, approached too near 
 the throne of the Royal Caledonian. Mr. Macpher- 
 son pushes them off with a contemptuous remark, 
 that he could soon read them and translate, if they 
 had any thing worth translating. Nor were these 
 Bards sufficiently humbled by such a repulse. Their 
 very existence gave offence to the friends of Ossiaii, 
 and to his enemies. They had unfortunately writ- 
 ten in rhyme. A critic who had taken upon him 
 the conducting of literary opinion, discovers that 
 rhyme was unknown in Europe, till some centuries 
 after the age of Taliesin : and, by extorting a new 
 meaning from an old passage in Giraldus Cam- 
 brensis, the same Aristarchus produces a direct 
 proof, that rhyme was not generally used by the 
 ancient Welsh Bards.* 
 
 Upon this perverted authority, a grave historian 
 of North Britain, but no friend of Ossian, pro- 
 nounces our supposed ancient poems to be modern 
 forgeries, t 
 
 Thus the old Cambro- British Bards are attacked, 
 not only by the friends, but also by the adversaries 
 
 * See this subject ably discussed, the practice of the Bards defended, and 
 Giraldus reconciled to their cause, in Mr. Turner's Vindication, p. 259, &c. 
 
 t " In Welsh poetry, it (rhyme) was unknown to Giraldus Cambrensis, in 
 " the twelfth Century, a sufficient proof that the rhymes of Taliesin, and the 
 " Welsh Bards, are a modern forgery."— Mr. Laing's Diss, on Ossian'* 
 Poems, annexed to his Hist. v. ii. p. 43S. 
 
9 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 of Ossian, who muster pretty strongly in the field 
 of letters. The former party find them trivial, 
 upon comparison ; and the latter, regarding Ossian 
 as an arrant impostor, reject the Cambrian poems 
 unexamined, concluding that they stand exactly 
 upon the same footing. 
 
 The question of the genuineness of the ancient 
 British rhymes, I shall entirely trust to the Vindica- 
 tion of the learned| and ingenious author of the 
 Anglo-Saxon History : and, had the matter rested 
 in a mere debate of competition, I should not have 
 meddled in it at all. It is a subject of little import- 
 ance to the literary world, whether the Celt of Cale- 
 donia, of Ireland, ,or of Wales, can exhibit the best 
 and the oldest national poems. But Ossian is 
 elevated into the rank of an authentic historian, the 
 first that exists, amongst the natives of the British 
 Islands, and even, of the north of Europe. By his 
 sole aid Mr. Macpherson overturns the long esta- 
 blished account of the colonization of Britain and 
 Ireland. He ascertains a multitude of Caledonian 
 victories, in Scandinavia, and Denmark, during the 
 second and third centuries, and of Scandinavian 
 descents upon the Islands of Britain, in the same 
 early ages. The incidents of Ossian, according to 
 this writer's decision, are authentic and historical — 
 his descriptions paint the genuine manners and 
 customs of the ancient inhabitants of these king- 
 doms, and his Muse, at this day, pronounces their 
 uncorrupted language. In short, Ossian is authen- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 10 
 
 tic throughout ; and, consequently, all that differs 
 from him is debased,' erroneous, and spurious.* 
 Nor have these ideas been propagated by the editor 
 of Ossian alone. For upwards of forty years, they 
 have obtruded themselves upon our notice, in num- 
 berless histories, dissertations, philosophical essays, 
 sketches, reviews, magazines, &c. &c. 
 
 Before an author, who has but just emerged from 
 obscurity, be admitted as sole evidence, in matters 
 of historical moment ; before he be allowed to sub- 
 stantiate facts, in the face of better known docu- 
 ments ; it is but fair that his character should be 
 examined, and his credentials duly appreciated. 
 The province which Ossian has assumed, renders 
 him, therefore, an object of sufficient importance to 
 justify the publication of a short essay, for the 
 purpose of elucidating his real pretensions. This 
 subject might have been committed to more able 
 hands ; but the attention I have bestowed upon 
 kindred topics, may, in some measure, have qualified 
 me for the task, which it has been my aim to execute 
 fairly. 
 
 In the pursuit of this enquiry, candour demands 
 that we should, first of all, consider the editor's 
 statement of his authorities for the originals of 
 Ossian, and of the part which he himself supported, 
 in producing this work to the public. Mr. Mac- 
 
 * See Mr. Macpherson's notes at large, and his Dissertation upon the 
 Poems of Ossian, 
 

 11 THE CLAIMS OF 08 81 AX* 
 
 pherson had a favourable opportunity to offer some- 
 thing satisfactory upon this head. His Fingal first 
 appeared about the close of the year 1761 ; and in 
 1773, he published a revised edition of the poems, 
 notes, and dissertations ; put a finishing hand to 
 them, and resigned them for ever to their fate. So 
 novel had the works of the Caledonian Ossian ap- 
 peared to the public, and so different from what 
 might have been expected from a Celtic Bard of the 
 third or fourth century, that, during the intervening 
 eleven years, many doubts had been suggested, as 
 to their genuineness. x Some writer of great emi- 
 nence maintained, that they were the original 
 compositions of Mr. Macpherson himself, whilst 
 others supposed them to be imitations of ancient 
 Irish poems. 
 
 In thisjinal edition, it might have been expected, 
 that Mr. Macpherson would have resolved these 
 doubts, and overruled these suggestions, by giving 
 some satisfactory and particular account of his 
 originals, whether found in writing, or collected from 
 oral traditions; and, by producing a few specimens 
 of the genuine composition of his author. He 
 might have regarded the objection of his adversa- 
 ries as useful hints to fortify the weaker parts of 
 his national cause. He did not avail himself of this 
 opportunity. On the contrary, he has here dropped 
 some hints of his own, which must have had a direct 
 tendency to confirm the scepticism of the public. In 
 his short preface, he styles himself; indifferently,, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 12 
 
 the author, the writer, and the translator. " With- 
 " out encreasing his genius, the author may have 
 tc improved his language in the eleven years that 
 " the following poems have been in the hands of the 
 u public. Errors in diction might have been com- 
 " mitted at twenty- four, which the experience of 
 " a riper age may remove; and some exuberances 
 " in imagery mag he restrained with advantage, by 
 " a degree of judgment, acquired in the progress of 
 V time." 
 
 Is not this the language of a man who speaks of 
 his own original compositions ? Such passages more 
 than half admit the truth of the opinion, which pro- 
 nounces Mr. Macpherson the real author of the 
 poems in question. And what are we to understand 
 by the exuberances in imagery which a literal prose 
 translator had to restrain ? The imagery ought to 
 be, precisely, that of his author. The literal tran- 
 slator could have had no choice. He was bound to 
 follow his original. But if the translator of Ossian, 
 in hh first edition, assumed a liberty which did not 
 belong to him, what security has he given for his 
 fidelity in the second? In his dissertation upon 
 Ossian, Mr. Macpherson remarks, — " Since the pub- 
 <c lication of these poems, many insinuations have 
 (i been made, and doubts, concerning their authen- 
 " ticity. Whether these suspicions are suggested by 
 u prejudice, or are only the effects of malice, I neither 
 " know nor care. Those who have doubted my 
 f{ veracity have paid a compliment to my genius ,' 
 
13 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " and were even the allegation true, my self-denial 
 * might have atoned for my fault* Without vanity, 
 " I say it, I think I could write tolerable poetry ; and 
 " I assure my antagonists that I would not translate 
 " what I could not imitate" 
 
 In this passage, the author seems to feel something 
 of the proud disdain of wounded honour. A gentle- 
 man's veracity ought not, certainly, to be doubted, 
 with perfect impunity, by his friend or his equal. 
 But the case is not precisely the same between an 
 author and the public ; especially upon a subject 
 that is not wholly personal. Custom, at least, has 
 established a difference. Else, wlryv do the most 
 respectable historians deform their pages, with so 
 many unsightly quotations and authorities? The 
 public knows nothing of the man but as an author : 
 it has often been imposed upon, and has, therefore, 
 a right to be sceptical. 
 
 If, then, 1 may be allowed to contemplate Mr. 
 Macpherson, merely in the light of an author, he 
 seems, in this very passage, to balance the reputa- 
 tion of superior genius, against that of scrupulous 
 veracity, hnd even to throw a dead weight into the 
 scale of invention. Might it not fairly be collected 
 from such periods, that he intended to represent 
 himself as the translator of some parts of these poems, 
 and as the imitative author of other parts? And if 
 this be the apparent intention of the paragraph before 
 us, it were in vain to look further for any thing to 
 remove the impression. He says nothing more hi 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 14 
 
 his own/vindication. He adds not a syllable relative 
 to the copies, or the reciters, of any one of his 
 originals ; nor does he produce a single line of 
 those originals. 
 
 In guarding myself against the charge of illibera-' 
 lity, I must add this further remark.— The question* 
 respecting the genuineness of the Poems of Ossian, 
 does not resolve itself simply into the degree of 
 credit which we impute to Mr. Macpherson*s 
 assertion : it takes in the accuracy of his information, 
 and the due decision of his judgment. His veracity 
 can only be responsible for the facts — that he did 
 not invent these poems-— that he found them in the 
 Galic language, already composed, and ascribed to 
 Ossian. 
 
 Let us give our author full credit for candour and 
 ingenuousness in this publication ; let us suppose 
 that the Galic poems came into his hands, precisely, 
 in the form in which he offers them to the public, 
 and with the strongest attestation of national tra- 
 dition in their favour. Yet, admitting all this, he 
 cannot refuse to his readers the right of examining 
 the internal evidence of their authenticity, and the 
 external circumstances, by which that evidence is 
 either confirmed or shaken. We must still retain 
 the privilege of determining in our own minds, and, 
 upon just grounds, whether these poems are, in 
 reality, what they purport to be ; namely, the 
 genuine productions of a Bard of the third century* 
 describing the real actions of his own family, in 
 
15 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 which he himself was a witness and a party ; or 
 whether they be the fabrication of more recent ages, 
 in which the name of Ossian is only dramatically 
 introduced. Having exercised this right, with 
 studied impartiality, I must confess, there are some 
 material circumstances, which induce me to refuse 
 my assent to the editor's proposition. 
 
 The first objection, that forcibly presents itself 
 upon the face of the work, is the glaring appearance 
 of anachronism ; or the incongruity of the events 
 related with the age in which they are placed, or 
 with any one historical age whatsoever. In the 
 poem of Comala, Fingal, the father of Ossian, takes 
 the field against Caracul, the son of the king of the 
 world. In the dissertation which ascertains the 
 sera of Ossian, Mr. Macpherson asserts, that this 
 Caracul was no other than Caracalla, the son of 
 the emperor Severus : and he dates the action in 
 A. D. 211. According to this, Fingal was a warrior 
 in the former part of the third century. 
 
 But, upon the general face of these poems, it 
 fully appears, that the great exploits of the same 
 Fingal belong to those ages, in which the Cale- 
 donians of Britain and the Isles, and the inhabitants 
 of Ireland, were struggling for independence, with 
 the men of Lochlin ; that is, the Danes and Nor- 
 wegians. 
 
 Nor can we place our hero in the beginning of 
 this period of Northern incroachment, for we learn 
 from the sixth book of the Fingal, that a military 
 
THE CLAIMS OF QSSIAN. 16 
 
 intercourse, between the Caledonians and Scan- 
 dinavians, had subsisted in the days of his great 
 grandfather, Trenmor, who married a princess of 
 Scandinavia. 
 
 History places the commencement of this inter- 
 course and political struggle, about the conclusion 
 of the eighth, or beginning of the ninth century. 
 The author of the Northern Antiquities observes 
 upon this subject,* — " Britain and Gaul were too 
 ■" distant, and too well defended, to become the 
 i* first attempts of the Scandinavian ravages :" ajjd 
 he dates the commencement of their maritime ex- 
 peditions into these countries, towards the beginning 
 of the ninth century. But have the Celtic nations 
 any obscure accounts of earlier adventures of these 
 pirates, which are unnoticed in general history? 
 Let us inquire of the Irish and Welsh, who, at 
 least, stand upon a level with the Caledonians, for 
 . the preservation of ancient records. 
 
 The learned and patriotic Miss Brooke thus 
 answers for the Irish. — u According to the accounts 
 " that Irish history gives of Danish invasions, in 
 " this kingdom, the earliest was about the end of 
 " the eighth century: we, therefore, cannot safely 
 " rest upon the credit of our Bards, who tell us of 
 " numberless descents which that fierce and warlike 
 \' people made upon our coasts, wherein they were 
 l \ opposed and beaten back, by kings and heroes, 
 
 * Vol. i. chap. 10, 
 
17 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 * f who flourished in the earliest ages of chris^ 
 " tianity."* 
 
 Caradoc of JLlancarvan, the respectable annal- 
 ist of the Welsh, writes to the same effect. — ?? In 
 f-i the year 795, the pagan Danes came, the first 
 ■' time, to the Island of Britain, and committed 
 .*' great ravages in England. They afterwards 
 " proceeded to Glamorgan, which they wasted 
 *' with nre and sword. At last, the Welsh got the 
 \\ better of them, and having slain multitudes, com- 
 V pelled the survivers to return to sea. From thence 
 iC they went into Ireland, and destroyed Macreyn 
 *' and other places."! Hence we find that the 
 annals of the Celtic tribes agree with those of other 
 nations, and consequently, that the visits of the 
 Danes and Norwegians to the British Islands in 
 the second and third centuries, as reported by 
 Ossian, are events, not only unsupported by history, 
 but evidently contradictory to its authority. 
 
 I may remark the same inconsistency with his- 
 tory, in those Irish poems and romances, in which 
 the character of Ossian is introduced. Oscar, the 
 son of the Bard, falls at the Battle of Gabhra, 
 A. D. 296, whilst Fingal was absent, upon a Roman 
 
 * Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 35. Of the Bards here alluded to, Ossian 
 was the most noted : for the reader ought to be aware, that the Irish lay 
 claim to this Bard, and to the heroes whom he celebrates. The credit due 
 to the poems which go under his name, may be collected from future 
 extracts. 
 
 t My vyrian Archaiology of Wales, v. ii. p. 474. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 18 
 
 expedition.* Yet the same Fingal, and his sons, 
 and his grandson, are repeatedly brought into the 
 field, to oppose the invading Danes, and even to 
 humble Magnus the Great, king of Norway, in the 
 very close of the eleventh century. 
 
 As another series of events which present them- 
 selves, in every part of these poems, we may 
 discriminate the frequent expeditions of Fingal, as 
 well as of his ancestors and descendants, into the 
 Islands of Scandinavia. These expeditions had, 
 frequently, nothing more important in their object, 
 than a hunting excursion, like that which is cele- 
 brated in Chevy Chase ; but they constantly ended 
 in a conflict with the king of Lochlin, and a victory 
 of the Caledonians. 
 
 History does not record such Caledonian victories 
 in any age ; and it is utterly improbable that they 
 should have been achieved, in that very age, when 
 the Scandinavians, according to Ossian, were taking 
 possession of the Scottish Isles, and when the 
 inhabitants of Caledonia and Ireland were unable 
 to protect their own coasts, from Northern insult. 
 Nor can it be conceived that, in these tumultuous 
 times, a party which had set sail, upon a friendly 
 visit, to the king of one of the Orkney Islands, and 
 was driven by a storm into Scandinavia, should be 
 competent to oppose and vanquish the high king 
 
 Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 146, 147, 155. 
 
19 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 of Lochlin, in the field of battle. The relation of 
 such events is fabulous in its very aspect. 
 
 The plain inference is, that these events could 
 not have been recorded by Ossian, as the familiar 
 occurrences of his own times, and consequently 
 that the poems which report them, in his name, are 
 undoubtedly spurious. It will be asked— Whence 
 could such fables have originated? I can only 
 conjecture, that some of the professed talemakers 
 of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, had caught a 
 vague tradition of certain expeditions into the 
 Islands of Lochlin ; that is, if properly understood, 
 those Scottish Islands which the Lochlinians had 
 occupied in the ninth. Upon this rumour they 
 founded their tales : and, in order to give them due 
 weight and dignity, put them into the mouth of 
 Ossian, the son of Fionn, a hero of the mythological 
 ages. The genius of Romance, emboldened by an 
 ignorance of history and geography, carried the Bard 
 and his heroes, from the Western shore of Scotland — 
 not to an island that was at the distance of two 
 bowshots, but — over the Northern Ocean, to kill a 
 boar, to rescue a distressed damsel, or vanquish a 
 mighty king, on the mountains of Scandinavia. 
 
 The general subjects of these poems are, therefore, 
 either not synchronous with the supposed aera of 
 Ossian ; or else wholly unfounded in history and 
 real fact. And this is an objection that can never 
 be overcome, unless the Caledonians can prove, that 
 the credit of their Bard, unsupported by other 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 20 
 
 evidence, and, in the face of probability, is sufficient 
 to substantiate the fact, that the kings of Lochlin 
 invaded the British Islands, and, at the same time, 
 to carry the Caledonian conquerors into the forests 
 of Scandinavia. 
 
 But before he be admitted to this privilege, it will 
 be proper to inquire, whether the costume of his 
 warriors, and the general picture of the times which 
 he delineates, be congruous with the history of the 
 age in which he is placed. And here, instead of 
 authenticating his credentials, he seems to be cnly 
 extending the line of responsibility. 
 
 In the descriptions of these poems, and in Mr. 
 Macpherson's notes, the arms and habits of the Irish 
 and Caledonians are represented as having been 
 precisely the same in the days of Ossian. Thus far, 
 the Bard and his editor are probably accurate. But 
 it is remarkable that, in the delineation of those 
 arms and habits, the romantic Bards of Ireland 
 accord with the general tablet of history much better 
 than the celebrated Homer of the North. The 
 appearance of the host of Lochlin is thus described 
 in Magnus the Great, an Irish poem, published by 
 Miss Brooke : 
 
 u At length we see grey morning rise, 
 
 " Upon its early dew; 
 " And the first dawn of eastern skies 
 
 " Gives Lochlin's host to view. 
 (C Before us, on the crowded shore, 
 
 " Their gloomy standard rose, 
 f* And many a chief their army bore, 
 
 u And many princely foes. 
 
21 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN 1 * 
 
 u And many a proud and bossy shield^ 
 
 " And coat of martial mail, 
 " And warlike arms of proof they wield, 
 
 " To guard or to assail." * 
 
 This passage gives occasion to the following re- 
 marks by the translator. — cc We see here a marked 
 li difference between the arms and appearance of 
 cc either host. The troops of Magnus are covered 
 " with steel; but we meet with no coats of mail 
 " amongst the chiefs of the Fenii." And again,—" It 
 ct should seem, that body armour, of any kind, was 
 ce unknown to the ancient Irish, previous to the tenth 
 16 century. Though the poets of the middle ages* 
 " describe the heroes of Ossian as shining in polished 
 cc steel, no relic of that kind of armour has escaped 
 " the wreck of time in Ireland. I confess myself 
 cc inclined to think, that their inflexible attachment 
 " to their civil dress, would not yield to the fashion 
 " of the martial garb of their enemies. It is certain 
 " that the English did not find them cased in 
 
 " armour."! 
 
 But the heroes of the Caledonian Ossian are 
 defended with iron shields. " The mail rattles on 
 u their breast, and pours its lightning from every 
 " side." The shield of Cathmor, an Irish king, is 
 fabricated with an art not inferior to that displayed 
 in the shield of Hercules, Achilles, or CEneas. 
 These seven constellations are pourtrayed in their 
 
 * Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 54. 
 t Hist. Essay on the dress and armour of the Irish, p. 106. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 22 
 
 distinct and appropriate characters. It had also 
 some peculiar qualities, which no other shield of 
 ancient or modern times could boast of. " Seven 
 " bosses rose on the shield ; the seven voices of the 
 " king, which his warriors received from the wind, 
 " and marked in all their tribes." * 
 
 Cuthullin rides in a car, the sides of which are 
 embossed with stones, and sparkle, like the sea, 
 round the boat of night. Hard polished bits shine 
 in a wreath of foam — thin thongs, bright studded 
 with gems, bend on the stately necks of the steed s.f 
 The Orkney Islands are adorned with cities, 
 encompassed with ancient mossy walls :\ and— 
 " several ancient poems mention wax-lights and 
 " wine, as common in the halls of Fingal. "§ 
 
 All this is so different from what we should have 
 conceived of the Caledonians and Irish of the third 
 century, and so little supported by collateral 
 evidence, that, instead of establishing the authen- 
 ticity of the poems, it impresses them with the 
 glaring stamp of more recent fiction. 
 
 Let us, however, approach somewhat nearer to 
 the heroes of Ossian, and contemplate them, in 
 their general characters, manners, and sentiments. 
 
 * Temora, B. vii. t Fingal. B. i. % Carrie Thura. 
 
 § Fingal, B. vi. Note.— The Ossian of Ireland, like the Caledonian Bard, 
 introduces wax-lights.— Reliques of J risk Poetry, p. 54. These are supposed 
 to have been procured from the plunder of the Roman Provinces.— It i.<j 
 more probable they came from the Roman Catholics, 
 
 D 
 
23 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " Here indeed, says Dr. Blair, in the character and 
 iC description of Fingal, Ossian triumphs almost 
 " unrivalled : for we may boldly defy all antiquity 
 " to shew us any hero equal to Fingal."* All this 
 must be acknowledged, as far as it regards classical 
 antiquity ; for Fingal is adorned with every good 
 quality which imagination could suggest, excepting 
 piety, and unsullied by any of the common frailties 
 of human nature. Yet, the painting of the Cale- 
 donian Bard is not so absolutely unique as this 
 elegant writer seems to suppose. The same ami- 
 able and Utopian picture of Fingal, presents itself 
 in the romantic poems of the Irish. f I extract the 
 following personal description of this celebrated 
 hero, from the Rhapsody of Oisin: " Finn of the 
 " large and liberal soul of bounty; exceeding all 
 c< his countrymen, in the prowess and accomplish- 
 iC ments of a warrior, king of mild majesty, and 
 " numerous bands. The ever- open house of kind- 
 " ness was his heart ; the seat of undaunted courage. 
 " Great was the chief of the mighty Fenii. Finn of 
 " the perfect soul ; the consummate wisdom ; whose 
 " knowledge penetrated events^ and pierced through 
 " the veil of futurity. Finn of the splendid and 
 " ever-during glories. Bright were his blue-rolling 
 "eyes, and his hair, like flowing gold! Lovely 
 
 * T)i\ Blair's Critical Dissertation, generally annexed to MacphersonV 
 
 Ossian. 
 
 t See Reliques of Irish Poetry, 53, 91, 99. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 24 
 
 *' were the charms of his unaltered beauty, and his 
 
 ft cheeks like the glowing rose."* 
 
 The characters of Oscar, Fillan, Cuthullm 3 &c. 
 
 though skilfully diversified, are equally well drawn 
 
 and well supported. But they do not appear to 
 
 have been immediately drawn from real life. They 
 
 are not like those characters which are found in 
 
 history, or those mortals whom we have known 
 
 and conversed with. They are the ideal sketches 
 
 of a man who contemplates human nature, as it 
 
 ought to he ; not the faithful touches of him, who 
 
 observes it, as it is. They resemble those sublime 
 
 figures, which the imagination has often delineated, 
 
 on the canvass of poetry and romance — Beings 
 
 whom we know only by ancient renown, and 
 
 whose little defects have vanished in the distance 
 
 of time. 
 
 The manners and customs, which we observe in 
 
 the society of these heroes, are equally romantic. 
 But as even romance condescends to borrow some 
 of her outlines from nature and history ; and, as the 
 scene of Ossian's poems is placed in the middle of 
 the Northern invasions ; his sketches, as far as they 
 can be verified by history, exhibit the Gothic, rather 
 than the Celtic style. Of this I shall give a few 
 instances. In all the wars of Fingal, we find a multi- 
 tude of Bards in the field, animating the prowess of 
 the warriors. Fingal has his " thousand Bards" at a 
 
 * Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 133. 
 
25 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 time when his army seems to have consisted of a 
 few hundreds only. The Celtic Bards belonged 
 to the establishment of the Druids, who are re- 
 corded to have generally kept aloof from the field 
 of battle : and although my acquaintance with the 
 Welsh Bards is pretty extensive, I cannot recollect 
 a single instance of the harp having been produced 
 in that field. But the Gothic Scalds were employed 
 to compose odes or songs, which related to the 
 most shining exploits of their heroes. These they 
 chaunted before the army, to animate the bloody 
 onset. The praises which these poets gave to 
 valour, the warlike enthusiasm which animated 
 their verses, the great care men took to learn them 
 from their infancy, being all of them the mutual 
 effects of the ruling passion of this people, served, 
 in their turn, to strengthen and extend it.* Hacon, 
 earl of Norway, had five celebrated poets along 
 with him, in that famous battle, in which the 
 warriors of Jomsbourg were defeated ; and history 
 records, that they sung, each, an ode, to animate 
 the soldiers, be/ore they engaged.^ 
 
 The heroes of Irish romance also took multitudes 
 of Bards with them into the field. These geniuses 
 are represented as " glowing with the joint enthu- 
 " siasm of the poet and the warrior; as frequently 
 " rushing amidst the ranks, following their chief^ 
 
 * Northern Antiq. v. i. p. 223. 
 t Mons. Mallet, from Bartholin, p. 172. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 26 
 
 *' through all the fury of the fight, and continuing 
 V to the last, those sublime and elevating strains, 
 " which inspired by the sight of heroic valour, and 
 " called forth by, and suited to the instant occasion, 
 " wrought up courage to a pitch of frenzy, and 
 " taught the warrior to triumph, even in the pangs 
 " of death."* But the first hint of this horridly- 
 grotesque combination of martial and poetic frenzy, 
 seems evidently to have been borrowed from the 
 -Gothic nations. 
 
 As a second instance of the imitation of Gothic 
 manners, I remark that Ossian's heroes disdain to 
 engage the enemy by night, or to bring superior 
 forces into the field," concluding that glory was to 
 be acquired only in the equal combat ; and that 
 the leaders of the expedition frequently decide the 
 dispute by single combat. Irish romance draws 
 the same picture, in strong lines, and upon a 
 Colossal scale. " What added lustre to the native 
 " valour was, the extreme openness, candour, and 
 " simplicity of this people (the Irish) not even to 
 " gratify that insatiate thirst for power, the source 
 " of such devastations, do we often read of indirect 
 " or dishonourable means used. If any unforeseen 
 " accident disappointed either party, as to the 
 " number of troops, &c. notice was sent to his 
 " opponent, and a further day was appointed, and 
 " generally granted. ''f " The heroes of ancient 
 
 * Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 139. 
 f O Hall. Int. to the Hist, and Antirj. of Ireland, p. 223. 
 
27 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " Ireland were sworn never to attack an enemy, at 
 " any disadvantage."* It should appear, by ancient 
 British history, that this oath was considered as 
 binding only upon Irish ground. Be that as it 
 may, all this is derived, by the Bards of Ireland and 
 Scotland, from the manners of the old Danes and 
 Norwegians. " By a singular strain of generosity, 
 " which the love of glory was able to produce, in 
 " minds, in other respects, so ferocious, if the 
 " enemy that fell in their way had fewer ships than 
 6k themselves, they set aside part of their own 
 " vessels, that so, engaging upon equal terms, the 
 " victory might not be attributed to superiority of 
 " numbers. Many of them also regarded it as 
 " dishonourable to surprise the enemy by night. 
 " Sometimes the chiefs thought it best to decide 
 " the dispute by single combat. "f 
 
 These are precisely the manners of Ossian's 
 heroes ; but in historical truth, they were, probably, 
 peculiar to the Gothic nations. Nothing of the kind 
 appears amongst those ancient Irish and Caledonian 
 warriors who were known to the Romans and 
 Southern Britons. 
 
 Mr. Macpherson admits a perfect similarity of 
 manners between the Caledonians and Britons to 
 have subsisted, in the days of Ossian, and adduces 
 this circumstance as an undoubted proof that they 
 
 * Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 75, from O HalU 
 t Northern Antiq. v, i. p, 255. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 28 
 
 were originally the same people.* This being 
 granted, I know no reason why the Britons, of the 
 fifth or sixth century, should have been totally dif- 
 ferent from the Caledonians of the third. Yet, 
 amongst these, we discover no traces of the eool, 
 deliberate courage, or the clemency and generosity 
 of Ossian's heroes. All was fury, passion, and cruelty. 
 Aneurin?s heroes, having captivated and beheaded 
 their formidable enemy, invite the ravens to pick his 
 skull. Taliesin celebrates his favourite chief, Urien 
 of Reged, for setting fire to houses before day. 
 But, in order to bring the medium of comparison as 
 near as may be, to the country and the alledged age 
 of Ossian, I shall present my readers with an Elegy 
 composed by an older Taliesin,] on the death of 
 Cwiedda, the son of Edeyrn, a Cambrian Prince, 
 which happened, according to Owen's Cambrian 
 Biography, in the year 389. Whether this date be 
 accurate or not, Cunedda is an historical character. 
 Nennius calls him Atavus, the great grandfather of 
 Maelgwn, who began to reign in Venedotia, or 
 North Wales, A. D. 517, and gives the following 
 account of his exploits : — 
 
 Filii autem Vethan (Seoti) obtinuerunt regnum 
 Dimectorum, ubi civitas est quae vocatur Mineu 
 (St. David's) et in aliis regionibus se dilataverunt, 
 
 * Note on Colnadona. 
 
 t Taliesin, " Radiant front," or " Illuminated head," seems to have been 
 the Epithet or Title of several ancient British Bards. 
 
29 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 i. e. Guiher Get Guely, donee expulsi sunt a Cunedd, 
 et a filiis ejus, ab omnibus regionibus Britannicis,* 
 And again, — Mailcuinus, magnus rex apud Britones, 
 regebat, id est, in regione Guenedotiae, quia." Atavus 
 illius Cimedag, cum filiis suis — Scotos cum in- 
 gentissima clade expulerat, ab illis regionibus, et 
 nunquam reversi fuerunt iterum ad habitandum.'l* 
 
 This elegy is of difficult construction, and contains 
 several words which are not to be found elsewhere ; 
 but the meaning, as clearly as I can render it, is as 
 follows : — 
 
 iC I* who am Taliesin, a man of the oaks, award 
 " the song of praise to the Baptized, the Christian 
 " chief, the worshipper of the wonderful one. Where 
 " cliff and cliff meet, in the West, was the dread of 
 iC Cunedda, the ardent in battle, in Caer Wair and 
 u Caer Liwelydd. The vibrating shock was given. 
 u The conflict arose, like the full bursting of fire 
 " through a broken wall ; when he urged his course 
 " through the land of the Elgovse, like the wind 
 " sighing against ashen spears. His contact, I 
 " know, would produce a chill, in the midst of 
 " sestival heat, But skilful Bards, drest in the habit 
 u of their order, could preserve, with the token, his 
 cc entire friendship. 
 
 " The lamented death of Cunedda 1 deplore. He 
 " is bewailed by Tewdwr,J as a dauntless hero, who 
 " equally crushed the profound and the shallow. 
 
 * Cap. viii. t Cap. lxiv. 
 
 J Pcrhap? Tewdwsj Tkcodosius, in whose time cur hero lived. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 30 
 
 rt His deep stroke brought them to a level. He 
 " frustrated the proud boast of Caledlwm ;* to his 
 " foe he was harder than a bone. 
 
 " Exalted was Cunedda, chief of the natives and 
 " of the land. His honour was supported on a 
 " hundred occasions, before his death arrived, and 
 u the hurdle of the slain was borne, by the youths 
 " of Bernicia, in the field of battle. 
 
 " For the dread of him the song of woe was 
 " chaunted, before the portion of earth became his 
 <c covering. His swarm were like swift dogs round 
 u a thicket : they carried no scabbards — the device 
 " of cowardice. 
 
 Ci The destiny of the annihilating sleep I deplore, 
 6C I mourn for the hall, for the garment of Cunedda ; 
 " for the protector of the briny wave ; for the spear, 
 " in which the sea confided. As for the Bards who 
 <c hesitate, i despise them: with Bards of active 
 iC energy, in the song of praise, will I contend ; and 
 " the others will I estimate by the bundle. 
 
 " He was wonderful in the field, with his nine hun- 
 fC dred horse/) Before the communion of Cunedda,! 
 " I might, by a single nod, obtain milch cows in the 
 "summer; I might have steeds in the winter; I 
 
 * Caled-lwm, a hard, bony man : the next clause contains a pun upon his 
 name. 
 
 t This was precisely the force assigned to that officer under the Roman 
 Government, who was styled Dux Britannia.— See Camden's Introd, 
 
 $ Does this mean-— B if ore he became a Christian ? 
 
 E 
 
31 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " might enjoy sparkling wine, and oil ;* I mighi 
 f-* possess a troop of captives. He — the unrelenting 
 " consumer (Death) proceeds from his secret place — - 
 " the beholder — the chief with the lion's visage, 
 ff whose subjects are ashes :f he stands before the 
 " son of Edeyrn, who, previous to the reign of terrors, 
 Ck was fierce, undaunted, unrestrained—- he is now 
 " compassed with the streams of death. 
 
 se He had lifted his shield at the post of honour. 
 " True and valiant were his chiefs— men to be de- 
 " sired — equally tall — of comely aspect, and just in 
 iC their movements — the race of a Colonial city." 
 
 Here we perceive the barbaric Muse in all her 
 native asperity — at this moment freely soaring aloft, 
 and presently again, awkwardly creeping on the 
 ground. But where is the method, where the polish, 
 the refined sentiment, the unbending majesty of 
 Ossian ? They are all the effect of an enlarged edu- 
 cation, the property of a more cultivated age. 
 Where are his deliberate, persevering, and gene- 
 rously-romantic heroes ? They are not to be iound 
 in ancient Britain. They are mere figures of romance, 
 sketched after the Northern adventurers ; but 
 painted with softened features. 
 
 The author of the Northern Antiquities has drawn 
 the character of a Celtic warrior, as diametrically 
 opposite to that of Fingal and his worthies, as it is 
 exactly congruous with the representations which 
 
 * These particulars mark the time of the Roman Government. 
 t Alluding to the Roman custom of burning the dead. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 32 
 
 we observe in the old Welsh Bards. And the learned 
 and judicious translator very justly remarks, that 
 this character is suitable to the real Celtae, as dis- 
 tinguished from the Gothic nations. 
 
 The author's words are these : — " The Greek and 
 " Latin historians represent them to us as madmen, 
 Ci who, in battle, only followed the instinct of a blind 
 " and brutal rage, without regarding either time, or 
 " place, or circumstances. At the first sight of an 
 " enemy, they darted down upon them, with the 
 " rapidity of lightning.--- But^they marched, we are 
 ct also told, without any order, and often, without 
 u even considering whether the enemy could be 
 " forced in their post or not. Hence it frequently 
 ( * happened that, their vigour being exhausted, it 
 " was sufficient to resist the first shock, and they 
 " were defeated."* 
 
 And this is the translator's note, — te What he 
 " says below, of their blind fury, of their disorderly 
 " way of lighting, and being readily broken, after 
 " the first shock, was true of the Gauls, &c. 
 ** Whereas the nations of Teutonic race, as they 
 " had less vivacity, and were less choleric, so 
 " they seem to have had more constancy and 
 " perseverance." 
 
 Hence it appears that the manners, and there- 
 fore the actions of Fingal and his heroes, were 
 delineated, not only after the men of Lochlin had 
 
 * Northern Antiq. v, i. p. 236, 
 
33 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 tendered themselves familiar to the Caledonians 
 and Irish ; but in an age when their general charac- 
 ter was confounded with that of the natives, and 
 regarded as containing the essentials of true he- 
 roism. v 
 
 Objections to the claim cf high antiquity, similar 
 to those I have remarked in the Caledonian Bard, 
 present themselves in the Irish poems, which bear 
 the name of Ossian, together with some faults which 
 are peculiar to the latter. But we find the more 
 judicious of the Irish antiquaries ready to make the 
 necessary allowance. They do not pertinaciously 
 maintain, that they are the genuine works of Ossian, 
 but view them as the productions of some more 
 recent and unknown Bards, who composed in his 
 name. Thus Ossian is introduced in Magnus the 
 Great, as the reporter of the tale ; but Miss Brooke 
 Observes in her introduction— "The language of the 
 u following poem, as it now stands, is certainly too 
 *' modern to be ascribed to an earlier period than 
 16 the middle ages. According to the accounts that 
 e ' Irish history gives of Danish invasions in this king- 
 * 4 dom 3 the earliest was about the end of the eighth 
 ie century : we, therefore, cannot safely rest upon 
 *' the credit of our Bards, who tell us of numberless 
 *' descents which that fierce and warlike people 
 i( made, — in the earliest ages of Christianity. The 
 u author of this piece is said to have belonged to 
 u the familv of O" Neils, but what his name w r as, I 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 34 
 
 " have not been able to learn."* Again, in the 
 introduction to The Chase — " Nor can we give it, 
 u at least, in its present dress, either to Oisin, or 
 V to any other poet, of the age in which he lived. 
 " The marks of a classical hand appear, frequently, 
 " throughout the whole — I fear we should risk an 
 " error, in ascribing it to any period earlier than 
 " the middle ages.''t — " There are numberless Irish 
 " poems still extant, attributed to Oisin — in all of 
 " them, the antiquary discovers traces of a later 
 " period."}; Once more — " In all these poems, 
 " the character of Oisin is so admirably well sup- 
 " ported, that we lose the idea of any other Bard, 
 " and are, for a time, persuaded it is Oisin himself 
 " that speaks — we do not seem to read a narration 
 " of events, wherein the writer was neither a wit- 
 " ness nor a party '."§ 
 
 The uniform dignity of sentiment, and inviolate 
 generosity of conduct, which distinguished the 
 heroes of Macpherson's Ossian, appear also in the 
 romantic poems of the Irish. They are exemplified 
 in almost every page of the collection published by 
 Miss Brooke, and thus briefly characterized in that 
 lady's preface — " The productions of our Irish 
 iC Bards exhibit a glow of cultivated genius — a 
 " spirit of elevated heroism — sentiments of pure 
 " honour — instances of disinterested patriotism — 
 
 * Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 35, 36. 
 t Ibid. p. 70. % Ibid. p. 73. § Ibid. p. 76, &c. 
 
35 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " and manners, of a degree of refinement, totally 
 " astonishing, at a period when the rest of Europe 
 '¥, was nearly sunk in barbarism." But here the fair 
 patriot gives her recent Bards too much credit for 
 a faithful delineation of the ages in which they 
 thought proper to place their heroes. Whatever 
 the actual state of society may have been, in Ireland 
 or in Italy, the manners delineated in the romances 
 of the fifteenth century, allowance being made for 
 a few local peculiarities, were very similar, all over 
 Europe. In historical truth, however, the manners 
 and sentiments which present themselves in the 
 poems of Ossian, were not fully appropriate, 
 either to the Celts or the Goths. The painting is 
 far above nature, and can by no means be consi- 
 dered as verified, in the age and country in which 
 Ossian is supposed to have lived. Indeed, under 
 the circumstances in which his heroes are placed, 
 such mental refinement could not have been appro- 
 priate to mortals. Scarcely has it graced the con- 
 templative philosopher of the most enlightened age, 
 and under the most favourable circumstances. 
 
 The poet, therefore, has not sketched his senti- 
 ments from nature, and observations of the scenes 
 which passed before him ; but from a contemplative 
 imagination— -from the tablet of romance, or the 
 prevailing taste of his age. He has not informed 
 our judgments, with the colouring of history, but 
 amused our fancy with that of poetry. It follows 
 that the work cannot be ascribed to Ossian, the 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 36 
 
 son of Fingal, a Caledonian Bard of the third cen- 
 tury. For though we are not to refuse the free ex- 
 ercise of the imagination to a Caledonian, any more 
 than to a Grecian poet; yet we must always distin- 
 guish between the man who describes the trans- 
 actions and the manners which have passed under 
 his own eye, and the Bard who derives his subject 
 from ancient fame. Ossian, as an individual, must 
 have felt peculiar restraints; must have been conti- 
 nually recalled, from the indulgence of imagination., 
 to the relation of sober truth. A poet who snatches 
 his subject from the wings of ancient fame, may 
 freely indulge his fancy, in the embellishment of 
 that subject. An old tale may give currency to a 
 thousand improbabilities; but Ossian was describ- 
 ing his own contemporaries, and scenes which his 
 own eye had surveyed. He was reciting his poems 
 to those who had personally known Fingal and 
 Oscar and Cuthullin, and who were, therefore, 
 qualified to judge critically of the truth of his 
 description. Under these circumstances, he must 
 have felt the necessity, not only of observing nature 
 and fact, in his events, characters, manners and 
 sentiments, but also, of abstaining from violent 
 hyperbole, and palpable fiction, upon pain of being 
 despised as a doting fabulist. 
 
 But we can hardly open these poems, without 
 casting our eyes upon the most glaring fictions, 
 and such as must have presented themselves, in 
 this light, to the audience of Ossian. had he been: 
 
37 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the reporter of the tales. Thus, in Carrie Thura> 
 the rude stone which represented Loda, or Odin, 
 is converted into the spirit of Loda. This spirit 
 not only comes forth, armed in all his terrors, but 
 makes a speech of considerable length---" Dost 
 " thou force me from my place ?" replied the hol- 
 low voice— u The people bend before me. I turn 
 " the battle in the field of the brave," &c. Loda 
 or Odin must have, undoubtedly, spoken in a Gothic 
 dialect, and Fingal must have conversed with him 
 in the same : but, to the chief of Selma, this was a 
 trifling accomplishment. Ossian's heroes, in ge- 
 neral, could hold private conferences, with the 
 Scandinavians, with the South Britons, and with 
 the Belgse of Ireland ; or else, the Bard's authen- 
 ticity is blown into the air. How captious is this 
 objection! replies the critic— Did not Priam con- 
 verse with Achilles, and iEneas with Dido, and 
 with the princes of Italy? True— Homer and 
 Virgil give us such representations ; but the stories 
 of Achilles and iEneas were ancient, when they 
 came into their hands. I am not speaking of what 
 poets may dare, in such cases : the question regards 
 what we must receive, as matter of fact. Had 
 Virgil attended his hero, in person, through all the 
 adventures which he relates, it is probable we 
 should have heard of some little embarrassment, on 
 the subject of strange languages. But to return to 
 our unfortunate ghost.— " Fingal, advancing, drew 
 " his sword : the blade of the dark-brown Luno. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 38 
 
 u The gleaming path of the steel winds through the 
 u gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into air." 
 
 Our great poet, Milton, boasted of originality : 
 but here we find him stripped of what was supposed 
 to be one of his most original thoughts, as it cer- 
 tainly is one of the most absurd in his Paradise 
 Lost. The very language, in which he describes 
 the cutting up of a spirit, is borrowed from Ossian! ! 
 How happened it that such a plagiarism as this 
 escaped the researches of a Lauder ? By the con- 
 clusion of the same poem we learn that, although 
 the gashes of Odin's ghost, like those of Satan, 
 soon closed, his pride was effectually humbled — • 
 '.* The wounds of his form were not forgot : he still 
 iC feared the hand of the king." 
 
 In the poem of Carthon, we are told of a mist, 
 rising from the lake, in the figure of an aged man, 
 approaching Selma's hall, and dissolving in a 
 shower of blood. This sounds also like " A tale 
 of other times*" 
 
 In the War of Caros, Oscar, a youth who, if we 
 may trust Mr. Macpherson, had not seen his twen^ 
 tieth year, stands alone, opposed to the disciplined 
 army of Carausius. But he was himself a host. 
 " He raised his terrible voice. The rocking hills 
 " echoed around ; the starting roes bounded away ; 
 " and the trembling ghosts of the dead, fled, shriek- 
 " ing on their clouds." What was the event of this 
 unequal contest ? Oscar, perceiving that he was to 
 have all the glory to himself — u Stood, growing in 
 
 F 
 
39 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 <* his place, like a flood in a narrow vale ! The battle 
 iC came ; but (who fell !) they fell : bloody was the 
 " sword of Oscar !" How much is it to be regretted, 
 in this age of military adventure, that Ossian was 
 the last of his race ! 
 
 But this instance of Oscar's prowess was not sin- 
 gular amongst the heroes of our Bard. Calmar, 
 when mortally wounded, proposes, singly, to with- 
 stand, in a narrow pass, the whole victorious host 
 of the Scandinavians, till the Irish army should 
 have made good its retreat. What less than this 
 was to be expected from the son of a man who had 
 cut up a thunder cloud, with his drawn sword, 
 seizing it by the curling head, and had beat away 
 a tempest from the face of the sky !* Well might 
 the popular translator exclaim, upon this occasion— 
 " They best succeed who dare!" 
 
 How gigantiG is the wrestling of Fingal and Swa- 
 ran, on the side of the hill of Cromla I " When the 
 <e pride of their strength arose, they shook the hill with 
 " their heels. Bocks tumble from their places on 
 " high : the green-headed bushes are overturned."-^ 
 
 The warm imagination of a. poet may indulge 
 itself in these colossal images, when describing the 
 heroes of ancient romance ; but who has ever used 
 such language as this, in speaking of his own father 
 or his own son? Who ever listened, without a smile 
 of contempt, to & grave narrative, which thus de- 
 
 * Fingal, B, iii. t lb. B, v. 
 
THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 40 
 
 scribed the actions of men, whom he had personally 
 known ? The age which could tolerate extravagances 
 of this kind, respecting its own contemporaries, never 
 produced such a poet as the supposed Ossian, whose 
 merit, as a Bard, I will freely acknowledge, when I 
 shall have adduced one more criterion of his preten- 
 sions as an historian. 
 
 As we discover, in these poems, the work of 
 imagination, in its boldest flights, so we may remark 
 it likewise, in its usual defects. Nature is never 
 tired in producing discriminate characters, nor 
 Fortune, in diversifying events ; but the most 
 vigorous and active imagination has its limits. 
 After a few energetic efforts, it is apt, to languish, 
 and its subsequent operations present us with 
 copies, instead of originals. Agreeably to this 
 remark, the multitude of events, related in these 
 poems, do not display the — Varios casus, the 
 Tot discrimina rerum, which are generally found 
 in real life and authentic history. They rather 
 impress the idea of numerous sketches, taken in a 
 confined landscape, where the same object per- 
 petually returns, in a different point of view. 
 
 If Fingal moves, we may be sure he is going forth 
 to fight and to conquer. With whatever disadvan- 
 tage this hero, or his lieutenant, takes the field, 
 he almost invariably subdues the hostile chief, in 
 single combat ; he then either kills, or binds and 
 pardons him, and returns to Morven, crowned 
 with fame and glory. To the Caledonian heroes 
 
41 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 we will allow all their merit, yet we must suppose, 
 that they could not, in every instance, have con- 
 quered Fortune. This capricious goddess is to be 
 kept in subjection only by the Genius of Romance, 
 who, here, walks forth in triumph, conducting her 
 favourite warriors in the path of renown, and infal- 
 lible victory. Nor is it amongst the heroes alone 
 that we trace the evident footsteps of this wayward 
 Muse. We hear her pronouncing the fanciful 
 names, relating the singular love adventures, and 
 describing the sentimental deaths of Ossian's he- 
 roines. As an elucidation of my meaning, I shall 
 recite the instances of this kind, which occur to 
 my recollection, and such as I can readily turn to. 
 
 Conhan-Carglas, the daughter of a chief of 
 Lochlin, shrinks and expires at|the sight of her 
 lover Swaran's broken helmet. 1 
 
 Two brothers, the jealous lovers of Strinadona, 
 that is, Strife of heroes, met in the field : the one 
 fell, the other was banished, and the lady, if I 
 mistake not, expired with the shock. ? 
 
 Comala, " Pleasant Brow/' disguised herself in 
 the armour of a young warrior, to follow her hero, 
 and suddenly expired upon hearing a false rumour 
 of his death. 3 
 
 Vinvela, " Sweet Mouth," heard a vague report 
 of the death of her beloved Shilric, and expired 
 with grief. 4 
 
 I, Cath Loda, 2. lb. 3, Comala. 4, Canic-Thura. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 42 
 
 Vtha covers herself with steel armour, to attend 
 her hero, in the disguise of a warrior, and is after- 
 wards discovered, by accidentally dropping her 
 helmet, s 
 
 Crimora, iC Great Heart," takes the arms of a 
 warrior, to attend her hero, in private ; she ac- 
 cidentally pierces him with an arrow, which had 
 been aimed at his enemy, and " with grief the sad 
 " mourner dies." 6 
 
 Colnadona, "Love of Heroes," arms herself with 
 shield and spear, for the purpose of exciting, by an 
 innocent stratagem, a mutual flame in the breast of 
 Toscar. The hero snatches away the shield, for 
 the purpose of attacking a supposed enemy, and 
 thus discovers the amorous Nymph. 7 
 
 Oithona, " Maid of the Waves," is forcibly car- 
 ried to sea, by a libertine prince, and ruined. 
 She privately assumes the armour of a young 
 warrior, to assist her lover, Gaul, in revenging 
 the outrage : and when this is done, submits to 
 a sentimental death, as an atonement to insulted 
 honour:— rthe incident of discovery is not va- 
 ried. 8 
 
 Colmal, " Small Eyebrow,'' arms herself from 
 head to foot, to effect the release of her lover, 
 Calthon. Having accomplished this design, she 
 is discovered, as in the other instances. 9 
 
 5. Carric-Thura. 0. lb. 
 
 7. Colnadona. 8. Oithona. 9. Calthon and ColrnaL 
 
43 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Lanul, " Full Eye,'' the daughter of Cathmol, 
 having been violated by a neighbouring prince, 
 dresses herself in complete armour, and assumes a 
 fictitious name, to solicit the aid of the heroes of 
 Morven. She procures the means of revenge, 
 and then dies of the wounds of injured ho- 
 nour. 10 
 
 Colma, " Fine Hair,'' expires on the discovery 
 that her lover and brother had fallen by mutual 
 wounds. n 
 
 Brassolis, " White Breast," is presented with 
 the bloody shield of her lover. " Distracted, pale, 
 " she flew— *-she found her youth in all his blood — 
 u she died on Cromla's heath." 12 
 
 The lover of Gelchossa, " White Legs," expires 
 of a wound received in single combat with his 
 rival. " Three days she mourned beside her love. 
 cc The hunters found her cold." 13 
 
 The sister of the king of Scandinavia, falling 
 ki love with Trenmor, covers herself with steel 
 armour, assumes a fictitious name, challenges the 
 hero to single combat, and then discovers herself 
 by laying aside her shield. 14 
 
 JDartkula, " Fine Eyes," arms to assist her lover 
 in the field, and afterwards expires of grief on his 
 dead body. 15 
 
 Lorma, a Scandinavian Queen, who had eloped 
 with one of the heroes of Morven, was informed, 
 
 10. Cathlin of Clutha. 11. Songs of Selma. 
 
 12. Fingal, B. i. 13. lb. B. v. 14. lb. B. vi. 15. Darthula. 
 
?HE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 44 
 
 by a ghost, of the death of her paramour. «* She 
 " came — she found her hero — her voice was heard 
 4i no more— silent she rolled her eyes." 16 
 
 Sulmalla, " Slowly rolling Eyes," a princess of 
 South Britain, disguises herself like a young warrior, 
 to attend her lover into Ireland. 17 
 
 Cuthona, " Moaning Waves," alias, Gormfmil, 
 u Blue Eye," " pines away her soul* for the loss of 
 " her only love." 1S 
 
 Ninathona, a Scandinavian lady, is abandoned 
 on a desart rock, by a cruel and ungrateful lover. 
 After her release from this woeful situation, she 
 has a presentiment that the dear deceiver has 
 fallen in battle. " She rose, pale, in her tears — 
 " she saw the bloody shield of Uthal — she saw it 
 tl in Ossian's hand — her steps were distracted on 
 " the heath — she flew — she found him — she fell — 
 " her soul came forth in a sigh." 19 
 
 To these examples, taken from the collection of 
 Mr. Macpherson, I may add others, out of the 
 sequel of Ossian's poems, published by Mr. Smith, 
 in his Galic Antiquities. 
 
 Crimora, *' Great Heart," imagining that her 
 lover, Dargo, was lost at sea, goes to the shore to 
 search for him, and there expires : but whether it 
 was by an accidental, a voluntary, or a sentimental 
 death, we are not distinctly told. 20 
 
 1G. Battle of Lora. 17. Temora, B. 2. 
 
 18. ConlatU and Ctithoaa. 19. Berrathon. 20. Dargo. 
 
45 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 
 
 The tender Crimoina, " Gentle Heart/' a Scan^ 
 dinavian lady, being foolishly imposed upon by a 
 feigned tale, respecting the death of the same hero, 
 took her harp, and breathed out her lovely soul, 
 amidst the most plaintive and pathetic strains. 
 The melodious notes were still vibrating in the 
 ears of her attendants, when they perceived that 
 she had expired, 21 
 
 Minla, u Fine Day," assuming the character of a 
 Sard, armed herself in mail, to elude the enemy. 
 When secure in the society of her friends, she 
 dropped the mail, and was immediately recog- 
 nized. 22 
 
 Annir assumed [the dress of a young warrior^ 
 having contrived a plot, to get rid of an importunate 
 lover ; but the stratagem proving fatal to a favoured 
 youth, the lady expired with grief. 23 
 
 Roseana, " Fair Rose," languished and expired j 
 under the slow pangs of disappointment. 24 
 
 If my reader has had patience to go through this 
 catalogue, he will probably acknowledge, that the 
 names of these heroines are too pretty to have 
 occurred to the rough Caledonian warriors, in the 
 third century; that they are in the high style of 
 romance ; and that they seem, in general, to have 
 been purposely devised, for the adventures which 
 are ascribed to the respective ladies. These ad- 
 
 21. Dargo. 22. Duthona. 
 
 23. Cathluina. 24. Cuthon, son of Dargo. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 40 
 
 ventures, taken singly, may not be absolutely 
 unprecedented, or wholly out of the course of 
 nature. We may have heard of something of the 
 kind ; but such things rarely occur. More parallels 
 may be collected from a bundle of futile ballads, 
 than from all the volumes of ancient and modern 
 history. No man, perhaps, could ever tell three 
 tales of the kind, that came within his certain 
 knowledge. 
 
 When, therefore, the Bard of Selma details twenty 
 or thirty of these strange stories, in which his own 
 family was implicated, and applies them, without 
 distinction, to the women of Scandinavia, Caledonia, 
 Ireland, and South Britain, common sense compels 
 us to hesitate, before we admit the authenticity of 
 the relations. And if the narratives are not authen- 
 tic, the poems cannot be the genuine works of 
 Ossian, who is represented as reciting the public 
 transactions of his own time. They are the product 
 of a romantic imagination, revolving the same 
 slender stock of ideas, over and over again. 
 
 This is not asserted to detract from the merit of 
 the Bard, whoever he was, but merely as a caveat 
 against the unwarranted assumptions of the His- 
 torian. For I am disposed to coincide with the 
 elegant author of the Critical Dissertation, in 
 acknowledging the general merit of the poems, as 
 mere works of imagination, to whatever name they 
 are to be ascribed. 
 
 Of 
 
47 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " Here, says Dr. Blair,* we find the fire and the 
 " enthusiasm of the most early times, combined 
 " with an amazing degree of regularity and art. 
 " We find tenderness, and even delicacy of senti- 
 " ment, greatly predominant over fierceness and 
 " barbarity. Our hearts are melted with the softest 
 " feelings, and, at the same time, elevated with the 
 " highest ideas of magnanimity, generosity, and 
 ' ' true heroism." Of the poem of Fingal he observes, 
 that, " Examined even according to Aristotle's 
 " rules, it will be found to have all the essential 
 66 requisites of a true and regular epic ; and to have 
 " several of them in so high a degree as, at first 
 " view, to raise our astonishment, on finding 
 u Ossian's compositions so agreeable to rules, of 
 " which he was certainly ignorant." — " The unity 
 " of the epic action, which, of all Aristotle's rules, 
 u is the chief and most material, is so strictly pre- 
 " served in Fingal, that it must be perceived by 
 " every reader. It is a more complete action than 
 " what arises from relating the actions of one 
 f man, which the Greek critic justly censures as 
 " imperfect : it is the unity of one enterprize, the 
 " deliverance of Ireland from the invasion of 
 " Swaran : an enterprize which has, surely, the full 
 " heroic dignity. All the incidents recorded bear 
 " a constant reference to one end ; no double plot 
 " is carried on; but the parts unite into a regular 
 
 * Critical Dissertation, annexed to Macphei son's Ossian. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 48 
 
 " whole : and as the action is one and great, so it 
 * is an entire and complete action." — Of Temora, 
 an epic poem in eight books, it is remarked, that 
 " The subject is an expedition of the hero, to de- 
 " throne and punish a bloody usurper, and to 
 " restore the possession of the kingdom to the 
 " posted j of the lawful prince;* an undertaking 
 " worthy of the justice and heroism of the great 
 " Fingal. The action is one and complete." 
 
 Such is the language of this enlightened critic, in 
 descanting upon the works before us. To the wreath 
 of Ossian it could add but little splendour, to say 
 that the author of the present Essay fully subscribes 
 to the opinion of Dr. Blair. I admire the poems ; 
 but when I am called upon to receive them as 
 authentic documents of ancient times, the very 
 excellence which I acknowledge in the Bard 
 becomes a powerful objection to the credit of the 
 Historian. To say nothing of that poetical spirit, 
 those rays of pure sublimity, which enlighten every 
 part of these compositions, how are we to reconcile 
 the consummate art, the classical regularity, and 
 the uniform majesty which pervade the whole, with 
 our ideas of a blind Caledonian, of the third century ? 
 Nature has displayed her power in producing 
 genius. She has condescended to lead it by the 
 hand— to place it in possession of a certain degree 
 of irregular excellence ; but, that the guidance of 
 uncultivated nature cannot, at once, conduct her 
 children in the path of method, of complicated 
 
49 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 design, and of uniform dignity, we may conclude 
 from the old Gothic and Icelandic songs, and from 
 the works of the more recent Irish and Caledonian 
 Bards, so often censured by Mr. Macpherson him- 
 self. If these geniuses, with the perfect models of 
 Ossian in their mouths, are still irregular, unequal, 
 and obscure, how could the Bard of Selmt /^without 
 model or precedent, have obtained regularity, uni- 
 formity, and a luminous style of composition? The 
 art of the Druidical school is much insisted upon 
 by Dr. Blair, and by the ingenious translator. The 
 Druids had poems ; but they were the unequal, rude, 
 and desultory poems of barbarians. That they could 
 have contributed but little, indeed, towards the 
 attainment of the art of poetry, we may reasonably 
 collect, from the works of the oldest Welsh Bards, 
 who retain the character of Druidism. 
 
 In the poems before us, we distinctly perceive a 
 Jnodern and cultivated genius, working upon the 
 materials of heroic romance. The author must have 
 had excellent models, in some language. He must 
 have had critical rules precisely marked. Where 
 was the Caledonian, of the third century, to procure 
 these things ? If he was not absolutely unacquainted 
 with letters, it can hardly be supposed, that he 
 possessed books in any language which could have 
 afforded him the least assistance. Without models, 
 without rules, and without study, these poems were 
 not produced/ 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 50 
 
 But, upon the face of these works, Ossian does 
 not exhibit the picture of a student. His effusions 
 are not represented as the product of silent medita- 
 tion ; they are absolutely subitaneous. The wind 
 moving the shield against the wall, the murmuring 
 of a distant stream, or the tones of Malvina's harp, 
 call hack his soul to the Sard: that is, the most 
 trifling circumstance serves to awake his recollec- 
 tion ; and he immediately begins to recite the tale, 
 and pursues it, with the same ease and fluency, as 
 an old soldier might display in recounting the 
 events of a campaign. Nor was this facility of 
 composition confined to the shorter poems. In the 
 conclusion of the War of Inis Thona, the Bard 
 thus adresses his attendants : — u O lay me, ycthat 
 " see the light, near some rock of my hills! Let 
 ■" the thick hazels be around: let the rustling oak 
 & be near. Green be the place of my rest. Let the 
 " sound of the distant torrent be heard. Daughter 
 ■" of Toscar, take the harp, and raise the lovely 
 " Song ofSelma ; that sleep may overtake my soul, 
 " in the midst of joy ; that the dreams of my youth 
 " may return, and the days of the mighty Fingal" 
 
 Malvina takes the harp — the Songs of Selma are 
 chaunted — the Bard is lulled to sleep by the har- 
 monious sounds.— He awakes, and immediately 
 pours forth his Fingal, a noble heroic poem, in six 
 books. It need not be observed, that all this could 
 not have been true of the real author. The extra- 
 vagant, but highly picturesque idea, may have 
 
51 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 occurred to the imagination of some more recent 
 Bard, who did Ossian the honour of composing in 
 his name. 
 
 To pass on from this objection — Whatever the 
 natural and acquired endowments of Ossian may 
 have been, during the vigour of his days, the very 
 situation in which he is presented to our view, must 
 entirely set aside his claim to the production of 
 these poems. We have just now seen the helpless? 
 blind, old man, led out to slumber on a shady bank, 
 that he might recruit his spirits, to dictate the poem 
 of FingaL The picture of extreme debility is abun- 
 dantly heightened in the body of that admirable 
 work. u My locks, says the personated Ossian, were 
 u not then so grey ; nor trembled my hands with 
 €i age. Mine eyes were not closed in darkness ; my 
 " feet failed not in the race. — But blind, and tear- 
 ic ful, and forlorn, I walk with little men. O Fingal, 
 " with thy race of war, I now behold thee not. The 
 " wild roes feed on the green tomb of the mighty 
 " king of Morven !"— Book iii. <\ When shall I 
 " cease to mourn, by the stream of resounding 
 " Cona ! My years have passed away in battle ; my 
 iC age is darkened with grief. — Whoever would have 
 (i told me, lovely maid, when thus I strove in battle, 
 iC that blind, forsaken, and forlorn, I should now 
 iC pass the night ; firm ought his mail to have been ; 
 " unmatched his arm in war." — Book iv. Again :— 
 " But I am sad, forlorn, and blind: no more the 
 " companion of heroes ! Give, lovely maid, to me 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 52 
 
 " thy tears : I have seen the tombs of all my friends." 
 The very same picture of the forlorn and wretched 
 Ossian, occurs in the, confessedly, modern poems 
 and romances of the Irish. Thus the Bard addresses 
 St. Patrick, in the poem of Magnus the Great: — 
 
 " Thou hast my tale — though memory bleeds, 
 
 " And sorrow wastes my frame, 
 " Still will I tell of former deeds, 
 
 " And live on former fame. 
 " Now old — the streams of life congeaPd, 
 
 " Bereft of all my joys i 
 " No sword this wither'd hand can wield, 
 
 " No spear my arm employs."* 
 
 See also, in The Chase, a long passage, upon 
 which we have the following note: — u In all these 
 *' poems, the character of Oisin is so admirably 
 " well supported, that we lose the idea of any other 
 cc Bard, and are, for a time, persuaded it is Oisin 
 " himself who speaks. We do not seem to read a 
 " narration of events, in which the writer was 
 " neither a witness nor a party : — it is the son — the 
 "father — the hero — the patriot who speaks ; who 
 " breathes his own passions and feelings on our 
 " hearts, and compels our sympathy to accompany 
 " all his griefs ; while, in a strain of natural and 
 Ci impassioned eloquence, he descants on the fame 
 " and virtues of a parent, whom he describes as, 
 u at once, so amiable and so great; and bewails 
 
 * Reliques of Irish Poetry ,• p, 65. 
 
S3 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " the loss of all his former friends, kindred, and 
 te companions ; and laments his own forlorn and dis- 
 u consolate state, in apostrophes that pierce the very 
 " heart of pity ! Beside passages which occur in this, 
 " and the two poems of Magnus and Moira Borb, 
 iC the Dialogue of Oisin and Patrick exhibits a 
 " very pathetic instance, where, lamenting the loss 
 u of his father and his celebrated Fenii, he exclaims, 
 " To survive them is my depth of woe ! The ban- 
 u quet and the song have now no charms for me ! 
 tc Wretched, and old, and poor, solitary remnant of 
 " the Fenii! Why — O why am I yet alive! Alas, 
 " O Patrick, grievous is my state! The last of all 
 " my race ! My heroes are gone ! My strength is 
 tc gone! Bells now I hear for the songs of Bards ; 
 " and age, blindness, and woe, are all that remain 
 " of Oisin."* 
 
 The Irish critics, we perceive, regard, this inter- 
 esting character as merely representative. But the 
 Caledonian antiquary contends, that Ossian is the 
 real author of the Galic poems. Homer and Milton 
 composed excellent poetry after their sight had 
 failed. Well — The minds of these poets were rich 
 with learning, which they had treasured up in their 
 youth, and they still retained something of the 
 vigour of manhood ; but the case of Ossian was not 
 simple blindness. His age, at the time when he is 
 supposed to have dictated these poems, must have 
 
 * Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 70* 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 54 
 
 exceeded ninety years. And in addition to the 
 infirmities which generally attend such a protracted 
 period of life, he complains of some afflictions that 
 were peculiar to his own fortune. 
 
 Thus worn down with years and sorrows, blindj 
 palsied, destitute, and broken-hearted, the Bard 
 hears the sound of the passing gale, or the murmurs of 
 a distant stream, and fancies that the voice proceeds 
 from the ghost of a departed hero ; or else, the wind 
 moves the shield of his fathers, as it hangs on the 
 ruined wall. The incident refreshes his memory. 
 He calls to the aged, feeble, and disconsolate daugh- 
 ter of Toscar, to take the harp. Malvina touches 
 the strings, and Ossian pours forth four or five 
 hundred metrical lines — they contain a well con- 
 nected, artfully disposed, and eventful story — they 
 are also expressed with as much glow of feeling, 
 brilliancy of description, dignity of sentiment, and 
 heroic ardour, as ever animated the fancy of a 
 youthful and vigorous genius. 
 
 If this startles belief — if it overleaps the utmost 
 bounds of prcbability, what shall we think of an 
 epic poem, of four thousand lines, fraught with all 
 the fire of the Iliad, and as regular as the iEneid, 
 produced under similar circumstances? Did the 
 man ever exist, who could have composed, extem- 
 pore, such a poem as the Fingal, or the Temora ! 
 Was the task attempted and accomplished, by a 
 blind, superannuated, palsied, broken-hearted, and 
 illiterate Caledonian, of the third century ! In the 
 
 H 
 
55 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 enthusiasm of poetic rapture, such absurdities may 
 have escaped the correction of the Bard, who com- 
 posed in the name of Ossian : or, perhaps, the bold 
 and novel fiction may have pleased his romantic 
 fancy. In poetry, which addresses itself to the 
 imagination, more than to the judgment, a thousand 
 extravagances may be tolerated ; but when we look 
 for historical facts, we shall always find them, if 
 they are found at all, within the verge of nature 
 and probability. 
 
 Let this objection also be overlooked. — Let us, 
 for a moment, suppose a possibility, where it is not, 
 in the case before us. Let Ossian, involved in a 
 mountain of calamities, be admitted as the author of 
 these excellent poems. We may still be allowed 
 to ask, — How were they preserved and transmitted 
 to posterity ? If the Bard, at a leisure hour, could 
 recollect his extemporaneous effusions, yet his blind- 
 ness, not to insist upon other disqualifications, must 
 have prevented his committing them to writing. 
 We read of no attendant friend, but Malvina, and 
 the youth who, occasionally, led him forth to the 
 sunny bank. Did they write the poems from the 
 mouth of the Bard ? The very narratives themselves 
 preclude this supposition. Malvina was generally 
 engaged with her harp during the recitals. But we 
 need not look for secretaries in the hall of Selma. 
 The Galic modestly waves all claim to manuscripts 
 of high antiquity. Mr. Macpherson never insists 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSI4N. 56 
 
 upon the authority of copies.* He only drops a few 
 hints about a succession of Bards, who transmitted 
 the works of their predecessors from age to age, by 
 oral tradition. But, with reference to the works of 
 Ossian, how did this tradition commence? For 
 an answer to this question, we must consult the 
 poems themselves. In the tale of Oinamorul, the 
 Bard calls — " Daughter of Toscar of helmets, Wilt 
 thou not hear the song?" In the beginning of 
 Cathlin of Clutha, the War of Caros, tyc. we 
 have some intimations upon this subject, and more 
 particularly in the conclusion of the last-mentioned 
 poem, where the narrator thus addresses Malvina:— 
 " Bring me the harp, O maid, that I may touch it, 
 " when the light of my soul shall arise. He thou 
 " near, to learn the song ; future times shall hear 
 a of me" 
 
 Could the incidents, the artificial arrangement, 
 and even the verse, of a long and complex story, 
 have been committed to memory, from a single 
 recital? The drooping daughter of Toscar might 
 listen ; but reason tells us she was not competent 
 to the oral preservation of the tale ; and it does not 
 appear that she had a friend in the world to receive 
 it from her mouth. 
 
 Thus, in every point of view, the representations 
 which we have upon the face of these poems, 
 
 * He complains perpetually that the works of Ossian have been inter- 
 polated by modern Bards. — This complaint would have been precluded by 
 the possession of ancient copies. 
 
57 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 demonstrate, that they are not the genuine compo- 
 sitions of Ossian, a Caledonian Bard of the third 
 century ; and it also appears that, if any such Bard 
 had composed poems of this kind, he must have 
 wanted adequate means to transmit them to pos- 
 terity. — We have seen that the editor disdains to 
 vindicate the genuineness of his author's works. — 
 We perceive that the sera assigned for the exploits 
 of Fingal, is inconsistent with Jits elf, and with the 
 coincidents of genuine history. The expedition of 
 Caracalla in the beginning, that of Carausius in the 
 close of the third century, and the invasions of the 
 Danes and Norwegians, in the ninth and tenth, are 
 all confounded together. This is at once a proof, 
 that the poems were not composed by Ossian, nor 
 by any one Bard, relating the transactions of his 
 own time ; but by some talemaker, who was ignorant 
 of the chronology of those events which he detailed. 
 And this rhapsodist must have lived many ages 
 after the period of the Danish invasions : for, other- 
 wise, he could not have mixed those expeditions 
 with incidents of history, which had preceded them 
 by more than five centuries. 
 
 And this proof has been confirmed, by shewing, 
 that the defensive armour, which our heroes are 
 represented as having worn, was not used by the 
 Caledonians and Irish of the third century — that 
 the characters are fictitious — that the manners and 
 sentiments are borrowed from the Northern nations, 
 and heightened by romance— that the author in- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 58 
 
 dulges in the most palpable fiction — that he ascribes 
 the same romantic adventures to several different 
 persons — that his art of poetry is such as the Celtic 
 nations had not attained — that Ossian is repre- 
 sented as labouring under personal infirmities and 
 disqualifications, which must have rendered the 
 composition of these poems impracticable to him — 
 and that the Caledonians had no probable means 
 of preserving poems, from times so remote. 
 
 These poems, then, do not present us with au- 
 thentic details of the actions of Fingal, but with 
 fanciful tales, respecting some hero of tradition, 
 distinguished by that name. They are not the 
 genuine works of Ossian, but poetical romances, 
 like those of the Irish Bards, in which Ossian sup- 
 ports a kind of dramatic character— -the production 
 of some later age or ages, in which the reputed 
 deeds of Fingal are only viewed at a distance, and 
 in which the name of Ossian is introduced, as merely 
 representative. Considered in this light, their in- 
 trinsic merit, as heroic tales, entitles them to respect. 
 
 Even the suppositious authority of Ossian is a 
 thing not wholly unprecedented in poetry. Virgil 
 puts the second and third book of his iEneid into 
 the mouth of the Trojan prince ; but would any 
 critic deem this a sufficient reason for quoting those 
 books, as the genuine works of iEneas? Amongst 
 the remains of the Gothic muse, we have also a 
 poem of considerable length, ascribed to Regner 
 Lodbrog, who was confined in a dungeon, to be 
 
59 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 destroyed by serpents, as the tale reports. This 
 prince is represented as singing an extemporaneous 
 composition, in his dying agonies, and as only pro- 
 tracting his last breath, to pour out the closing 
 stanza. But as no animate being appears to have 
 been present, to record the lay, excepting the vipers 
 who had stung him to death, ought we not to hesi- 
 tate, before we pronounce this poem to be the 
 genuine production of Lodbrog ? The learned author 
 of the Northern Antiquities thinks — " There is 
 " some reason to conjecture, that the prince did 
 " not compose more than one or two stanzas of 
 " this poem, and that the rest were added after his 
 " death."* 
 
 But whatever we may think of Mr. Macpherson's 
 critical acumen, in ascribing these poems to an age 
 so remote, his veracity, as yet, stands unimpeached. 
 He professes to have found his originals in the 
 Galic language, and attributed to Ossian, as well 
 by general national tradition^ as by the internal 
 evidence of his name. All this may be fact. Ossian's 
 signature was also impressed upon a great number 
 of Irish poems ; he had the voice of the multitude 
 in his favour, and it is only the severe sentence of 
 criticism which has compelled him to relinquish his 
 unfounded claim. Galic poems may bear the same 
 stamp, and may have obtained the same popular 
 credit ; yet we may be right in refusing to receive 
 
 * Northern Antiquities, v. ii. p. 226. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAfc. 60 
 
 them, as the genuine works of Ossian, or to sub- 
 scribe to their authority, as authentic documents of 
 history. There is no criterion of the antiquity of 
 oral tradition, which only exists in the mouths of 
 the present generation : and we have seen no reason 
 to conclude, that a Galic Poet of learning and 
 genius, in the seventeenth, or even eighteenth 
 century, could not have produced poems, in his 
 native language, as excellent as those which Mr. 
 Macpherson has exhibited in an English dress. I 
 here suppose the existence of Galic originals : for 
 we have evidence which candour must admit, that 
 this gentleman did collect a considerable supply of 
 traditional poetry, from the oral recitations of the 
 Highlanders; and that he did transfuse, into his 
 popular volumes, some of the matter which he had 
 thus collected* 
 
SECTION II. 
 
 On the alterations which Mr. Macpherson appears to have made in the Galic 
 poems 7 which he is acknowledged to have collected; with remarks upon the 
 arguments which have been adduced, in support of the genuineness of those 
 poems. 
 
 The state in which these poems were collected, concealed by Mr. Mac- 
 pherson; but elucidated by the aid of the Galic Antiquities. — Some account 
 of that book. — The author's candour — his description of Macpherson's 
 originals. — State of the original Galic poems. — Smith, a disciple of Mac- 
 pherson.— Particulars of the editorial art of these gentlemen. — Remarks on 
 oral tradition. — Arguments of Dr. Blair, Mr. Macpherson, and Mr. Smith, 
 inconclusive. 
 
If Mr. Macpherson's character, as Editor of 
 Ossian's poems, has been the subject of improper 
 animadversion ; if his veracity has been unjustly 
 doubted, he must have had the less reason to 
 complain, as the injury, principally, arose from 
 the peculiarity of his own conduct. The surprize 
 and the suspicions of the public were very natural, 
 and such as might have been foreseen and expected. 
 A Caledonian Bard, of the third century, was in- 
 troduced. He had never been heard of before. 
 His poems, a large and excellent collection, had 
 remained in total obscurity, down to our age; and 
 now we are told, for the first time, that they had 
 been accurately preserved, for fifty generations, by 
 a people who had never boasted of their literary 
 treasures. 
 
 Where have these poems been for so many ages? 
 where were their manuscripts concealed, and how 
 discovered ? who are the persons by whom they are 
 now recited orally ? where may Mr. Macpherson's 
 complete collection be seen and examined ? why is 
 it wilhholden from the public ? Upon an occasion 
 so extraordinary, these and the like questions ought 
 not to have been deemed impertinent. They were 
 
 i 
 
63 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 asked, and answered only with sullen disdain. Can; 
 we wonder at the scepticism that followed ? Mr. 
 Macpherson was called upon, for six connected 
 lines of his originals. He published his revised and 
 final edition, without producing one* He seems to 
 have committed the cause of Ossian principally to 
 the elegant pen of Dr. Blair, for whose Critical 
 Dissertation he probably furnished some private 
 materials. The chief arguments in this celebrated 
 tract, it will be proper for me to consider, when I 
 have, first of all, endeavoured to form some idea of 
 the state in which Ossian came into Mr. Macpher- 
 son's hands, that I may obtain a distinct view of the 
 author and the editor. 
 
 But for this purpose it will be necessary to explore 
 some other source of information : and I know of 
 none more promising than the Galic Antiquities, 
 of the Rev. John Smith, of Kilbrandon, in Argyle- 
 shire. This is a quarto volume, published in 1780. 
 It contains a History of the Druids, a Dissertation 
 on the authenticity of Ossian's poems, and a large 
 collection of poems, chiefly ascribed to the same 
 venerable Bard, with notes and specimens of the 
 originals. 
 
 Mr. Smith informs us in his Dissertation, that from 
 his youth he had been an enthusiastic admirer of 
 Ossian — that, early struck with the beauty of some 
 of his poems in the original, and finding several 
 which had escaped the inquiries of Mr. Macpherson, 
 he had begun to collect them for his own amuse- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 64 
 
 ment — that, ten years before his book appeared, he 
 had communicated some of his originals, with their 
 translation, to certain literary friends at Glasgow — 
 that their encouragement and approbation had 
 animated him to pursue his researches with increased 
 diligence ; and that the present collection was the 
 fruit of his inquiry. Thus it appears that the work 
 before us was no hasty or unweighed undertaking. 
 
 We are also told that this gentleman's researches 
 extended, not only over the West of the Highlands, 
 and into several of the Isles, but also into the more 
 inland and mountainous parts of the country. Here 
 he found many poems, which related the actions 
 of Fingal and his heroes, which were ascribed to 
 Ossian; and, like the works published by Mr. 
 Macpherson, had the name and character of that 
 Bard interwoven in their very texture.* 
 
 Mr. Smith's candour and openness are as re- 
 markable as the sullen taciturnity of his predecessor, 
 whose backwardness to communicate any informa- 
 tion respecting his originals, at least, after public 
 curiosity had been excited, is sufficiently known 
 and remembered. In his improved and final edition, 
 he only drops some general hints, relative to an 
 unbroken succession of Bards, and their oral tra- 
 dition : but Mr. Smith does him the public justice 
 which he had refused to himself. In a note upon 
 p. 95, we are informed, that Mr. Macpherson is 
 
 * See the Diss. Galic Antiq. p. 126, &c. and the poems subjoined, 
 
65 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 said to have got his largest and most valuable 
 manuscript of Ossian from a Mr. Macdonald of 
 Croidart : it was known in the country by the name 
 of Leabhar Dearg, or the book with the red cover. 
 Another manuscript he got from M'Vurrich, Bard 
 to Clanronald. Of this Leabhar Dearg, we have 
 neither date nor table of contents, nor information 
 as to its present place of repose. Mr. Macpherson 
 has not availed himself of its authority with the 
 public. I therefore conjecture, it may have con- 
 tained some works of the Irish Ossian. We learn 
 from Mr. Smith, that the Highland gentry did 
 entertain Irish Bards.* 
 
 Mr. Shaw tells us, in the introduction to his Galic 
 Grammar, that the Highlanders had no books but 
 Irish, and a few recent tracts, which are written in 
 imitation of the Irish dialect ; and, in the introduc- 
 tion to his Dictionary, that the Irish dialect has 
 always been the written and studied language. I 
 may add, that the Irish have been in the habit of 
 naming their books from the colour of the binding; 
 thus, Leabhar JBuidhe, the yellow book, Leabhar 
 JDubh, the black book, in Edward Llwyd's Cata- 
 logue of Irish MSS.t 
 
 Of M'Vur rich's manuscript, mentioned above, 
 we have some further information. — " In a single 
 w family only, has any of this order (the Bards) been 
 ft retained, since the beginning of this century: 
 
 9 Galic Antiq. p. 43. t Archaeol. p. 435. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 66 
 
 €i and the last in that family came down to our times 
 u in a very advanced life. His favourite songs are 
 " said to have been the poems of Ossian. When 
 " age was coming on, memory beginning to fail, 
 " and no successor likely to appear, he had so many 
 ^ of them as he most admired, committed to writing. 
 " By a happy coincidence, Mr. Macpherson over- 
 < c took this Bard, and got his treasure. This fact, 
 <c with the red book formerly mentioned, and some 
 '* other MSS. (not specified) accounts for his having 
 " found these poems in greater number and per- 
 " fection than they could ever since be met with.''* 
 Thus we are told that Mr. Macpherson is said 
 to have obtained two MSS. which are said to have 
 contained some of the works of Ossian ; but not a 
 syllable of their particular contents has been de- 
 tailed, and the place where they may still be seen, 
 in the state in which that gentleman found them, 
 has not been mentioned. But one thing is clear: 
 Mr. Macpherson's treasure of Galic poems was, 
 for the first time, committed to writing, in the 
 eighteenth century. And it appears from our au- 
 thor, that rival Bards, in different parts of Scotland, 
 as late as the middle of that century, were in the 
 habit of composing original works in the name and 
 character of Ossian. f How are we certified that 
 M'Vurrich's treasure was not of this description? 
 If these poems were really ancient, it must be 
 
 * Galic Antlq. p. 125. t Ibid. p. 92. 
 
67 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 deemed a remarkable circumstance that, amongst 
 the multitudes of the higher order, who, for fifty 
 generations had been charmed with their beauties, 
 and animated by their heroism, not a man can be 
 pointed out who chose to grace his library with a 
 single copy. But it seems the labour of copying 
 would have been superfluous. " There are some 
 " old men who still repeat a few of them as of old, 
 '$ round the flame of the winter fire. But, are these 
 " the very poems, it will be asked, that have been 
 " translated and published by Mr. Macpherson ? 
 " The poems which this gentleman and his friends 
 " gathered from oral tradition, were certainly no 
 6i other than those we have spoken of as commonly 
 *' repeated in the country.''* Begging the author's 
 pardon, this is not coming quite to the point. Mr. 
 Macpherson may have gathered what the people 
 had to bestow ; and he might have chosen to publish 
 compositions or compilations of his own in their 
 stead. But not to be more scrupulous than the 
 question requires we should be, it is evident from 
 this, and from several other passages in the Galic 
 Antiquities, that certain poems or fragments of 
 poems, ascribed to Ossian, were familiarly repeated 
 for the entertainment of winter evenings, and, 
 therefore, perfectly understood by the populace, at 
 the time when this collection was made. 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 75 ; see the note ; see also p. 97, 128, 134, 307, 314, &c 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 68 
 
 And amongst the pieces of Ossian, which were 
 most generally known five and twenty years ago, 
 and which occurred to Mr. Smith, in the process of 
 collecting from oral tradition, we distinguish several 
 which coincide in their subject with Mr. Macpher- 
 son's publications— as, The Battle of JLora, the 
 Episode of the Maid of Craca, the most affecting 
 parts of Carthon, Conlath, Croma, JBerrathon, the 
 Death of Oscar, in the first book of Temora, and 
 almost the whole of Darthula* 
 
 Hence we are assured, that some of the most 
 splendid parts of Mr. Macpherson's Ossian, or of 
 poems upon the same subjects, did actually exist 
 in the Galic; that Macpherson was not the first 
 inventer of all the poems which he published, and 
 that, had he been so disposed, he migh thave pro- 
 duced six lines of his originals in answer to Dr. 
 Johnson's challenge ; though not, perhaps, in that 
 finished style in which he wished Ossian to appear. 
 
 That the poems of Ossian should have constituted 
 the popular ballads of the Highlanders, in the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, is a singular and 
 prominent circumstance in their history. It shall 
 be considered hereafter. But in the meantime, it 
 may be proper to inquire, in what manner these 
 poems were repeated, and consequently how far, 
 upon the most favourable hypothesis, they can be 
 supposed to have been preserved by oral tradition. 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 97. 
 
t*y THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " That we have not the whole of the poems of 
 " Ossian," says the author of the Galic Antiquities, 
 " or even of the collection translated by Mr. Mac- 
 '* pherson, we allow; yet we have many of them, 
 " and of almost all, a part. The building is not 
 " entire; but we have still the grand ruins of it/'* 
 
 This is a liberal acknowledgment, and the gentle- 
 man who makes it will allow us, with equal freedom, 
 to ask — How then was it possible for Mr. Mac- 
 pherson to present to the public a complete elevation 
 of this grand fabric, when he found it only in ruins : 
 and especially, how could he justly delineate those 
 wings and ornaments of which not even a part 
 remained? We may arrive at the solution of this 
 problem, by a careful observation of Mr. Smith's 
 design as editor, and his manner of executing that 
 design. I shall premise a few words in support of 
 his evidence. 
 
 The Highlanders, who furnished this writer's col- 
 lection from oral recital, were individuals of the 
 same people who, in the very same age, had supplied 
 Mr. Macpherson in a similar way. The authorities 
 of the former were therefore equally good with those 
 of the latter. It cannot be conceived that the 
 Virtuosi of Scotland would recite to Mr. Macpher- 
 son, only the genuine works of Ossian, and to Mr. 
 Smith, only some spurious pieces, which were 
 ascribed to the same Bard, and, in which his cha- 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 123. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 70 
 
 racier was d ramatically introduced. But to obviate 
 the force of such a plea, however absurd in itself, 
 1 must again remark, that our author found, amongst 
 his collection, Galic originals of several pieces 
 which had been translated by his precursor. And 
 these had no peculiar mark, by which they could 
 be distinguished, either by the reciters or the col- 
 lector, as of a different character from the rest of 
 the general mass. 
 
 Mr. Smith's poems, therefore, and his authorities 
 for them, stand upon equal ground with those 
 which Mr. Macpherson collected from oral tra- 
 dition. We may remark further, that Mr. Smith 
 has candidly given the names of his principal con- 
 tributors, and thus opened the way fo,r the detection 
 of fraud, had any such thing been intended.* 
 
 When we examine the poems themselves, in the 
 translation, we shall discover in them the same 
 peculiar character, the same wild excellence, com- 
 bined with a due regard to essential rules, which 
 mark those of the former collection. If Mr. Smith's 
 poems contain two or three incidents, which the 
 taste of his predecessor would have expunged, this 
 difference resolves itself wholly into the personal 
 judgment of the editor. 
 
 No man ever possessed so good an opportunity as 
 the author of the Galic Antiquities of discriminating, 
 minutely, the character which his precursor had 
 
 * Galic Antiquities,, p, 123, note, 
 iv 
 
VI THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 supported, in his publication of Ossian. With a 
 competent skill in the Galic language, — with ori* 
 ginals of several poems of the former collection in 
 his hands, and with the English translation of those 
 poems before his face, he saw precisely what had 
 been already done, in preparing the works of Ossian, 
 to meet the public eye. His attention to this subject 
 was not that of a cursory, superficial observer. His 
 undertaking demanded of him something more. 
 From originals of the very same kind, he was pre- 
 paring for the press as many poems as would fill two 
 hundred and twenty quarto pages. They were 
 intended as a sequel to Mr. Macpherson's collection : 
 and it was requisite that they should assimilate with 
 it. It was, therefore, absolutely necessary, that 
 Mr, Smith should study every particular of the art 
 and manner of his master, with the unremitted care 
 of an emulous and ambitious disciple ; that he should 
 reduce his study into practice, and aim at nothing 
 more. 
 
 Let us now return to the subject. — Of the state 
 in which these poems came into Mr. Smith's hand, 
 and of the improvements which that hand bestowed 
 upon them, we have the following account:— *- 
 " Many pieces were found, of no inconsiderable 
 ** merit, though few of them either entire or un- 
 a corrupted. What seemed, in this case, the most 
 " natural expedient, was, to collect from different 
 " quarters, as many editions (oral recitations) as 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 72 
 
 " possible, in order to supply the defects, and reo 
 " tify the mistakes of the one by the help of another. 5 ' 
 
 All this is very admissible ; but let us proceed — 
 M After the materials were collected, the next 
 (i labour was to compare the different editions, to 
 " strike off several parts that were manifestly 
 " spurious ; bring together some episodes that ap- 
 " peared to have a relation to one another, though 
 " repealed separately ; and to restore to their 
 " proper places, some incidents that seemed to 
 " have run from one poem into another. In this I 
 " proceeded with all the care and fidelity due to 
 ** such a work. The most material of the altera- 
 c i tions and transpositions which I have made, are 
 " taken notice of in the notes annexed to their 
 ** respective poems, and it would be superfluous 
 " here to repeat them. It might be equally un- 
 " necessary, if candour did not require it, to 
 " mention the unavoidable necessity of throwing in, 
 " sometimes, a few lines or sentences, as marked in 
 « the notes, to join some of these episodes together, 
 iC and to lead the reader through a breach, which 
 " must have otherwise remained a hiatus. All these 
 **, are liberties which necessity, in this case, enjoined, 
 " and which the laws of criticism, I hope will 
 « allow."* 
 
 I transcribe this passage in the author's own 
 words, in order to communicate some idea of the 
 
 * Galic Antiquities, p, 128. 
 
 
73 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 editorship which was unavoidably necessary in pre- 
 paring the w r orks of Ossian. But where had Mr. 
 Smith acquired this degree of dexterity, so uncom- 
 mon amongst editors — so^readily to reject whole 
 passages— to transpose incidents from one poem to 
 another — to bring together detached episodes, and 
 to throw in whole paragraphs of his own ; so as to 
 produce regular compositions out of shapeless frag- 
 ments? Let the reader judge for himself whether 
 I have not already traced out the real source of his 
 art.— During the progress of collecting Galic poems, 
 he met with several of those which had been tran- 
 slated by Mr. Macpherson. Comparing these with 
 the English translation, he saw distinctly what had 
 been already done, and consequently, what re- 
 mained for him to do, as his work was to agree and 
 unite with the other. It was necessary for him to 
 employ the whole editorial art of his predecessor, 
 and nothing mare. 
 
 This was taking a ready method to exhibit beauti- 
 ful and regular English poems ; but not to preserve 
 a faithful picture of Ossian, or expose to public view, 
 the real state of poetry in Caledonia. Mr. Smith, 
 however, is ingenuous. His notes detail numerous 
 instances of compilation and composition in which 
 he indulged. This gentleman's rules are before us : 
 and we may safely extend them to the whole of 
 Ossian ; whereas, without his aid, we should, for the 
 most part, have been left to our own conjectures 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 74 
 
 respecting the unprecedented liberties assumed by 
 his mysterious master. 
 
 The senigina is now approaching to its solution — 
 It is no wonder that Ossian is so ancient, if every 
 passage and expression, that savoured of recent 
 times and manners, could be struck out, ad libitum, 
 — no wonder that he is so beautiful, if all the choice 
 flowers of Caledonia have been culled to decorate 
 his muse; or so regular, if the polished wits and 
 critics of the eighteenth century have selected epi- 
 sodes, transposed incidents, formed and connected 
 the tale, from the resources of their own learning 
 and genius. But we have not yet heard the whole 
 evidence in this cause. 
 
 " If any apology be requisite (continues Mr. 
 ■" Smith), for these freedoms, I can add, that I have 
 " been, for the most part, guided in my conjectures, 
 " and even supplied in my additions, by the tradition- 
 Ci al tales, or Sgeulachds, which always accompany 
 " and explain the old Galic poems, and which often 
 Ci remain entire, when the poems themselves are 
 " reduced to fragments. Where these tales did 
 " not throw some ray of light, I have been always 
 cc scrupulous to venture far, and have, therefore, 
 "left several breaches open; considering that, 
 " when there was no other way of supplying them, 
 "but from fancy, any other person had as much 
 " right to do that as I had. Sparing, however, as 
 u I have been jf making any alterations, which 
 " were not necessary, and warranted by some of the 
 
75 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 <( various readings, or by the tales, I am sensible 
 " the form of the poems is consiberably altered from 
 " what is found in any single one of the editions, 
 " from which they were compiled. They have 
 " assumed somewhat more of the appearance of 
 "regularity and art than they are in that shape m 
 " which they are generally to be met with. The 
 " reason of this, which has just now been given, 
 " will, it is hoped, be sustained as sufficient, by such 
 " as might, perhaps, be better pleased if they were 
 "presented to them, in that bold and irregular 
 " manner, in which they have been long accustomed 
 iC to hear them"* 
 
 The consideration, of these traditional tales or 
 romances, mentioned by the author, I must put off 
 to another section, contenting myself for the pre- 
 sent, with exhibiting a few instances of the use 
 which he made of them. 
 
 " The versification, in several places, is broken, 
 " and only supplied from the traditionary tale, 
 " which accompanies the poem. 5 't Again : — " The 
 "■most of this paragraph, and part of that before 
 " and after it, are selected from the traditionary 
 u tale of the poem. The dialogue is there carried 
 " on to a greater length, but appears too frivolous 
 " to be translated.''^ Once more : — " The most of 
 u this paragraph, with $omc others that follow, 
 
 * Galic Antiquities, p. 129. 
 f Ibid. p. 173, note on Duliiona. i Ibid. p. 152* 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 76 
 
 " particularly before and after the song of the old 
 " Bard, have been supplied from the tales, as the 
 \* versification is broken and defective."* 
 
 Without a constant recollection of the school in 
 which Mr. Smith studied, it will be difficult to 
 conceive^ how he could suppose the liberties avowed 
 in these, and many similar passages, to be consistent 
 with the province of a translator j or an editor. 
 Those who oblige the public with versions or edi- 
 tions of ancient authors, never deem such freedoms 
 warrantable ; nor do I think this gentleman could 
 have supposed they came within his sphere, and 
 have given himself credit for his frugal use of them, 
 had he not observed, that they had been already 
 employed, with still greater latitude, in adorning 
 the muse of Ossian. 
 
 The pieces contained in the Galic Antiquities 
 assimilate with the shorter poems published by Mr. 
 Macpherson. The author has exhibited nothing 
 that can be compared with a Fingal or a Temora. 
 Was this the necessary consequence of his boasted 
 self-denial, in forbearing to venture far, where 
 neither the incidents of the poem, nor a kindred 
 episode, in another poem, nor some one of his 
 various readings, nor even the popular tale, threw 
 some ray of light upon the subject ; and when there 
 was no other way of supplying incident and con- 
 nection, but from fancy and conjecture ? 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. U5, notes on the Fall of Tura, 
 
77 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 That Mr. Macpherson indulged freely in the use 
 of liberties such as these, we learn, principally, by 
 inference, from the avowed conduct and practice of 
 his pupil — from what he found absolutely necessary 
 in an editor of Ossian. His master's secrecy and 
 mystery, upon this subject, have withholden most of 
 the direct evidence, which we could have wished to 
 produce ; yet something may be discovered. 
 
 Amongst the fragments of Ossian, which are still 
 most genei'ally known, Mr. Smith found the most 
 affecting parts of Carlhon, Conlaih, Croma, and 
 JBerrathon: from these parts, Mr. Macpherson 
 restored the entire poems. Almost the whole of 
 Darthula was repeated : this almost was converted 
 into an altogether. The Death of Oscar was welt 
 known as a separate tale : we now find it incor- 
 porated into the Temora, a complete epic poem, in 
 eight books.* 
 
 Mr. Macpherson himself gives us a few distant 
 hints, relative to his editorial mystery. In the pre- 
 face to his final edition, we perceive him restraining 
 some exuberances in imagery, which had appeared 
 in his former edition. These exuberances are ac- 
 knowledged to have been his own : it must follow, 
 that he had made some additions to Ossian. But 
 he had also retrenched from him, in many instances. 
 In a note upon Colnadona, he mentions an episode, 
 handed down so imperfectly, that it does not deserve 
 
 * See Galic Antiquities, p. 97* 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 70 
 
 a place in the poem. In a note upon Cathlin of 
 Clutha, we discover Mr. Smith's licence for select- 
 ing and transposing — f c The Highland Senachies 
 " (modern Bards) have prefixed to this poem, an 
 " address of Ossian to Congal, the young son of 
 H Fergus, which I have rejected, as having no 
 u manner of connection with the rest of the piece. 
 u It has poetical merit ; and, probably, it was the 
 " opening of one of Ossian's other poems, though 
 " the Bards, injudiciously, transferred it to the 
 " piece now before us." Impressed with this idea, 
 Mr. Macpherson would, undoubtedly, have re- 
 transferred this address, had he found a more 
 convenient place for it. Thus we find the editor 
 charging the modern Bards with every irregularity, 
 which he discovers in the works of Ossian, and 
 assuming to himself the unlimited right of adjusting 
 the page of his author, agreeably to his own taste. 
 
 Again: in a note upon Sulmala ofLumon, we are 
 told — " The Highland Senachies, who, very often, 
 " endeavoured to supply the deficiency, they thought 
 u they found in the tales of Ossian, have given us 
 " the continuation of the story of the daughter of 
 f Surandronlo. The catastrophe is so unnatural, 
 " and the circumstances so ridiculously pompous, 
 " that for the sake of the in venters, 1 shall conceal 
 " them." See also two notes on Cath- Loda, Duan 2, 
 a very long note on the beginning of Duan 3 — two 
 notes on Cathlin of Clutha, a note on Temora, 
 book iii, &c. : from^ali which, it fully appears, that 
 
79" THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Mr. Macpherson did not publish these poems as he 
 found them ; but that he exercised an unlimited 
 authority over his originals, condemning, as the 
 interpolations of modern Bards, and rejecting, with- 
 out ceremony, whatever passages or expressions 
 were thought to militate against the antiquity, the 
 beauty, or the regularity of Ossian. 
 
 Of his additions we have no particular account. 
 But when we know that, till very lately, Galic 
 poems were preserved only by oral tradition; when 
 we recollect the manner in which they were re- 
 peated — as the words of popular airs — as detached 
 episodes, and as broken, irregular rhapsodies — we 
 shall not want conviction, that additions were as 
 indispensably necessary to Mr. Macpherson as to 
 his pupil, Mr. Smith. And when the former gentle- 
 man assures his antagonists;, that he should not 
 translate what he could not imitate ,* he, undoubt- 
 edly, points to a necessary qualification in the 
 editor, who would represent Ossian as consistently 
 ancient, as uniformly beautiful, and as strictly 
 regular. 
 
 For the complete elucidation of this fact, we 
 are indebted to Mr. Smith: and, to those who 
 might wish to discover truth respecting the works 
 of Ossian, I would recommend a diligent perusal 
 of the dissertation and notes, in the first edition 
 of the Galic Antiquities. 
 
 * Diss, on the poems of Ossian. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 80 
 
 I do not mean to insinuate, that the research 
 would strip Mr. Macpherson of all his laurels. If 
 it would set aside his title to the credit of original 
 composition, or to the humbler praise of a faithful 
 translator ; it would still leave him in possession of 
 something valuable. He might still enjoy the satis- 
 faction of having produced, from rude and defective 
 materials, a collection of spirited and amusing poems, 
 in a novel style. But he should not have published 
 them as genuine works of Ossian, or grounded 
 historical facts upon their authority. 
 
 If the editors of Galic poetry had confined them- 
 selves to the mere selection and transposition of 
 the sentences of old songs, their works would be of 
 that kind, which the ancients distinguished by the 
 name of Cento. Like the compiler of Virgilius 
 Evangelizcms, they might have still claimed the 
 privilege of making their author say what he never 
 intended. But when they go still farther, and 
 connect episodes with incidents of popular tales, 
 and imagery of their own fancy, they can only aspire 
 to the reputation of having produced something 
 analogous to the more modern title of OUa Podrida* 
 
 Mr. Smith has done his precursor the justice to 
 vindicate his character, from the unqualified imputa- 
 tion of imposture, with which it had been injured, 
 by some writers of credit. He records instances of 
 his candour,which were either unknown in England, 
 or unregarded. He also furnishes strong collateral 
 evidence, that Galic poems, on the exploits of the 
 
81 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Fingalian heroes, did exist. He produces several 
 hundred excellent lines, as specimens of his own 
 collection, and some, even of Mr, Macpherson's. 
 In an advertisement prefixed to his volume, he 
 promises the public a complete edition of all his 
 originals, upon due encouragement : he met that 
 encouragement, and fulfilled his engagement. He 
 assures us, that several parts and episodes of these 
 poems are still repeated in families ; that they are 
 accompanied with ancient original music, and that 
 their language is perfectly understood.* 
 
 The same thing appears in Mr. Macpherson's 
 publication. " The paragraph just now before us 
 u (says that writer), is the song of Conban-Carglas, 
 " at the time she was discovered by Fingal. It is 
 " in lyric measure, and set to music, which is wild 
 u and simple, and so inimitably suited to the situa- 
 " tion of the unhappy lady, that few can hear it 
 " without tears. "t Again : — " This episode is, in 
 " the original, extremely beautiful. It is set to that 
 " wild kind of music, which some of the Highlanders 
 " distinguish by the title of Fori Oimarra, the song 
 " of the mermaids, &c.' 5 J And this reminds me of 
 that remarkable circumstance which I have already 
 mentioned ; namely, the long period of popularity 
 which the muse of Ossian is supposed to have en- 
 joyed. The editors of Galic poetry adjudge many 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 95, 97, 122, 128, 134, 307, 314. 
 f Note on Cath Loda, Duan i. % Ibid. Duan iu 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 82 
 
 of the ballads and songs, which were familiar to 
 the illiterate Highlander, in the middle of the 
 eighteenth century, to be undoubtedly the composi- 
 tion of Ossian* But, considering the sera assigned 
 to that Bard, this opinion appears to me very ob- 
 jectionable. If even those detached episodes and 
 fragments, which adorn the bottom of Mr. Smith's 
 pages, were composed in the beginning of the fourth 
 century, the circumstance of their being still so 
 perfectly understood, as to constitute the trivial 
 amusement of winter evenings, in the Highland 
 cottage, is the most singular phenomenon that 
 Scotland can produce. It places the language of 
 that country upon a most stable basis, very different 
 from that of any other Celtic nation. 
 
 Ireland boasts the stability of her language, and, 
 I believe, with some reason ; but, at the same time, 
 her antiquaries find it difficult to translate poems, of 
 far more recent composition, and fairly acknow- 
 ledge, that such poems could have been preserved 
 only in writing. As for my own countrymen, I must 
 put them entirely out of the question. Taliesin and 
 Aneurin have been obscure for a thousand years. 
 Their poems seem, at present, to be in a dead lan- 
 guage. Even the elegant and pathetic Davydd ab 
 Owilym, who wrote little more than four centuries 
 ago, would frequently want an interpreter, in the 
 families which speak the purest modern Welsh. 
 
 * See Galic Antiquities, p. 97. 
 
83 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Chevy Chace, and the ballads of Robin Hood, were 
 composed about the time of Elizabeth. Some frag- 
 ments of them may still be found in the mouths o^ 
 a few English rustics : but who, excepting the 
 poring antiquary, can now be entertained with 
 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, or the Visions of 
 Pier's Plowman ? 
 
 Before we can admit, that the language of Ossian, 
 alone, possesses an exemption from mortality, we 
 must demand some evidence of this its distinguished 
 privilege, stronger than any which has hitherto 
 come before us. For what does that amount to ? 
 
 The editors found the name of Ossian in those 
 fragments of poems which they collected. The 
 origin of those fragments was unknown ; but the 
 populace, those judges of the accidents of language, 
 esteemed them ancient and genuine ; their subjects 
 also referred to some remote ages. National pre- 
 possession was in their favour ; and the translators 
 were patriots. They received them as they found 
 them,, and the patriotic bias easily disposed them to 
 ratify their credentials. Why should they be the 
 first to suspect that their composition was more 
 recent than the times which they described? Why 
 should they search for evidence or argument, which 
 could only have tended to the degradation of the 
 Caledonian muse? 
 
 National prepossession takes a strong hold, even 
 of vigorous minds. Ossian was contemplated not- 
 only as an ancient, but as an excellent poet. Many 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. B4 
 
 of the fragments which bore his name, countenanced 
 this opinion. We have seen that Mr. Smith, whilst 
 he culls his various readings, — whilst he prunes, 
 selects, transposes, and ransacks the popular tales, 
 and his own fancy, for connective paragraphs, — is 
 fully persuaded that he is only restoring Ossian. 
 Had Mr. Macpherson less of the patriotic enthusi- 
 asm ? Was he less zealous for the glory of Scotland? 
 He obtained Mac Vurrich's treasure. He was struck 
 with the beauty of many of the fragments it con- 
 tained. He wished to communicate to the public 
 an idea of that beauty. From oral tradition, he 
 made collections of his own. His various readings 
 suggested many improvements. The popular tales, 
 which treated of the same subjects, presented 
 spontaneous hints of easy connection, and the 
 poems began to grow into form. Ossian, every day, 
 appeared more worthy of himself. Excellence was 
 now full in the editor's view; and his taste and 
 genius, neither of which he possessed in a con- 
 temptible degree, spurred him on to the attainment 
 of that excellence. He had begun well ; but where 
 was he to have checked his career ? At what precise 
 point ought he to have stopped his improving hand ? 
 At what period, to have blotted out the name of 
 Ossian, and substituted that of Macpherson? A 
 great change was effected ; but it was effected by 
 degrees. — The old woollen stockings, by repeated 
 mendings, were gradually converted into silk. 
 
85 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Mr. Macpherson's first publication, he tells us> 
 was merely accidental. Several of the fragments 
 which he had worked up into his Fingal, being well 
 known in Scotland, as the reputed works of that 
 hero's son, the editor modestly retained the name 
 of Ossian. He may have thought that he had only 
 restored the poem to that brilliancy and polish, with 
 which it was originally adorned by the venerable 
 Bard. But when the doubts of the public, who had 
 not quite so high an opinion of old Celtic poetry, 
 and their loud clamours for the original, became 
 troublesome, how was the editor either to reclaim 
 the work for himself, or to exhibit his Galic author ? 
 Could he declare that he had no originals? That 
 would have been unjust to the cause of his country. 
 Could he produce his fragments and episodes, 
 tacked together by paragraphs of humble prose, or 
 awkward imitations, in hobbling verse ? That would 
 have been exposing both Ossian and himself to 
 ridicule. Nothing was left but to intimate to the 
 public, in his final edition, that Macpherson and 
 Ossian went partners in fame — that he was both the 
 author and translator ^ and that he could imitate as 
 well as Anglicise the native beauties of the Cale- 
 donian muse. To his friends he also frequently 
 repeated a kind of sine die promise, that the ori- 
 ginal Bard should step forth ; that is, I suppose, if 
 ever he should be able to furnish him with a robe 
 suited to his princely dignity. 
 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 80 
 
 In denying the genuineness of the poems of Ossian, 
 and even their existence, as Galic poems, in the form 
 in which they present themselves to the English 
 reader, I avail myself of the direct evidence of the 
 author of the Galic Antiquities: but I have also 
 suggested, that those episodes and fragments, which 
 the Highlanders actually repeat, as the works of this 
 Bard, are not genuine : and this I have done, in 
 contradiction to the opinion of the last mentioned 
 writer, who thinks that, to all men of judgment, 
 taste, and candour, who have perused with attention, 
 either the poems themselves, or the able and elegant 
 defence of their authenticity by Dr. Blair, all future 
 vindication must appear a superfluous labour.* 
 
 Arguments vary in their force and effect, as the 
 point which they are directed to substantiate, is 
 more or less probable in itself. And though I think 
 the cause of Ossian too desperate for the undertaking 
 of the most able advocate, yet, to him who touches 
 upon this subject, the arguments of such a writer as 
 Dr. Blair, must be the objects of attention. I shall 
 therefore briefly consider such of them as may not, 
 incidentally come in my way, in other parts of this 
 essay. 
 
 It must, first of all, be observed, that the Doctor 
 acknowledges his ignorance of the original poems, 
 and of the language in which they are asserted to 
 have been composed. His reasoning arises from a 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 87, 
 
 M 
 
87 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 view of the translation, and, perhaps, from some 
 private hints that were put into his hands. The 
 principal part of the Critical Dissertation only 
 descants on the merit of Ossian, as a poet. Having 
 acknowledged his excellence in general terms, the 
 author proceeds to his first defensive argument. 
 In this, he meets the grand objection, That Ossian's 
 poetry is too regular and artificial, for the age and 
 country in which he is supposed to have lived. 
 Upon this subject the elegant writer is very copious ; 
 but the substance of his argument amounts to this — 
 That Ossian may have derived his art of poetry 
 from that order of Bards which was connected with 
 the Druidical Establishment. 
 
 This hypothetical reasoning assumes — That the old 
 Celtic Bards were excellent poets — that Ossian had 
 studied their manner, and acquired their art ; and y 
 consequently, was qualified to compose excellent and 
 regular poems, upon the model of these masters. 
 
 But if we may judge from the oldest specimens 
 of poetical composition, which have been preserved 
 by different Celtic nations, the poetry of those Bards 
 was extremely rude, uncouth and unequal. It was, 
 in every respect, very dissimilar from the works 
 which have been ascribed to Ossian: and, therefore, 
 if Ossian was the disciple of those Bards, he could 
 not, possibly, have been the author of the poems in 
 question.* If he was not their disciple, his art of 
 
 * See the Odes of the ancient Irish in the Relics of Irish poetry, and 
 the Transactions of the R. I. Academy, for the year 1788 : see also the spe- 
 cimens and description of the old Welsh Bards, in Mr. Turner's Vindication* 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN* 08 
 
 poetry is still unaccounted for, and the great objec* 
 tion unanswered. The Doctor had conceived a very 
 erroneous idea of the state of poetry amongst the 
 ancient Celts. Let this error be corrected, and the 
 whole force of this primary argument is immediately 
 directed against the authenticity of Ossian. 
 
 Doctor Blair's second argument is thus ex- 
 pressed : — " The manners of Ossian 's age, as far as 
 <( we can gather them from his writings, were 
 " abundantly favourable to a poetical genius. The 
 4t two dispiriting vices, to which Longinus imputes 
 " the decline of poetry, covetousness and effeminacy, 
 " were, as yet, unknown. The cares of men were 
 f few. They lived a roving, indolent life ; hunting 
 " and war were their principal employments ; and 
 6< their chief amusements, the music of the Bards, 
 fi and the feast of shells." 
 
 But, for most of the particulars in this description 
 we need not resort to the writings of the Galic 
 Bard : they were applicable to the Highlanders, in 
 the days of our fathers. The picture is sketched, 
 in nearly the same words, by Sir J. Dalrymple,* as 
 well as by the editors of Ossian. Were the High- 
 landers rich and covetous ; were they soft and 
 effeminate, seventy years ago ? Were they indus- 
 trious, and fully occupied with business? Had they 
 forgotten the pleasures of the chase, their ancient 
 glory in war, the music and tale of the Bards, or 
 
 * Sec their description at large, in the Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, 
 
#9 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the abundance of the feast ? And if the manners 
 here implied were favourable to poetical genius, in 
 the third and fourth centuries, why should they be 
 deemed less favourable in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth, when some portion of learning might be 
 called in to their assistance ? 
 
 The author of the Critical Dissertation observes, 
 in the next place: — " The compositions of Ossian 
 & are so strongly marked with characters of an- 
 v. tiquity, that, although there were no external 
 <? proof to support that antiquity, hardly any reader 
 M of judgment and taste, could hesitate in referring 
 f them to a very remote aera. There are four great 
 " stages, through which men successively pass, in 
 cc the progress of society. The first and earliest is 
 " the life of hunters ; pasturage succeeds to this, as 
 V the ideas of property begin to take root; next 
 " agriculture ; and lastly, commerce." 
 
 The particulars under this head are the following, 
 to which I subjoin a few obvious remarks. — 1. "Here 
 f* are but few allusions to pasturage, and no traces 
 " of agriculture." — But the case is precisely the 
 same, in Irish poems of the fifteenth century, which 
 treat of Fingal and his heroes, and in Scotch poems 
 of a still more recent date. The Bards were not 
 describing scenes which were present before them. 
 They were aware, that the subjects of their tales 
 were placed in a simple and remote age : their 
 fancy, of course, would not dwell upon modern 
 improvements, and familiar objects. The rhymers 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 90 
 
 of Queen Elizabeth's days have well preserved the 
 barbarous manners of Robin Hood's age.— 2. " No 
 " cities appear to have been built in the territories 
 " of Fingal." — Could we ascertain the precise 
 boundaries of the kingdom of Morven, we should 
 probably find no cities within the same limits, at the 
 present day. This poetical dominion was evidently 
 small. The hero could hardly start a buck, without 
 running him into the territories of some neighbour- 
 ing prince ; yet the dominions of Fingal contained 
 the grey walls and hundred towers of Selma, and 
 the royal palace of Tura.* — 3. " Every thing pre- 
 " sents to us the most simple and unimproved 
 H manners — at the feast, the heroes prepare their 
 ' c own repast." — But nearly such have been the 
 manners of the Highlanders, and such the custom 
 of hunting parties, and companies of warriors, to a 
 very recent age. The fourth argument is stated 
 thus : — " The representation of Ossian's times must 
 " strike us the more, as genuine and authentic, 
 ," when it is compared with a poem of later date, 
 " which Mr. Macpherson has preserved, in one of 
 " his notes. It is that wherein five Bards are re- 
 f* presented as passing the evening in the house of 
 Ci a chief, and each of them, separately, giving his 
 " description of the night. — The author has allowed 
 F some images to appear, which betray a later 
 " period of society — whereas, in Ossian's works, 
 <c from beginning to end, all is consistent." 
 
 * See Galic Antiq. p. 313, &c. 
 
91 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 The poem here alluded to is a single instance, 
 in which the professed purpose of the author is, to 
 paint the scene which is actually moving before his 
 eyes. The province of those Bards, who composed 
 m the character of Ossian, was totally different. It 
 was their business to sketch what they thought a 
 just representation of a remote age. We must also 
 recollect what Mr. Macpherson repeatedly incul- 
 cates to us, that he strikes off, as the interpolation 
 of later Bards, every paragraph and expression that 
 seems inconsistent with the age, which he assigns 
 to his poems. This argument, therefore, is only 
 complimentary to the judgement of Ossian's editor. 
 
 Let us proceed to the next.- — u The circle of 
 " ideas and transactions is no wider than suits such 
 u an age ; nor any greater diversity introduced into 
 u characters, than the events of that period would 
 " naturally display." This might be regarded as an 
 instance of judgment, in the compilers of the 
 poems, had not the editor repeatedly assured us, 
 that the ideas of the modern ^Galic Bards are still 
 confined within the same narrow circle. 
 
 We are told, in the next place, that " The manner 
 " of composition bears all the marks of the greatest 
 " antiquity. No artful transitions ; nor full and 
 " extended connection of parts ; such as we find 
 " among the poets of later times, when order and 
 " regularity of composition were more studied and 
 " known." Whoever attends to the conduct of the 
 story, and the collocation of episodes, in the Fingal 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 92 
 
 and Temora, not to mention the smaller poems ; 
 whoever adverts to Mr. Macpherson's elucidations, 
 throughout the whole collection, must be convinced, 
 that abundance of well directed art has been em- 
 ployed ; infinitely more than what appears in the 
 work of any other poet, of a rude and barbarous age. 
 Of this, Doctor Blair himself is fully aware, when 
 he tells us — " There we find the fire and the en- 
 " thusiasm of the most early times, combined with 
 " an amazing degree of regularity and art' J 9 and 
 when he represents nature and the Druidical school, 
 as having taught Ossian all the essential rules of 
 Aristotle. As for the connections of parts, it is 
 pretty clear, from what has been already quoted 
 out of the Galic Antiquities, that the editors are 
 responsible for most of them, whether good or bad* 
 Again ; it is said that " The language has all the 
 u figurative cast, and all the marks of genuine 
 " antiquity." Mr. Smith, who recapitulates all the 
 Doctor's arguments, dwells at some length, on the 
 topic of Ossian's language. This subject occurs in 
 the 90th page of his volume ; and in a note at the 
 bottom of the page, he informs us, that the same 
 style is still used in Galic compositions. This fact 
 is also evident, from the modern pieces, which both 
 Mr. Smith and Mr. Macpherson have quoted in 
 their notes. And the last mentioned author ob- 
 serves, that the modern tales of the Highlanders 
 preserve the very language of the Bards. — The 
 converse of this proposition is, probably, nearer to 
 
93 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the real fact* What, then, is there peculiarly an- 
 tique in the language of Ossian ? 
 
 The next argument adduced in the Critical 
 Dissertation seems to be utterly at variance with 
 the first, in which Ossian is represented as a disciple 
 of the Druidical Bards. — It is in these words : — 
 " There are besides, two other circumstances to be 
 ** attended to, still of greater weight, if possible.— 
 " One is the total absence of religious ideas from 
 " this i&ork, for which the translator has, in his 
 is preface, given a very probable account, on the 
 t( footing of its being the work of Ossian. The 
 " Druidical superstition was, in the days of Ossian, 
 " on the point of its final extinction ; and for par- 
 " ticular reasons, odious to the family of Fingal; 
 ic whilst the Christian faith was not yet established.' 
 
 I have already remarked several coincidences, 
 between the history of the Caledonian and the Irish 
 Ossian. The Atheism of the latter, or his absolute 
 ignorance of religion, is not the least remarkable 
 trait of his character. Of this, Miss Brooke, in her 
 Reliques of Irish Poetry, has exposed some shock- 
 ing instances. Thus, p. 88, the Bard addresses 
 St. Patrick:— 
 
 " Where was thy God, when Magnus came-* 
 
 " Magnus the brave and great ; 
 ee The man of might, the man of fame, 
 
 u Whose threat'ning voice was fate I 
 <l Thy Godhead did not aid us then ;— 
 
 " If such a God there be, 
 " He should have favour'd gallant men, 
 
 " As great and good as He. v &c. 6sc< 
 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 94 
 
 But to return to the argument — Is it probable, 
 that the poetical art of the Druids, whatever it may 
 have been, survived their superstition ; or that the 
 disciples of their school, amongst whom Ossian has 
 been ranked, would not have preserved some tinc- 
 ture of the fountain from whence they drew ? We 
 know that the very contrary has happened to the 
 old Bards of the Britons. There is hardly an atom 
 of art in all they have left us; but they are full 
 of mythological allusion, and druidical superstition. 
 It should appear, then, that Ossian was not a dis- 
 ciple of the druidical Bards; and, at any rate, that 
 either this argument, or the other, must be expelled. 
 In the writing of such an author as Dr. Blair, we 
 should not have expected to be reminded of the 
 pellets of a boy's popgun. But these materials 
 may have been put into his hands in their present 
 arrangement, and suffered to pass without due ex- 
 amination, and cool reflection. As the Doctor, 
 however, has referred us to the translator, let us 
 hear his account. — In the Dissertation concerning 
 the (era of Ossian, we are told, that, in the time of 
 Trathaly the great-grandfather of our Bard, a civil 
 war commenced, which soon ended, in almost the 
 total extinction of the religious order of the Druids 
 •—that a total disregard for the order, and utter 
 abhorrence of the druidical rites, ensued. Under 
 this cloud of public hate, all that had any knowledge 
 of the religion of the Druids, became extinct, and 
 the nation fell into the last degree of ignorance, of 
 
 N 
 
95 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 their rites and ceremonies. — In the poem of Cathlin 
 of Clutha, Trenmor, the great-grandfather of Fingal, 
 with his young son, Trathal, is represented as having 
 entirely broken the power of the Druids, and their 
 Scandinavian auxiliaries* But the poems, as well 
 as the prose romances of the Caledonians, are in- 
 consistent. In two long " poems of Ossian," in 
 Mr. Smith's collection, we find Dargo, the son of 
 the chief Druid, and his son Cuthon, at the head of 
 powerful armies, with their Scandinavian auxiliaries, 
 opposed to Fingal and his sons, Ossian and Fergus,* 
 Thus we find Ossian, the historian of his own times i 
 varying no less than four or five generations, in the 
 account of a great and public event — undetermined 
 whether he should ascribe the glory of the victory to 
 his father, or to his great-grandfather, or to himself. 
 Mr. Macpherson having, in his Dissertation, ac- 
 counted, as we have seen, for Ossian's silence, re- 
 specting the druidical religion, proceeds two pages, 
 and then adduces the absence of allusion to Chris- 
 tianity, as an argument, that the Bard had composed, 
 at an sera prior to the introduction of that religion : 
 and yet, in the intermediate page, he has told us, 
 that those who write in the Galic language— -he 
 uses the present tense — seldom mention religion in 
 their profane poetry ; and he regards this custom 
 alone, as a satisfactory account for the author's 
 silence, concerning the religion of ancient times. 
 
 * Galic Autiq. p. 277, and 293. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 96 
 
 What kind of reasoning is this ! Ossian never 
 mentions religion : it is the custom of the modem 
 Galic Bards not to mention religion, in their profane 
 poetry ; therefore Ossian must be ancient ! 
 
 I now proceed to Dr. Blair's other great circum- 
 stance ; namely, " The entire silence, which reigns, 
 " with respect to all the great clans or families, which 
 " are now established in the Highlands." 
 
 Though we contend that the author of these 
 poems did not compose in the third century ; yet 
 we must maintain, that he composed for that age, 
 or for some period of remote antiquity. Many of 
 the present families are ancient : their origin, not- 
 withstanding, may be discovered ; and the author 
 would not commit himself so far as to place them 
 in the days of Fiugal. In disallowing the Bard's 
 claim to high antiquity, we do not mean to deny 
 him the exercise of common sense, and of a con- 
 siderable degree of shrewdness. 
 
 The poem ascribed to Rowley, on the Battle of 
 Hastings, mentions none of the English nobility of 
 the fourteenth or fifteenth century, as present in 
 that action ; but this silence has not been adduced 
 as a strong argument, that young Chatterton was 
 not the real author. 
 
 Of the general system of Clanship, the Galic 
 Bard does not appear to have been ignorant, If we 
 are not allowed to assert, that the heroes, and the 
 young warriors, who always attended Fingal, in the 
 field, in the chase, and at the feast, constituted his 
 
97 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 appropriate clan, or rather the clan of Trenmor, and 
 that the friendly or hostile chiefs, who were close at 
 his elbows, may be considered as the heads of other 
 clans ; yet, the poems themselves, will assist us, in 
 pointing out some establishments of this kind. In 
 the poem of Carthon, we read — " Cathul rose in his 
 " strength, the son of the mighty Lormar: three 
 " hundred youths attended the chief; the race of 
 " his native streams." Here the editor remarks in 
 a note — " It appears from this passage, that clan*' 
 " ship was established in the days of Fingal, 
 " though not on the same footing with the present 
 f< tribes, in the north of Scotland." 
 
 I have now considered the arguments, upon which 
 Dr. Blair regards the antiquity of Ossian, and the 
 genuineness of his poems, as fully established^*— 
 *' All these (concludes the author) are marks so 
 " undoubted, and some of them too, so nice and 
 " delicate, of the most early times, as to put the 
 " high antiquity of these poems out of question." 
 
 With the most sincere endeavours to divest 
 myself of prejudice, I have minutely examined these 
 marks ; but I have still the mortification to differ in 
 opinion from a writer so elegant and so respectable. 
 I can find here no satisfactory evidence of the an- 
 tiquity of these poems. In a cause less desperate 
 than that of Ossian, all these particulars could 
 be produced only as corroborative circumstances. 
 Mixed with solid and substantial proofs, they might 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 98 
 
 properly adorn and fill up an argumentative dis- 
 course : without such proofs, they do nothing. 
 
 The works themselves, in the state in which Mr. 
 Macpherson found them, were such, I humbly 
 presume, as a man of genius and some learning may 
 have produced, within the two last centuries. I 
 will suppose the Bard to have lived in the Highlands, 
 and to have had the popular tales of his country, 
 and some fragments of its more ancient poetry, with 
 similar fragments of the Irish Bards, present to his 
 recollection. He had now nothing to do but to 
 select and versify the most interesting parts of his 
 traditional stories, in a manner suited to the taste 
 of his audience. The works thus produced, having 
 been new modelled, pruned, connected, and adorn- 
 ed, by the judgment, discernment, and imitative 
 genius of Mr. Macpherson, might easily have 
 assumed that form in which we now find them. 
 
 I have already remarked, that the editor seems 
 to have committed the question of antiquity and 
 genuineness, principally, into the hands of Dr. 
 Blair : but he has not entirely neglected their de- 
 fence, in his own person. In his Dissertation 
 concerning the wra, he remarks, — " The strongest 
 66 objection to the antiquity of the poems, now given 
 u to the public, under the name of Ossian, is the 
 ■" improbability of their being handed by tradition, 
 &' through so many centuries. Ages of barbarism, 
 " some will say, could not produce — such poems ; 
 " and could these ages produce them, it is impossible 
 
99 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 « but they must be lost, or altogether corrupted, in 
 " a long succession of barbarous generations." 
 
 This truly formidable objection, the author en- 
 deavours to refel, by ascribing the preservation of 
 the poems to the Bards, the disciples of the Druids, 
 who had their minds opened, and their ideas en- 
 larged, by being initiated into the learning of that 
 celebrated order. We have already seen the other 
 face of this argument ; but let the writer have his 
 own way. If this character, however, was applica- 
 ble to the Bard who originally produced the poems, 
 and to those who first received them from his 
 mouth; yet, it is acknowledged, that the order soon 
 degenerated : for we are presently told, that their 
 successors became exceedingly fanciful, fabulous, 
 and absurd. — «' They loved to place the founders 
 " of their families in the days of fable, when poetry, 
 cc without fear of contradiction, could give what 
 u characters it pleased to her heroes." We are 
 afterwards informed, that every chief, in process of 
 time, had a Bard in his family — that the office 
 became, at last, hereditary — that the successors of 
 these Bards handed down the poems, from genera- 
 tion to generation, by oral tradition — that they 
 repeated them, to the whole clan, upon solemn 
 occasions, and that this custom came down to our 
 own times. 
 
 We have partly heard the editor's character of 
 those pilots, whose office it was, to conduct Ossian 
 in safety, over the perilous gulf of fifty barbarous 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 100 
 
 generations. But lest we should have misconceived 
 his meaning, let us listen again. — " A succession of 
 " Bards was retained, in every clan, to hand down 
 " the memorable actions of their forefathers. As 
 " Fingal and his chiefs were the most renowned 
 " names in tradition, the Bards took care to place 
 u them in the genealogy of evert/ great family. 
 " They became famous among the people, and an 
 " object of fiction and poetry to the Bards. 
 " The Bards erected their immediate patrons into 
 " heroes, and celebrated them in their songs. As 
 u the circle of their knowledge was narrow, their 
 " ideas were confined in proportion. A few happy 
 ** expressions, and the manners they represent, 
 " may please those who understand the language ; 
 ii their obscurity and inaccuracy would disgust in a 
 " translation."* 
 
 We may judge, from hence, of the fidelity , capa- 
 city, and accuracy of such oral reciters. They are 
 elsewhere described as indelicate, absurd, and 
 puerile in the extreme — a pretty strong proof, that 
 their memory was not furnished with such excellent 
 models as the poems of Ossian. The strong ob- 
 jection therefore remains in full force. The poems 
 were produced in a more cultivated age ; and, as 
 they were not preserved in writing, that age did not 
 precede — it must have come after the times of the 
 trivial and puerile Bards. 
 
 * Diss, on the Poems of Ossian. 
 
101 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Mr. Smith has also added a few circumstances fo 
 the observations of Dr. Blair. He finds some names 
 of places in Scotland, derived from Fingal and his 
 heroes ; as, Cruach Fhionn, the Hill of Fingal: — 
 but Fhionn implies also, white, fair, small y &c ; it 
 might, therefore, enter into the descriptive name of 
 a place, without any reference to Fingal. So also, 
 among the Isles, we find Inis Chonnain, Inis 
 Aildhe — the Isle of Connan, Aldo, &c. But the 
 poets may have borrowed names of fabulous heroes 
 from the appellatives of places, as Geoffrey of 
 Monmouth had his Camber from Cambria, his 
 Albanactus from Albania, &c. On the other hand, 
 we must not forget, that the Bards loved to engraft 
 the founders of their patrons' families into the con- 
 nections of Fingal. 
 
 Again : the poems are said to contain many Galie 
 proverbs: but may not the Bards have borrowed 
 proverbs from the people, as well as the people 
 from the Bards ? 
 
 Several gentlemen, having desired the High- 
 landers to explain passages of old poems, which 
 they repeated, found their extemporaneous explana- 
 tion correspondent with the English version.* 
 
 Mr. Smith infers, — " Either these persons were 
 " inspired, or Ossian's poems are authentic." This 
 conclusion is not warranted by the premises, which 
 only prove, that those particular passages did exist 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 97. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 102 
 
 in the Galic, and that they had been faithfully 
 translated. Here is no document of the existence 
 of any entire poem, nor of the age and authenticity 
 of these very passages. 
 
 Harold Harfager conquered the Hebrides in 875 * 
 and the Galic names of those Islands are said to 
 have been, consequently, lost ; hut several of them 
 are still found in the poems of Ossian: whence it is 
 inferred, that those poems are of higher antiquity 
 than the reign of Harold,* But surely these names 
 did not vanish immediately upon the Norwegian 
 conquest. The old inhabitants were neither extir- 
 pated nor expelled : for the Galic language is still 
 spoken in those Islands. When the natives used 
 their own language, they would certainly continue 
 to designate their country, by the names which 
 they had derived from their forefathers. Edward 
 the First finally conquered Wales ; but the inhabi- 
 tants still use their native terms for the country 
 in general, and for its particular districts. The 
 Highlanders also, who knew these Islands, would 
 naturally, for some generations at least, continue 
 to distinguish them by their usual names. The 
 Britons had lost Worcester, Gloucester, York, and 
 the Isle of Wight, long before the age of Harold ; 
 yet they still remember Caer Warangon, Caer 
 Loyw, Caer Evrawg, and Ynys Wyth, After all, 
 the names of Islands which are found only in these 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 98; 
 O 
 
103 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 poems, may not be authentic. A composer of ro- 
 mance may speak of the Isle of Whales, the Isle of 
 Waves, the Isle of Mist, the JRocky Isle, &c. without 
 being a great proficient in ancient geography. 
 
 These are the principal arguments for the anti- 
 quity of Ossian, which I find in the dissertations 
 and notes attached to his works. To search for 
 more of the same kind, in all the Scotch Disser- 
 tations, Sketches, Histories, &c. &c. which have 
 appeared since the year 1761, would be endless 
 labour: but though the field be so wide, I am 
 persuaded the harvest would prove but scanty. — 
 It may be taken for granted, that the best and 
 steadiest troops of the King of Morven are those 
 which surround his royal person. 
 
 I therefore quit this part of the subject, with the 
 general impression, that the false principles, in con- 
 clusive arguments and flashing hypotheses, which 
 appear in the defenders of Ossian, arise from the 
 weakness of the cause : and I proceed to feel out 
 my way, as well as I can, towards the real origin 
 of these poems. 
 
SECTION III. 
 
 On the origin of the Galic poems, with some conjectures relative to the 
 principal hero whom they celebrate. 
 
 The poems partly arose from the traditional tales.— Account of those 
 tales.— The Irish had similar tales. — Which were the originals ? — The pub- 
 licity of the Irish— and obscurity of the Scotch tales— prove that the 
 former were the originals.— Conjectures on the history of Fingal.— Mr. 
 Macpherson's calculation of his aeia — contradictory in itself. — Attempt to 
 discover his sera — probably, the close of the •ninth, century — though some 
 Irish and Scotch poems bring him down to the end of the eleventh, — The 
 Caledonian Bard imitates an Irish poem of the fifteenth century — this 
 circumstance furnishes a fair criterion of the age of the Galic poems. 
 
If these poems, I mean, the detached episodes, 
 and fragments of poems, which the Highlanders 
 actually repeat, are not the composition of Ossian, 
 or of any other Bard, in those early times, which 
 they describe, it may be asked, what general idea 
 ought we to form of the manner of their production? 
 
 My opinion is, that they did not originate from 
 one simple source, but that some of them were 
 compiled out of the popular tales of the High- 
 landers ; and others, out of similar tales of the Irish 
 nation ; whilst a tliird series may be regarded as 
 direct imitations of Irish poems. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the immediate 
 parents of several of these pieces, are to be sought 
 amongst the traditional tales, or Sgeulachds, men- 
 tioned by Mr, Smith, which always accompany 
 and explain the old Galic poems, and which often 
 remain entire, when the poems themselves are re- 
 duced to fragments .* From these tales they were 
 versified by some unknown Bards, who had sufficient 
 genius to distinguish and select the most valuable 
 parts of such materials. This hypothesis is not 
 new. The author of the Galic Antiquities remarks— 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 129. 
 
107 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " Some have supposed, that a great number of the 
 " Galic tales, which are in a language highly figura- 
 f* tive and poetical, though not confined to numbers, 
 -" have been the first essays in poetry, and long prior 
 " to the sera of verse." Very well : but what are 
 the sentiments of this very writer, who was much 
 in the secret of Ossian? — " This is not improbable, 
 u as the warmth of the uncultivated imagination, 
 u and the barrenness of language, would naturally 
 f.f give rise to all the figures of rhetoric, before art 
 " could reduce words to measure or numbers."* 
 Is not this giving up the authenticity of Ossian, at 
 one stroke ? For the tales of the Caledonians 
 cannot have been more ancient than their subject : 
 and, if the tales which relate to the actions of Fingal, 
 were long prior to the (era of verse, it must follow, 
 that they could not have been versified by the son 
 of that hero. 
 
 I will not insist upon this, as I am inclined to 
 think, that verse, of some sort or other, was known 
 to the Caledonians, long before they knew any thing 
 of Ossian. At the same time, it must be remarked, 
 that the author of the poems, which go under this 
 name, regards the tales as of the higher antiquity. — 
 " His words came only by halves to our ears ; they 
 6i were dark, as the tales of other times, before the 
 " light of the song arose" And again, in the 
 beginning of Oina-Morul, where the personified 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 275. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN; 108 
 
 Ossian professes to relate his ovbn expedition to 
 Scandinavia — P I seize the tales as they pass, and 
 " pour them forth in the song'' 
 
 Let us now attend to the history of these tales*, 
 as recorded by the editors of Ossian, and let Mr* 
 Macphersonbe heard first. — p As I have mentioned 
 " the traditional tales of the Highlanders, it may 
 " not be improper here to give some account of 
 <c them. After the expulsion of the Mar ds from 
 u the houses of the chiefs (that is, three generations 
 " ago), they owed all their subsistence to the 
 u generosity of the vulgar, whom they diverted 
 " with repeating the compositions of their prede- 
 " cessors, and running up the genealogies of their 
 P entertainers, to the family of their chiefs. As 
 " this subject was, however, soon exhausted, they 
 " were obliged to have recourse to invention, and 
 " form stories, having no foundation in fact, which 
 " were swallowed with great credulity by the 
 u ignorant multitude. By frequent repeating, the 
 " fable grew upon their hands, and as each threw 
 16 in whatever circumstances he thought conducive 
 " to raise the admiration of his hearers, the story 
 " became, at last, so devoid of all probability, that 
 " even the vulgar themselves did not believe it 
 i6 They, however, liked the tales so well, that the 
 u Sards found their advantage in turning professed 
 P talemakers. — These tales, it is certain, like 
 P other romantic compositions, have many things in 
 *' them, unnatural, and, consequently, disgustful to 
 
109 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " true taste ; but I know not how it happens, they 
 « command attention, more than any other fictions 
 " I ever met with. The extreme length of these 
 " pieces is very surprising, some of them requiring 
 " many days to repeat them, but such hold they 
 " take of the memory, that few circumstances are 
 " ever omitted, by those who have received them; 
 " only from oral tradition : what is still more amaz- 
 -** ing, the very language of the Bards is still 
 " preserved.'** 
 
 To this account of the tales, Mr. Smith fully 
 subscribes, observing first of all,- — " That they take 
 " the strongest hold of the memory and imagina- 
 u tion ; insomuch that they are frequently to be 
 " met with, where the poems ttre beginning to be 
 f c rare."\ 
 
 Such, then, are the traditional tales of the High- 
 landers, which some have supposed, with probability 
 on their side, to have been long prior to verse /— 
 those tales, with the materials of which Mr. Smith 
 stops up the gaps in his poems, and supplies a 
 multitude of paragraphs ; and, by the aid of which, 
 Mr. Macpherson obtains the complete story of most 
 of the poems which he has published. — For the full 
 confirmation of these facts, I appeal to these gentle- 
 men's introductions to the several poems, and to the 
 notes throughout their volumes. 
 
 If there needs any stronger proof that Fingal and 
 his heroes were the frequent theme of these modem, 
 
 * Note on Catu-Loda, Duan i. t Galic Antiq. p. 129. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. HO 
 
 unfounded talemakers, that proof has alrerdy been 
 given in the words of both editors. Wherever the 
 poem exists, we always find a prose narrative, upon 
 the same subject, orally repeated by the Highlander. 
 The question is, which of the two must be accounted 
 the original ? If we believe the Bard, that honour 
 pertains to the tales : for he says expressly, " I seize 
 " the tales, as they pass, and pour them forth in 
 " the song." 
 
 But, for a more circumstantial solution of this 
 question, let us compare one or two of the poems 
 with the epitome of their appropriate tales. In the 
 first note upon Cath Loda, the poem which opens 
 Mr, Macpherson's collection, the editor remarks — 
 " The abrupt manner in which the story of this poem 
 " begins, may render it obscure to some readers : it 
 " may not, therefore, be improper to give here the 
 € i traditional preface, which is generally prefixed to 
 " it." He then recites a circumstantial account of 
 Fingal's visit to the Orkney Islands, — how, upon his 
 return to his own dominions, a tempest forced him 
 into a bay of Scandinavia, where he was met by his 
 enemy, Starno, the king of that country, &c. — - 
 adding, in conclusion — " The sequels of the story 
 " may be learned from the poem itself." 
 
 Here we may perceive, at one glance, that the 
 
 tale is complete in its kind: it comprehends the 
 
 whole subject of Fingal's expedition ; whereas the 
 
 poem only selects a few detached circumstances. 
 
 The former is intelligible by itself; but the latter 
 
 p 
 
ill THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 could not be understood, and therefore could not have 
 existed, without a reference to the prose narrative. 
 The subject of this poem appears, therefore, to have 
 been taken from the tale, in the same manner as 
 the subject of a tragedy is derived from a volume 
 of history. 
 
 Let us go on to the next piece — Comala, a dra- 
 matic poem. * * Tradition, says the editor, has handed 
 " down the story more complete than it is in the poem 
 ec — Comala, the daughter of Sarrio, King of Inistore, 
 66 fell in love with Fingal, at a feast to which her 
 " father had invited him, after his return from 
 " Lochlin, after the death of Agandecca. Her 
 " passion was so violent, that she followed him, 
 " disguised like a youth, who wanted to be em- 
 « ployed in his wars. She was soon discovered by 
 " Hidallan, the son of Larmor, one of FingaFs 
 u heroes, whose love she had slighted some time 
 u before. Her romantic passion and beauty recom- 
 ** mended her so much to the king, that he had 
 " resolved to make her his wife, when news was 
 " brought him of Caracul's expedition. He marched 
 " to stop the progress of the enemy, and Comala 
 " attended him. He left her in sight of Caracul's 
 " army, when he himself went to battle, having 
 6i previously promised, if he survived, to return that 
 " ni^ht. — The sequel of the story may be gathered 
 "front the poem itself" 
 
 The story contained in the poem is short and 
 simple. Comala and her attendant virgins are 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. H2 
 
 anxiously waiting for the return of the hero. The 
 jealous Hidallan brings news that he was slain in 
 battle. The shock proves fatal to the lady. Fingal 
 arrives, Danishes Hidallan, and bewails the princess, 
 whilst the Bards conclude with her elegy. 
 
 It must be an obvious remark, that this little 
 drama, of itself, could not have preserved the his- 
 tory of Comala, of which it comprizes but a single 
 incident. It furnishes no hint of the antecedent 
 circumstances, without which the story is incom- 
 plete, and even unintelligible. But if we suppose 
 the Bard and his audience to have been previously 
 acquainted with the traditional tale, this little 
 dramatic essay might have grown out of its materials., 
 as naturally as Shakspeare's King Lear arose out of 
 the romance of Geoffrey of Monmouth. 
 
 The same observation will apply to most of the 
 poems of Ossian. And even Macpherson expresses 
 himself, occasionally, as fully conscious of the fact. 
 Thus, in his argument prefixed to Darthula: — 
 " It may not be improper, here, to give the story, 
 " which is the foundation of this poem, as it is 
 " handed down by tradition." Upon a comparison 
 of the story and the poem with each other, it will 
 be sufficiently evident, that he has judged rightly. 
 But, as this gentleman has not concealed his opinion 
 of the antiquity and the authenticity of the tradi- 
 tional tales, how can he assert, that the poems which 
 have been founded upon them are the genuine works 
 of Ossian ? 
 
113 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Again: in the argument prefixed to Carthon, 
 after reciting the circumstances of a long tale, the 
 editor adds, — " This story is the foundation of the 
 " present poem, which opens on the night preceding 
 " the death of Carthon ; so that, what passes before, 
 " is introduced by w r ay of episode." But the epi- 
 sodes do not include all the circumstances of the 
 tale, which is regarded as the foundation of the 
 poem. Impressed with this idea, which, indeed, is 
 obvious enough, Mr. Macpherson decides, occa- 
 sionally, in favour of the traditional tale, and against 
 the authority of his venerated Bard. We have an 
 example of such decision, in a note upon the War 
 of Inisthona. — " Thus is the story delivered down 
 6i by tradition, though the Poet, to raise the charac- 
 Ci ter of his son, makes Oscar himself propose the 
 u expedition." And again, in a note on Lathmon, — 
 " It is said, by tradition, that it was the intelligence 
 " of Lathmon's invasion that occasioned Fingal's 
 u return from Ireland, though Ossian, more poetic- 
 " ally, attributes the cause of Fingal's knowledge 
 " to his dream." 
 
 Does not the critic, in these instances, imply, that 
 the poet perverted the facts, which he had received 
 from these traditional tales — from tales so modern 
 and so unfounded! The poems were therefore 
 derived from the tales. But what need is there of 
 reasoning from inference ? That many of the things 
 ascribed to Ossian did actually originate in these 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 114 
 
 popular fictions, is a fact, which has been expressly 
 and repeatedly acknowledged. 
 
 In some passages, already quoted from the notes 
 on Cath-Loda, we are told, that the Highland tale- 
 makers never missed to make additions to the works 
 of Ossian — that they ascribed their own works to 
 his venerable name — that they inserted incidents, 
 and supplied deficiencies.* In a note upon Calthon 
 and Colmal, the editor speaks of a poem which is 
 generally ascribed to Ossian; but some traditions 
 mention it as an imitation, by some later Bard: 
 and he leaves the question undecided. 
 
 Hence it appears, that Mr. Macpherson could not 
 always distinguish between the supposed genuine 
 productions of Ossian, and those of the modern 
 Bards : and if this happened once, why may it not 
 have happened in every instance ? 
 
 The evidence of Mr. Smith substantiates the fact, 
 that the poems ascribed to Ossian were thus con- 
 taminated. — In a note on the poem of Gaul, one of 
 the best in his collection, he informs us, — " It is still 
 Ci pretty well known ; but the most common editions 
 " (oral rehearsals) of it, are a good deal adulterated, 
 " by the interpolations of the Ur-sgeuls, or later 
 " tales." It is then an acknowledged fact, that 
 much of the matter of these recent fabulous tales 
 has been versified, and imposed upon the public, 
 under the sanction of Ossian's name. 
 
 * Let the reader examine Macpherson's notes, beginning with those on 
 Cath-Loda. 
 
115 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Mr. Macpherson, with full confidence in his own 
 accomplishments as an editor, observes, relative to 
 these talemakers, — " Their interpolations are so 
 " easily distinguished, from the genuine remains of 
 iC Ossian, that it took me very little time to mark 
 u them out, and totally to reject them."* His 
 disciple, Mr. Smith, seems, in this respect, to have 
 possessed all the dexterity of his master, as we may 
 gather from his note, just now quoted, and from 
 several passages, scattered throughout his volume. 
 
 These gentlemen had conceived a very exalted 
 idea of the merits of Ossian ; and therefore, they 
 condemned, as modern interpolations, and ex- 
 punged from his reputed works, every passage 
 which appeared to them defective in beauty, dignity, 
 regularity, or the marks of antiquity. But though 
 they could distinguish the botches of mere poet- 
 asters ; yet is it certain, that their sagacity would 
 never have failed them, had a man of genius and 
 taste equal to themselves, who lived after the revival 
 of letters, condescended to handle the harp of 
 Selma? We have just seen an instance to the 
 contrary, where Mr. Macpherson's judgment could 
 not distinguish between the genuine works of his 
 favourite Bard, and the labour of a modern imitator. 
 Where then is the credential for the antiquity of 
 any part of these poems ? Shall we be referred to 
 the old Highlanders, who repeated them? But 
 
 * Note on Cath-Loda, Duan iii. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAft. 110 
 
 they had received the fine heroic stanza, and the 
 clumsy imterpolation of the recent talemakers, with 
 undistinguishing simplicity. To them the whole 
 mass was equally ancient.— So far, I believe their 
 error was not great. 
 
 It is strange that men of some abilities should 
 have composed so much, under an assumed charac- 
 ter. But such is the fact. It has been proved ; and 
 when facts shew themselves undisguised, however 
 strange they may appear, there is no arguing against 
 them. 
 
 Nor was this instance of self-denial peculiar to 
 Scotland. The Irish poets, according to Mr. Mac- 
 pherson's criticism, began to assume the character 
 of Ossian, in the fifteenth century. Speaking of a 
 futile poem, in a note upon Cath-JLoda, he tells 
 us — iC It is something like those trivial compositions, 
 " which the Irish Bards forged under the name of 
 iC Ossian, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries/' 
 And again, in his Dissertation on the poems,— 
 u I have just now, in my hands, all that remain of 
 " those compositions ; but, unluckily for the anti- 
 " quities of Ireland, they appear to be the work of 
 " a very modern period. Every stanza, nay, almost 
 " every line, affords striking proofs, that they 
 " cannot be three centuries old. — It is matter of 
 " wonder to me, how any one could dream of their 
 " antiquity." To these Irish u forgeries" we may 
 allow that portion of antiquity which Mr. Mac- 
 pherson assigns to them; and, accordingly, they 
 
117 THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAtf. 
 
 betray something of the rudeness of the times ; but 
 had the practice of representing Ossian been 
 continued to the eighteenth century, we should 
 probably have discovered some efforts of a more 
 accurate taste. 
 
 In Scotland, it was continued to the very middle 
 of the eighteenth century. " Within these thirty 
 u years (says Mr. Smith), one or two professed 
 " Galic poets have attempted it — one in Glendovan, 
 u Argyleshire ; the other in Glenlochy, Perthshire. 
 " But they had only gone through a few stanzas, 
 tc when they discovered, what every competent 
 " judge had discovered, before they had gone 
 •* through so many lines, how unable they were to 
 " support the character which they personated* 
 " They immediately threw aside the mask which so 
 " ill fitted them, and never afterwards resumed it."* 
 
 These efforts of contemporary Bards, in different 
 parts of the country, are sufficient to establish the 
 fact, that it was a practice in Scotland, within 
 these sixty years, to compose originals for Ossian — 
 that only ten years before Mr. Macpherson's tran- 
 slation appeared, the wits of Caledonia personated 
 the character of the son of Fingal, and wrote Galic 
 poems for him, under a mask. As men's talents 
 are not always commensurate with their ambition, 
 we need not be surprized to find, that two of the 
 Scotch poets were incompetent to support the 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 92, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN* 118 
 
 assumed character, and wear the mask gracefully* 
 But they had conceived the thing practicable, and 
 their attempts were, undoubtedly, prompted by the 
 more successful efforts of others. The subjects of 
 such modern geniuses could have been supplied only 
 from the traditional tales. 
 
 We have partly seen the use which the author of 
 the Galic Antiquities made of these tales ; but we 
 have not seen the whole. He points out numerous 
 paragraphs which he borrowed entirely from them, 
 and worked up into the poems; This I had consi- 
 dered as referring only to the English translations, till 
 I saw his Sean Dana, or Galic originals. There I 
 mark those very paragraphs which are avowedly of 
 his own composition, wrought into Galic verse, and 
 forming one undistinguished mass, with his genuine 
 originals. Here then is a Highland Bard, who has, 
 successfully, composed in the character of Ossian, 
 since the middle of the eighteenth century: who 
 has put into the mouth of the prince of Selma the 
 acknowledged fables of recent talemakers. After 
 this, who will venture to assert, that the language 
 and manner of the Caledonian Bard are not to be 
 imitated in the present age ? 
 
 In the recourse which he had to popular fiction, 
 there can be no doubt that Mr. Smith followed the 
 steps of the former editor, who speaks of the tales, 
 however modern and groundless, as constituting the 
 foundation of the poems — who publicly boasts, that 
 he could imitate what he has translated, and that 
 
 Q 
 
119 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 he could equal his original. For all this, I give 
 him credit ; but it remains to be proved, that, from 
 the beginning of the fourth, to the middle of the 
 eighteenth century, no Caledonian genius had arisen, 
 who could have equalled the blind Bard and his 
 editor. Mr. Macpherson did not, surely, mean to 
 assert, that Scotland never produced a poet, ex- 
 cepting Ossian and himself* 
 
 It being an avowed fact, that many modern Bards 
 had attempted to versify these tales, and produce 
 from them poems and episodes, in the name of 
 Ossian; and that one, at least, of the Bard's editors 
 has supplied whole paragraphs from these fictions, 
 and exhibited in those very paragraphs, all the fire, 
 all the pathos, the ancient manners, the peculiar 
 phrases, and all the originality of Ossian ; we may 
 be permitted to ask — was it not practicable for a 
 Highland Bard, of equal genius, in the seventeenth 
 or eighteenth century, to exhibit in verse the most 
 beautiful incidents of the same tales, in his own 
 language, and with equal success? 
 
 And if the affirmative be granted, shall we not be 
 furnished with a more probable account of the origin 
 of those little detached pieces, the whole of Ossian , 
 which the Highlanders repeated — of those songs 
 and ballads, which were perfectly understood, and 
 sung to popular tunes, thirty years ago, than that 
 which is offered by the editor — that they are the 
 compositions of a JBard, who lived in the third 
 century f 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN* 120 
 
 Where the incidents and descriptions of these 
 little poems and fragments were extravagant and 
 absurd, the editors had a good opportunity of re- 
 jecting them, as modern forgeries ; but I will again 
 suppose, that the version had been made by men of 
 equal taste and learning with the editors themselves ; 
 then, of course, the modern forgery would pass with 
 them for the genuine strains of Ossian. 
 
 And that there were men of learning at a very 
 recent period, who might have personated the cha- 
 racter of the Bard of Selma, is fully evident. In the 
 reign of Queen Ann, Edward Llwyd published his 
 Dictionary, the first that had ever appeared for the 
 venerable Galic. Upon this work, he received com- 
 plimentary poems, written in the language, and the 
 verse of Ossian, and by Scotch clergymen, who 
 must have had a better opportunity of studying the 
 art of Homer and Virgil, and the rules of Aristotle, 
 than what had fallen to the lot of the royal Bard, 
 
 And different Bards appear to have derived their 
 theme from one common source, and to have exer- 
 cised their talents upon the same incidents of the 
 same identical tales . How can we otherwise account 
 for the essential variations in the several editions, 
 or oral repetitions of the poems, mentioned by Mr. 
 Smith ? These are not like the usual corruptions 
 of copies, where a passage is reduced to absolute 
 nonsense, by careless transcription, or imperfect 
 repetition : but, though the lines be totally different, 
 in the several recitals, yet the same main subject is 
 
121 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 carried on in all of them, with equal clearness and 
 beauty. Is not this sufficient proof, that the north- 
 ern hemisphere has been illuminated by more than 
 one Ossian? 
 
 The author of the Galic Antiquities shall explain 
 my meaning — " In poems, chiefly depending on 
 " tradition, there must be, in different editions, a 
 " considerable variation. Their comparisons jre-* 
 cc quently differ ; but they are always beautiful, and 
 " have the same scope. Thus, for instance, instead 
 " of the above simile, many have here another, of 
 " the same nature, taken from the strawberry."* 
 Each of the similes referred to, in this passage, 
 runs out into a complete stanza of four lines : it is 
 impossible that Ossian should have given them both ; 
 but such variations are just what we ought to expect, 
 when several men of genius amuse themselves, by 
 versifying and adorning the same incident of a 
 popular tale. 
 
 That I may have an opportunity of remarking, 
 what I consider as a general error, in the editors 
 of these poems, I shall quote the remainder of the 
 above note — " Such as may here miss the dialogue 
 i c concerning Cuach Fhionn, or the medicinal cup 
 " of Fingal, will remember that it is of so different 
 (i a complection from the rest of the poem, that no 
 & apology needs to be made for rejecting it, as the 
 " interpolation of some later Bard." Thus we ob« 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 195. Note on Dermic!, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 122 
 
 serve that these gentlemen, whilst they themselves 
 compose original paragraphs for Ossian, continually 
 expunge, from the poems which came into their 
 hands, every passage that is obscure, extravagant, 
 or puerile, as the interpolation of modern times — 
 of the ages of learning and accurate taste ; and 
 retaining all that is luminous, excellent, and agree- 
 able to the best models and rules of the ancients, 
 as the genuine production of a blind Caledonian of 
 the third century. Is not this an absolute perversion 
 of the canons of criticism? If there be any thing 
 ancient in these poems, it must, surely, be those 
 parts which correspond with the attainments of the 
 age to which their production is ascribed, and with 
 the taste of those ages through which they were 
 transmitted, by oral tradition. But, I believe they 
 contain very little that is older than the fictitious 
 tales of the modern Highland Bards. 
 
 We have seen that the poems do not comprehend 
 the whole subject of their respective tales, nor even 
 so much of that subject as is necessary for the 
 perspicuity of narration ; but, on the contrary, the 
 tales comprise the whole subject of the poems. We 
 have remarked that the poems have been collected 
 from oral tradition, only in detached episodes and 
 fragments, while the tales, like written romances, 
 go regularly, with an unbroken stream, through the 
 whole field of adventure. And hence we have 
 inferred, that the tales must have constituted the 
 foundation of the poems* 
 
123 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 We have heard Mr. Macpherson, in more than one 
 instance, acknowledge this fact, in express terms : 
 and we may add, that upon the very face of the poems 
 themselves, the author describes his theme as, " A 
 " tale of the times of old — the deeds of the days of 
 " other years," and declares it to be his province 
 to " seize the tales as they pass, and pour them 
 " forth in the song." 
 
 Upon the whole of this evidence, I conclude that, 
 whatever may have been the origin of these romantic 
 narratives, many of the poems owed their existence 
 to them. From the name Ur-sgeuls, by which these 
 stories are distinguished, Mr. Smith takes occasion 
 to denominate them " Later Tales," implying that, 
 when compared with the poems, they are of recent 
 composition. But besides that the tales are abso- 
 lutely necessary to explain the poems, and connect 
 their parts, it must be remarked, that the prefixed 
 JJr, in the Galic language, implies not only Fresh, 
 New, but also Generous, Noble, Heroic; so that 
 Ur-sgeul may, with greater propriety, be rendered 
 Heroic tale. Shaw translates the word, & fable, 
 a novel, a story. That the Caledonian Bards re- 
 garded the Sgeuls as something more than recent 
 fictions, is evident from the constant use they 
 made of them, as well as from some of the most 
 beautiful passages in the poems ascribed to Ossian. 
 Thus, in the poem on the Death of Gaul, I find 
 them placed at the top of a fine climax, as the kind 
 of monument which would be most faithful to the 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 124 
 
 renown of that hero. The Bard, says the fame of 
 Gaul, shall remain— 
 
 " Till this stone moulder into dust : 
 
 ** Till this branching tree wither with age s 
 
 *' THl this stream has ceased to run ; 
 
 " And the spring in the mountain has failed : 
 
 " Till the flood of time has swept away, 
 
 " Every Bard, every song, and every pleasant tale"* 
 
 But if these tales are not modern, when compared 
 with the poems, their fabrication is, certainly, far 
 more recent than the supposed aera of Ossian ; and 
 more recent than his true sera, wherever that must 
 be fixed. This fact appears from the glaring ana- 
 chronisms which have slipped out of them into the 
 poems. For we may collect from hence, that their 
 fabricators ascribe, to the age of Fingal, every heroic 
 action in which Caledonia was concerned, from the 
 beginning of the third to the very close of the 
 eleventh century. 
 
 Thus the first great achievement, recorded of 
 that hero, was a victory in Scandinavia, over the 
 formidable Starno.| He afterwards beat Caracalla, 
 the son of Severus, in the year 211. J His grand- 
 son, Oscar, defeated Carausius, after the year 287.§ 
 And after the death of Oscar, we shall find the same 
 Fingal retain sufficient personal vigour to subdue 
 Cathmor, the most mighty man of all Ireland, in 
 single combat<j| The prowess of Fingal is not yet 
 exhausted* He defeats the kings of Lochlin, who 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 170. t Cath-Loda. 
 
 % Comala. § Caros, }[ Temora, B. viii* 
 
125 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 invaded Ireland and Scotland, in the ninth and 
 tenth century f and finally, he kills Magnus, king 
 of Norway, about the year 1103-t 
 
 Such evidence, of the most violent anachronism, 
 appears upon the very face of the poems, and there 
 needs no further proof that they originated from 
 romantic tales, which had grown up in an age, when 
 the aera of Fingal and Ossian was utterly unknown, 
 and when the authors, like other fabricators of 
 romance, could throw off all the shackles of chro- 
 nology, and ascribe to a hero of fabulous antiquity, 
 every splendid action of every remote age. I can- 
 not, however, perfectly accord with Mr. Macpher- 
 son, when he ascribes the tales, in a mass, to the 
 unfounded invention of the Highland Bards, after 
 their expulsion from the houses of the chiefs : for it 
 appears, from the concession of the same writer, 
 that the Irish nation possessed tales of the same 
 kind, in an age when the Scotch chiefs had not 
 discarded their domestic Bards. 
 
 The reader has already perceived, in my nume- 
 rous quotations from the Reliques of Irish Poetry, 
 that there was an intimate connection between the 
 fables of both countries. They agree even in their 
 absurdities. The tales of the Irish, like those of the 
 Scots, carry Fingal so far back as the third century ; 
 yet, with the same inconsistency, which we remark 
 in the sister country, they place him in the midst of 
 
 * FiDgal— Battle of Lora. f Manos, Galic Antiq. p. 251. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 120 
 
 the Danish and Norwegian invasions, and bring him 
 into the field to oppose the mighty Swaran, and the 
 better known Magnus, in the commencement of the 
 twelfth century. If the Highland tales make Ossian. 
 dispute with a Caldee, or one of the first propagators 
 of Christianity, upon the subject of religion, the Irish, 
 in like manner, confront him with their ^reat apostle, 
 St. Patrick. In short, the subjects of the poems and 
 the tales are often identically the same on both sides 
 of the channel, and the two countries seem only to 
 disagree about the question of property, in the heroes 
 and the Bard:* 
 
 Had these tales possessed the essentials of authen- 
 tic history, or even the appearance of history, it might 
 be argued, that they were traditionally preserved, 
 in both countries, from the very ages which they 
 describe. But as they contain numerous anachro- 
 nisms and absurdities, they must be the work of 
 invention. And, as it cannot be affirmed, that the 
 Bards of two distinct nations invented the same 
 individual fiction, it becomes a question, whether 
 the Scots or the Irish ought to have the credit of 
 producing the originals. 
 
 * See Mr. Macpherson's account of the Irish poem, or Swaran's Invasion, 
 or Duan a Gharaibh 31ac Slam. This is upon the same subject as the poem 
 of Fingal. Cuthullin and Swaran, upon the same subject. Cath Gabhra, or 
 the Battle of Oscar and Cairbre; the subject of Temora. An Irish poem 
 upon the subject of the Battle of Lora. Compare also, the giants, enchanted 
 castles, dwarfs, palfreys, witches and magicians of the Irish, with the giants^ 
 enchanted castles, dwarfs, and palfreys of the Highlanders. 
 
 Notes on Cath-Loda ? on Temora, B.i. and Diss, on the Poems of Ossiarij 
 
 R 
 
I 
 
 127 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Could we ascertain, which country had the honour 
 of giving birth to the hero and the bard, who have 
 been the subject of so much fable, we might, perhaps, 
 approach the solution of this problem. 
 
 Mr. Macpherson labours this point, with great 
 patriotic zeal. Discovering in the collection of 
 Irish poems, which lay before him, several allusions 
 to modern times, and modern manners, he boldly 
 pronounces the Irish Ossian to be a recent impostor, 
 and positively asserts, that none of his reputed works 
 are more than three hundred years old. All this 
 may be literally true ; but it would have come with 
 a better grace from the pen of another critic. For 
 we cannot forget, that this writer is perpetually 
 offended with the same unfortunate allusions, in 
 the reputed works of the Caledonian Ossian. But 
 here, they are only the interpolations of modern 
 Sards — the heterogeneous mass is thrown into the 
 editorial crucible: the dross is consumed, and the 
 pure gold comes forth, with undiminished weight 
 and unalloyed brilliancy. 
 
 In a few passages in the Irish poems, the critic 
 observes, that Fingal and his heroes are expressly 
 conceded to the Caledonians; but it happens un- 
 luckily, that, in every passage which he adduces, in 
 proof of the fact, the names of those worthies are 
 in a Scottish, and not in the Irish orthography, as 
 Oscar for Osgur, Ossian for Oisin, <&c. When we 
 recollect how much has been done, to support the 
 claim of Caledonia, this minute circumstance may 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAM. 128 
 
 lead to a suspicion., that Mr. Macpherson's copies 
 had been prepared by a Highland '8enachy, and 
 compelled to give testimony, not only in opposition 
 to the general opinion of the Irish nation ; but 
 contrary to the intention of the Bards who composed 
 these very poems. 
 
 Could we with certainty develope the true history 
 of Fingal, it might, probably, be easy to trace the 
 progress of the tales. But fable has covered that 
 history with impenetrable shades. It would be no 
 easy matter to ascertain his real actions, his rank, 
 his country, or the age in which he lived : but to 
 account for the popular traditions and poems, on 
 the subject of his exploits, which equally pervade 
 Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, would be no 
 less difficult, were we to deny that such a hero did 
 exist in some age and country, and that he rendered 
 himself famous in his day. We may therefore grant 
 the reality of such a character : but where shall we 
 next tread ? 
 
 The Irish claim him as their countryman, and as 
 president of the knights of Leinster. The Scots, 
 on the contrary, affirm that he was a king of Mor- 
 ven, in the Western Highlands, who reflected a 
 beam of unrivalled splendour on the history of 
 Caledonia, in the third century. But so little are 
 the traditions of either country connected with 
 authentic annals, that, as we have already seen, 
 they uniformly extend his martial achievements 
 through the transactions of eight centuries. 
 
129 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Here must be fable on both sides : and I again 
 repeat it, though the historians of Ireland and Scot- 
 land might have equally recorded authentic facts, 
 the concordant incidents of palpable fable must 
 have been propagated, from one country to the 
 other. In the present instance, who are to be 
 deemed the plagiaries*^— the Irish or the Scots? 
 This question has been warmly debated, by the 
 antiquaries of both nations ; but as yet, it does not 
 appear to have been fully decided, to the satis- 
 faction of the public. I cannot expect that my 
 inquiries will produce a final decision: yet, as I 
 wish to rest upon some opinion, I shall, for the 
 present, quit the subject of Fingal's history, which 
 is either too dark to admit of elucidation, or else, 
 wilfully obscured by national prepossession ; and 
 seek for some ray of light from collateral circum- 
 stances. Here, I think, the evidence is not wholly 
 to the prejudice of Ireland. 
 
 In point of public testimony, the Irish have clearly 
 the advantage. Had it been asked, only sixty years 
 ago — Who were the Fenii ; the unequivocal an- 
 swer would have been, that they were the ancient 
 militia of Ireland. At that recent period, the 
 claim of the Highlanders was unknown to any but 
 themselves. When Mr, Macpherson was preparing 
 his first publication, the Irish had no conception of 
 the existence of any poems of Ossian, but those 
 which belonged to their own nation. Hence the 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 130 
 
 advertisement in Falkener's Dublin Journal, of 
 Dec. 1st, 176L* 
 
 Mr. Smith, having quoted Mr. Macpherson's 
 account of the Highland tales, adds the following 
 remark — " Sir William Temple, who may be less 
 " suspected of partiality, has, long ago, given the 
 " very same account of Irish tales."\ The poetic 
 tales of the Irish had, then, attracted the notice of 
 Sir William Temple : and, though I have not, at 
 present, an opportunity of citing the passage, I 
 have seen some honourable mention of such nar- 
 ratives, in a treatise of the poet Spenser. 
 
 And long before the time of this poet's residence 
 in Ireland, Mr. Good, a priest and school-master 
 at Limerick, about the year 1566, thus speaks of 
 the Irish people : — " They think the souls of the 
 " deceased are in company with the famous men of 
 " those places, concerning whom they retain many 
 u stories and sonnets, as of the giants Fion Mac 
 " Hoyle, and Oshin (1. Osgur) Mac Oshin, and are 
 " so far deluded as to think they often see them. "J 
 
 Notwithstanding this writer's erroneous ortho- 
 graphy of Irish names, there can be no doubt relative 
 to the identity of the personages intended in this 
 paragraph. It is then a fact, that the Irish people, as 
 long ago as the middle of the sixteenth century, and, 
 in the remotest corner from the shores of Scotland, 
 
 * Quoted at full length, in the Diss, on the Poems. 
 
 i Galic Antiq. p. 127, with a reference to Temple's Miscel. v. ii. p. 341. 
 
 t See Gibson's Camden, 2d edit. Col. 14, 21. 
 
131 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 entertained a general and inveterate opinion, that 
 Fingal, Ossian, and Oscar, were ancient heroes of 
 their own country — that the tales and poems of the 
 Irish, concerning the actions of these worthies, 
 were not at that period, regarded as recent com- 
 positions, but as retained from remote times ; and 
 that the very same mythology, respecting the souls 
 of the dead, wkich appears in every page of the 
 Galic poems, was, at that time, deeply rooted in the 
 imagination of the Irish populace, as the remains of 
 an ancient superstition. 
 
 The claim, therefore, which the Irish nation have 
 preferred to Fingal and Ossian, and their tales and 
 poems, respecting their achievements, are not of so 
 very recent an origin as the editor of the Galic 
 Bard is pleased to represent them. The long nar- 
 rative poems may be modern; but the Irish had 
 their ancient war odes, which were certainly old 
 enough, to cover all the traditions which the High- 
 landers have hitherto produced. 
 
 Let us hear what those traditions are. — Mr. 
 Macpherson tells us, that some of the allusions to 
 ancient history, which are found in Ossian's poems, 
 have been mentioned three hundred years ago.* 
 But he quotes no author ; he descends to no par- 
 ticulars ; nor does he say, whether such mention 
 has been made in Scotland or in Ireland. Dr. Blair 
 had heard of some manuscripts and traditions, two 
 
 * Diss, on the aera of Ossian. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 132 
 
 or three centuries old, which mentioned something 
 of Ossian.* But what the manuscripts were, or 
 what the traditions said of him, we have not been 
 told. Mr. Smith states it, as a notorious fact, that 
 many poems, ascribed to Ossian, have been known 
 in the Highlands for some ages back ; old men have 
 heard them repeated by their fathers and grand- 
 fathers, f Not one of these poems is named. And 
 this gentleman cannot have forgotten, that the High- 
 landers repeated the interpolations of yesterday, as 
 genuine relics of antiquity. We are again told, that 
 a few manuscripts are still to be found, in which 
 several of these poems have a place — that a. Jew, in 
 an old copy on vellum, are in the hands of Capt. 
 Mac Lachlan, and a few less ancient manuscripts, 
 of some of the poems, are in the hands of severals.J: 
 This is, altogether, a very reserved kind of evi- 
 dence. Why do these writers avoid particulars? 
 Why not identify their authorities ? Why not give 
 us the precise contents of their oldest manuscripts, 
 or a faithful copy of some one of these poems, out 
 of either of them ? It has not been proved, that 
 these manuscripts and traditions, whatever they 
 may be, originally belonged to Scotland ; and the 
 contrary is very probable, as Mr. Shaw declares, 
 in the introduction to his grammar, that the few 
 books which he found in the Highlands, and few, 
 indeed, they were, turned out to be either Irish, or 
 
 * Critical Diss. t Galic Antiq. p. 93. % lb. p. 94. 95, Note. 
 
ld3 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 else, written in the present age, and in imitatioft 
 of the Irish dialect. 
 
 Whatever these manuscripts and traditions may 
 have been, it has not been proved that they vouch 
 for the whole of the poems of Ossian, or for a single 
 specified piece, or a single paragraph, as it appears 
 in the present collections. It is probable, that they 
 only answer for something composed in Irish, which 
 was always the written and the studied language* 
 even of the Highlanders themselves ; or else, that 
 they contain something more analogous to the state 
 of Galic poetry, as it was two or three centuries ago. 
 
 But allowing this evidence its full weight, what 
 does it amount to ? The Highlanders have vouchers, 
 two or three hundred years old, for some fragments 
 of poems, ascribed to Ossian. Such a scale will not 
 reach the beginning of the fourth century. For two 
 or three hundred years, they may have had Irish 
 poems, imitations of Irish poems, traditional tales, 
 borrowed from the Irish, and new modelled by 
 themselves, or versifications of such tales. It does 
 not appear from hence, whether they had, or had 
 not, retained some vague rumours of Fingal and 
 his heroes, floating in the mouths of the populace, 
 from the very age in which those warriors lived. 
 
 But the absolute antiquity of the Irish tales is not 
 the point I would now insist upon. Let it suffice, 
 to prove their comparative publicity, and to shew, 
 
 * Shaw's Introd, to the Galic Diet. 
 
Tliii CLAIMS OF OSSIAtf. ISi 
 
 that they were old enough to cover all the evidence 
 which has been produced, of Highland tradition. 
 Their attraction was I'elt, some centuries ago, and 
 they were rendered accessible to strangers, who were 
 not conversant in the Irish language. If they were, 
 thus early, communicated to Englishmen, how easy 
 must their communication have been to those Cale- 
 donians, who visited Ireland, and who spoke the 
 very language in which they were written or recited ? 
 or, if this mode of communication would have been 
 too slow in its operation, I need not multiply autho- 
 rities to prove, that, till within a very recent period, 
 those Caledonians, who wished to become Celtic 
 readers, used Irish books alone, and Irish masters. 
 Did not these teachers carry with them something of 
 the taste of their own nation ? Did they not detail, 
 in every corner of the Highlands, and to admiring 
 audiences, those heroic narratives which had con- 
 stituted the delight of their own youthful years ? Did 
 they not also carry with them Irish books, wherein 
 some of these tales were committed to writing ? 
 It is probable they did. Irish books upon these 
 subjects have been found in the Highlands, and in 
 the Isles of Scotland ; but who has heard of a High- 
 land manuscript having been discovered in Ireland ? 
 The contrary supposition, therefore, that the Irish 
 could have furnished their libraries, with ancient 
 copies upon vellum, for such they possess, from 
 the unheard of tales of Scotland, is highly absurds 
 
 s 
 
135 tHE CLAIMS OF O-SSIAN, 
 
 And such was the obscurity of these tales, that 
 they appear to have been utterly unknown, or totally 
 neglected, where we should, most of all, have ex- 
 pected to find some account of them. When Edward 
 Llwyd travelled through Ireland and Scotland, about 
 a century ago, to collect all the information he could 
 procure, respecting the language and literature of 
 those countries, he opened, at the same time, an 
 extensive correspondence, with the learned inha- 
 bitants, in order to assist his inquiries t he also 
 forwarded copies of his printed sheets into Scotland 
 and Ireland, before he had finally closed his work ; 
 whence the numerous articles of addenda to his 
 dictionary, which he procured from both these 
 countries : yet we do not find that he obtained a 
 single hint, relative to the Highland Ossian, or any 
 of his family. In his catalogue of Irish manuscripts, 
 this writer speaks of the Fenii, or heroes of Fingal, 
 as the ancient militia of Ireland: and, had a different 
 opinion then prevailed in the Highlands, he was in 
 the way to have been set right: for he received 
 poetical compliments on his dictionary, from no 
 fewer than seven Caledonian Bards, who could not 
 have so far neglected the honour of their country, 
 as to have overlooked such a circumstance. 
 
 Llwyd produces a respectable, though, by no means, 
 a complete list of Irish manuscripts, in which several 
 poems upon the Fenii may be remarked,* But while 
 
 * Thus, in the Earl of Clarendon's MSS. Finleachi O Catalai Giganto- 
 machia, vel potius acta Finni Mac Cuil, cum praelio de Fintra, Hibernice* 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 136 
 
 the libraries of Ireland abounded with manuscripts 
 of poems, upon these heroes, the antiquaries of Scot- 
 land did not enable the collector to record the name 
 of a single Caledonian manuscript, upon this, or any 
 other subject. 
 
 Nor, since the question of Ossian has been agi- 
 tated, do I find, that the public attention has been 
 directed to a single existing copy of the venerable 
 Bard, in either of the Scotch colleges, or in the 
 libraries of those families, who had for so many 
 ages patronized the Highland Senachics, Instead 
 of jthis, we have been presented, since the sera of 
 Mr. Macpherson's publication, with a multitude of 
 learned dissertations upon the subject ; but the 
 public had called for evidence, not for argument. 
 
 That the numberless accounts of the Fenii, which 
 the Irish nation possesses, whether in the form of 
 chronicles, poems, or popular tales, have more of 
 the character of extravagant romance, than of sober 
 history, is a point which I am ready to concede to 
 the editors of Ossian ; but still, I contend for their 
 comparative publicity. They have, for many ages, 
 taken deep root in popular tradition : they have 
 employed a multitude of pens : they have obtained 
 a firm establishment in national opinion : and, for 
 
 CoUoquia quaedam de rebus Hibernicis, in quibus colloquentes introducuntur 
 S. Patricius, Coillins et Ossenus. 
 
 Again : amongst the MSS. of Arthur Brownlow, Esq. — Cath Mhuileana, or 
 the Battle of Muilena, a Romance.— Cath Comhar,Cath Gabhra,Cath Code, 
 Cath Atha Bo, Cath Ollarba,— Battles fought by the Fion Erion, or ancient 
 militia of Ireland, and Fion Mac Cual, their great commander. 
 
137 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 some centuries, have been distinctly remarked, by 
 those carious strangers who visited the country, 
 and observed upon the manners of its inhabitants. 
 But, on the other hand, the Highland traditions 
 upon the subject of Ossian, if such have existed for 
 any length of time, have been as remarkable for 
 their obscurity, as the others have been for their 
 publicity. Prior to the age of Macpherson, what 
 Englishman has mentioned them, and in what 
 manner ? Amongst all the learned members of the 
 Scotch universities, and all the brilliant and patriotic 
 writers of that country, what man, before the middle 
 of the eighteenth century, has gratified the public 
 with a single paragraph, upon a subject so curious 
 and interesting ? Where was Ossian with his songs 
 of fame, in the days of the great poet and historian 
 J3uchanan ? Has he named the royal Bard, or 
 imitated a single stanza of his fanciful poems? 
 Since the reformation, many of the clergy, who 
 instruct the Caledonians in their native language, 
 have been educated in the universities of Scotland : 
 they have had their taste formed by the study of 
 the ancients ; and they are, generally, qualified to 
 speak and write in English. In the course of two 
 centuries, has not an individual been found amongst 
 them, of sufficient discernment and taste, to per- 
 ceive the beauties of the Fingal, the Temora, the 
 Carthon, the Berrathon, &c. which he is supposed 
 to have continually heard, in his own family, and in 
 the families of his congregation? 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 138 
 
 Some of the descriptive poets, who have written 
 in Scotland, must have understood Galic, or, at 
 least, must have conversed with those who did 
 understand it. Is the Highlander of a character so 
 very dissimilar from that of his Hibernian brother 
 as, studiously, to have drawn an impenetrable veil 
 of concealment over the charms of his native muse : 
 or, is it probable that her attractions would be ab- 
 solutely contemned by the Lowland Bard ? Surely 
 not : yet who has imitated, or even named a single 
 episode of the Homer of the North, before the 
 eighteenth century? 
 
 I have, indeed, heard of certain allusions to him, 
 in songs, which are ascribed to names of some 
 antiquity ; but these songs have only been collected 
 out of the mouths of the people, within these fifty 
 years. What kind of authority can they constitute ? 
 The English peasant may suppose that his songs of 
 Robin Hood were made by the man who made the 
 rest of the Canterbury tales : but few editors would 
 deem his opinion a sufficient ground for adding 
 another volume to Chaucer.- — After all, what are 
 these allusions ? Should we not have had them 
 fully displayed, if they were at all to the purpose ? 
 
 It must be remembered, that the poems of Ossian, 
 when discovered by our editors, were not become 
 obsolete from their antiquity. They were still the 
 familiar companions of the cheerful fire-side. Not- 
 withstanding this, before the days of those gentle- 
 men, they were absolutely unknown to strangers — 
 
139 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 unknown, and unheard of, in a great part of Scot- 
 land itself: and being thus obscure, it is impossible 
 to suppose, that they should have diffused their 
 influence over the extensive territory of Ireland, and 
 furnished the general topic of national tradition — 
 the general theme of poetry and romance, for several 
 successive ages. Had they been at all known to the 
 Irish, who are a lettered people, we should have 
 discovered copies of some of them amongst the 
 collections of Irish manuscripts ; but no such thing 
 has been found. 
 
 In both countries, the character of almost every 
 individual, in the Finian family, is drawn exactly 
 alike, excepting that the Hibernian heroes are of 
 rather a more gigantic stature. The story of their 
 actions is, for the most part, precisely the same. 
 In both countries, the design of the picture is one ; 
 it differs only in the style of colouring. And, as 
 the Highlander cannot make out his claim to the 
 original, he ought to acquiesce in the reputation of 
 an elegant copyist. 
 
 Much has been said of the peculiar stability of 
 the Erse language. How can that stability be 
 proved, without the evidence of ancient books ? 
 Who can affirm, that the unwritten Erse, which we 
 catch only from the lip of the present generation, 
 has remained more fixed than the Irish, which, for 
 many centuries, has been written, without much 
 attention to modern refinement, as to its structure 
 and vocabulary, and upon the model of its own 
 
the Claims of ossian. 140 
 
 ancient Compositions ? The probability is against 
 such an hypothesis. Yet the Irish poems, though 
 confessedly far below the date of the fourth century, 
 are preserved only in manuscript ; are known only 
 to the laborious antiquary, and, by him, understood 
 with difficulty, whilst the Scotch poems are the 
 trivial songs of the illiterate peasant, in the reign 
 of George the Third. Shall history, shall common 
 sense, shall nature itself reverse its course, in favour 
 of the Bard of Selma ! 
 
 I may remark another strong circumstance in 
 
 support of the originality of the Irish tales. The 
 
 Ossian of Ireland, during his uphill progress, along 
 
 the high-road of romance, and before he had reached 
 
 the third century, made a long halt, at the age of 
 
 St. Patrick, in the middle of the fifth. Whilst he 
 
 was lingering at this stage, the Irish talemakers 
 
 took an opportunity of marrying the Bard's daughter 
 
 to their patron saint.* The abode of Ossian at the 
 
 house of his son-in-law, and his occasional disputes 
 
 with him, upon the subject of religion, were things 
 
 which followed of course. But the Scotch senachies, 
 
 without any such pretext of family connection, make 
 
 their Ossian associate with one of the Culdees, or 
 
 first propagators of Christianity, address several of 
 
 his poems to him, and dispute with him, in the very 
 
 style of his Hibernian namesake. They had received 
 
 the Bard as an atheistical caviller, and they could 
 
 * See Mr. Macpherson's Diss, on the Poems. 
 
141 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN\ 
 
 not innovate upon his character. This is a clear/ 
 proof, if all other were wanting, that the poets and 
 talemakers of Scotland have imitated Irish fable, 
 and consequently, that they are posterior, in time, 
 to the Irish Bards who personated the venerable 
 Ossian* 
 
 These are the principal reasons, upon which I 
 conclude that, where the Highland tales agree with 
 the Irish, they are, uniformly, borrowed from them. 
 At the same time, I admit the probability that the 
 Highlanders produced some tales of their own, in 
 imitation of the others, and in the manner described 
 by Mr. Macpherson. Amongst those which seem 
 to claim this original, I would distinguish the nar- 
 narratives of victories obtained in Scandinavia, by 
 Trenmor, Fingal, Ossian, Oscar, &c. ; achievements 
 which have no other support, in history, or in ro~ 
 mance. As for the poems themselves, excepting, 
 perhaps, a few short fragments, they were produced 
 in very recent times, either from this aggregate of 
 Irish and Scotch tales, or by a direct imitation of 
 Irish poems. 
 
 The introduction of the Irish tales into Scotland, 
 must have been greatly facilitated, by the intercourse 
 which history acknowledges to have subsisted be- 
 tween the two nations — by their connection of blood 
 — their similarity of manners and opinions, and the 
 absolute identity of their language : for the Irish 
 and the Erse are so completely one, that, to this 
 very day, the same vocabulary serves both dialects : 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 142} 
 
 and, before die year 1778/" the Highlander had no 
 grammar but that of his Hibernian brother. He had 
 been hitherto content to regard his native dialect as 
 only a patois of the venerable Irish. The kind 
 reception of the same tales must also have been 
 secured by the interest which the Irish themselves 
 have granted to the Caledonians, both in the actions 
 and in the family connections of their heroes. 
 
 For the original invention of this mass of romance, 
 the tales in general, I can account only by supposing^ 
 that such heroes as Fingal and his worthies did actu- 
 ally exist. But in what age? Here I feel myself^ 
 again, carried by the current, towards that dangerous 
 rock, the history of Fingal- — of a hero, whose brilliant 
 exploits illuminate the plains of Erin and the moun- 
 tains of Albania, for the space of nine centuries. If} 
 instead of snatching the golden prize, I return with 
 the emblems of shipwreck, I hope the indulgent 
 reader, aware of my perilous adventure^ will com- 
 miserate my misfortune. 
 
 From the vast heap of confusion which lies before; 
 me, I would select some grand, prominent point of 
 the story, which may assimilate to some well known 
 and authentic events : and, from that point, I would 
 observe the bearings and distances of the irregular 
 projections. But as 1 must not venture rashly upori 
 an enterprize of such hazard, let me, first of all> 
 consider the incidents selected by Mr. Macpherson, 
 
 * There may be a trifling error in this date, as I observe my copy of Shaw'* 
 grammar is of the Second Edition. 
 
143 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 for the purpose of fixing the sera of Fingal in the 
 third century. 
 
 Caracul, mentioned in the poem of Comala, was 
 Caracalla, the son of Severus ; and the chief with 
 whom Oscar fought, in the war of Caros, was the 
 usurper Carausius. It may be admitted, that the 
 fabricator of these particular tales, intended that 
 Caracul and Caros should be so understood: but 
 their adventures occur only in two of the shortest 
 and most isolated of all the poems. But the great 
 mass of tradition places Fingal in the midst of the 
 struggle, between the inhabitants of Ireland and the 
 Hebrides, and the invading Danes and Norwe- 
 gians. Of this I shall speak presently, when I shall 
 have examined whether Mr. Macpherson's scheme 
 appears competent to support its own weight. 
 
 Starno, king of Lochlin or Scandinavia, invaded 
 Scotland. Fingal took him prisoner, and afterwards 
 released him, and sent him home. The resentful 
 king laid a snare for the life of the hero. He sent 
 a Bard to Selma, to invite him to Lochlin, for the 
 pretended purpose of marrying his daughter. Fin- 
 gal went to Lochlin, and, with his small retinue of 
 heroes, obtained two victories over the forces of 
 the treacherous Starno, and returned triumphant 
 to Morven.* In the next place, we hear of the 
 same FingaPs visit to the king of one of the Orkney 
 Islands, probably the same who is mentioned in the 
 
 * Tingal, B. iii. and Notes ibid. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 144 
 
 tale of Cath-Loda. He is again driven by a storm 
 into Scandinavia, and has another victorious conflict 
 with the gloomy Starno.* Our hero was still young ; 
 but after all these martial and maritime adventures, 
 it might be thought his age amounted, at least, to 
 five-and -twenty ; however, in compassion to our 
 author's scheme, I shall compute it only at twenty 
 years. Upon his return to his own dominions, our 
 hero hears of the northern expedition of Caracalla, 
 whom he expels from Caledonia in the year 21 1. \ 
 Fingal's age was now twenty-one. About the year 
 287, Oscar, our hero's grandson, beats Carausius: % 
 and after a number of intervening adventures, in 
 Scotland, South Britain, Scandinavia, and Ireland, 
 which must have taken up seven years more, the 
 same Oscar falls by the hand of Caribar, and his 
 death is revenged by Fingal, who, in single combat, 
 and by the exertion of personal valour, kills Cathmor, 
 the most accomplished hero of all Ireland. § Fingal, 
 at the time of this engagement, must have seen his 
 hundred and fourth year. The renowned veteran 
 had borne his age well I 
 
 But as the hero's years, at the aera of this exploit, 
 might seem objectionable to some readers, the editor 
 has here presented to our view a different scale. — 
 H Before I finish my notes, he tells us, it may not 
 " be altogether improper, to obviate an objection, 
 " which may be made to the credibility of the 
 
 * See Comala, and Notes. t Comala, and Diss, on the JEra. 
 
 t War of Caros, and Diss, on the JEva, § Temora, B. i, and riii. 
 
 
|.45 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 IS story of Temora. It may be asked, whether it is 
 « probable that Fingal could perform such actions 
 8* as are ascribed to him in this book, at an age 
 H when his grandson, Oscar, had acquired so much 
 M reputation in arms ? To this it may be answered, 
 I? that Fingal was but very young (Book 4) when he 
 %\ took to wife Ros-crana,* who, soon after, became 
 " the mother of Ossian. Ossian was also extremely 
 5f young, when he married Ever-Allin, the mother 
 V of Oscar. Tradition relates, that Fingal was but 
 6 S eighteen years old at the birth of his son Ossian \ 
 fi and that Ossian was much about the same age, 
 " when Oscar, his son, was born, Oscar, perhaps, 
 H might be about twenty, when he was killed in the 
 *' battle of Gabhra (Book 1) ; so the age of Fingal, 
 f\ when the decisive battle was fought between him 
 U and Cathmor, was just fifty- six years."t How is 
 all this to be reconciled with the other computation? 
 The author forgets the achievements of Fingal, pre- 
 vious to his battle with Caracalla, in the year 211, 
 and the interval of 76 years, between that action and 
 Oscar's engagement with Carausius, not to mention 
 the subsequent adventures of the same Oscar. If 
 the tradition mentioned in this note, be given up as 
 
 * Miss Brooke, when obstructed by similar difficulties, observes, that the 
 Irish poets represent Finn as extremely young when he married. The note 
 concludes thus : "Our magical Bard conjures up such delightful enchantments 
 that our attention should be too much engrossed by the grace and grandeur 
 of his images, to count the knots upon his poetical wand." Reliques of Irish 
 Poetry, p. 101. 
 
 t Concluding note on Temora. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 146 
 
 fabulous, it pan obviate no objection to the credibility 
 of the story of Temora ; if it be admitted as authen- 
 tic, the former actions ascribed to the hero must be 
 matter of pure fiction. Caracul was not Caracalla, 
 Caros was not Carausius, the whole dissertation 
 concerning the cera of Ossian falls to the ground, 
 and the age of Fingal floats at large, upon the 
 ocean of time. We must, therefore, keep fast hold 
 of Caracalla and Carausius, and see how the 
 computation of the sera will affect our heroes, when 
 combined with the tradition which is calculated to 
 obviate objections. 
 
 At the battle of Gabhra, Fingal was one hundred 
 and four years of age, Ossian eighty-six, Oscar 
 sixty -eighty and Malvina about the age of Oscar. 
 That romantic traditions, when brought to the test 
 of chronology, should exhibit such absurdities, is 
 not at all extraordinary ; but it is extraordinary, 
 that men of learning and sound sense, when they 
 would dignify such romances with the name of 
 history, should forget, in one page, what they had 
 written in another. 
 
 Let us, in the next place, consider the age of the 
 Bard when he composed his poems, which was, 
 we are informed, after the Christian refugees had 
 betaken themselves to the caves and rocks of the 
 Highlands, in consequence of the persecution under 
 Dioclesian, which began in the year 303.* We may 
 
 * See Diss, on the JEr$. 
 
147 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAfc. 
 
 allow three years more for the persecution to reach 
 the extremities of the British province, to establish 
 the " dwellers of the rock" in their dreary abode, 
 and to introduce the Bard to their society. We 
 thus arrive at the year 306. Ossian was now ninety- 
 eight years of age, and Malvina eighty. 
 
 At these years the son of Fingal began to dictate 
 the three volumes of admirable poems, which have 
 been published by Mr. Macpherson and Mr. Smith, 
 exclusive of the more considerable part of his works, 
 which is unfortunately lost. The lady, at the same 
 time, was still an exquisite performer on the harp ; 
 her memory was so perfect, that she could retain 
 poems of four hundred or four thousand lines, from 
 a single rehearsal, and transmit them faithfully to 
 posterity, by oral tradition. She was still young, 
 still beautiful — " a fair beam of light, and the lovely 
 " huntress of Lutha /" 
 
 All this appears to me so utterly improbable, that 
 I cannot help acceding to the sentiments of Mr. 
 Macpherson himself, at the close of his elaborate 
 dissertation, after he had fixed, and unfixed, and 
 fixed again, the sera of Ossian. " What is advanced 
 " in this short dissertation, it must be confessed, is 
 " mere conjecture. Beyond the reach of records, 
 " is a settled gloom, into which no ingenuity can 
 " penetrate."* 
 
 In one point, however, I am still of the writer's 
 former opinion. — "The Caracul of Fingal is no other 
 
 * See Diss, on the JEra. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 148 
 
 " than Caracalla, who, as the son of Severus, the 
 " emperor of Rome, whose dominions were ex- 
 " tended almost over the known world, was, not 
 " without reason, called the son of the king of the 
 « world."* This I admit. But what had Fingal 
 to do with the age of Caracalla ? 
 
 I would offer the following conjecture, as an 
 answer to this question. Though the Scots may 
 have retained some popular rumours of their own, 
 upon the subject of Fiugal's actions ; yet it is evi- 
 dent, that they received the greatest part of their 
 tales directly from Ireland. The Irish had a tra- 
 dition, that this hero lived in the days of one of their 
 kings, named Cormac. Their fabulous annalists, 
 eager to admit all his romantic adventures, as real 
 facts, having no room for one half of those adven- 
 tures in modern times, and being quite at liberty 
 from the shackles of authentic records, carried him 
 back to the age of an imaginary Cormac, in the 
 third century. The talemakers of Scotland, having 
 received Fingal from their hands, as an accredited 
 character of the third century, and having heard 
 something also, of the expeditions of Caracalla and 
 Carausius, which coincided with that age, had a fair 
 opportunity of confronting the heroes of Morven 
 with those Roman generals. But the main stream 
 of tradition takes a different channel. 
 
 Throughout the great mass of romances and 
 poems, whether Scotch or Irish, we find Fingal and 
 
 * See Diss, on the jEra. 
 
149 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 his worthies contending with the men of Lochlin^ 
 that is, Denmark or Norway. These encroachers 
 are here represented as not in search of plunder 
 only, but of foreign settlements : emerging from the 
 character of mere pirates, they were beginning to 
 aspire to that of conquerors. Already in possession 
 Of the Orkney Islands, and the western Islands of 
 Scotland, they were now meditating the subjugation 
 of the whole kingdom of Ireland. Swaran, their 
 warlike king, made a descent for that very purpose ; 
 but he was successfully opposed by the victorious 
 Fingal : and the warriors of Lochlin did not accom- 
 plish their design, before the age of those a littles 
 men" who came immediately after that famous 
 command erw 
 
 If we look into authentic history, for a period 
 which corresponds with this description, we shall 
 find it only in the long reign of Harold Harfager, 
 or between the years 870 and 931. The former 
 part of this period coincides with the reign of the 
 celebrated Alfred, by whose prowess, vigilance, and 
 sound policy, the encroachments of the northern 
 men, in South Britain, were effectually checked : 
 and by whose example or influence, the Irish and 
 Scots may have been induced to keep up a body 
 Of disciplined troops, for the protection of their 
 own coasts. 
 
 With this idea, the office of the Fenii, as under- 
 stood by the Irish, perfectly accords; It is thus 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. i50 
 
 alluded to in The Chase, a poem ascribed to Ossiati, 
 and published by Miss Brooke — 
 
 " O Inisfail ! thy Oisin goes 
 
 " To guard thy ports no more, 
 " To pay with death the foreign foes 
 
 u Who dare insult thy shore!" 
 
 Upon this passage the editress has the following 
 note — " Dr. Hanmer, in his chronicle, gives us a 
 <e long list of the chieftains, under the command of 
 " Finn Mac Cumal, who were particularly appointed 
 " to the care of the harbours of Ireland ; at the end 
 " of which, he adds — These were the chiefe com- 
 " manders, by direction from Finn Mc Koyll, who 
 " tooke further order, that beacons should be set up 
 " in sundrie places of the land, where, in time of 
 " danger, they might have direction for reliefe, and 
 " to draw to head for their defence."* 
 
 The great invasion of Ireland, in the days of Fingal, 
 was that under Swaran ; in Irish tradition, Gard or 
 Garaidh, who was, probably, no other than Harold 
 himself. For it is a fact well known, that, in the 
 former part of this king's reign, the Norwegians 
 settled in several of the Scottish Islands. One of 
 the editors of Ossian allows, that, in the year 875, 
 Harold entirely conquered the Hebrides. And if I 
 may presume to quote an old Welsh writer, in such 
 company, we are further told, in the life of Gruffudd 
 ap Cynan, a narrative compiled in the time of King 
 Stephen, that Harold Harfager undertook two sepa- 
 
 * Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 82. 
 V 
 
I&£ THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 rate expeditions against Ireland ; in the former of 
 which, he committed some depredations, and in the 
 latter, founded a kingdom. 
 
 After mentioning Harold Harfager, and two of his 
 brothers, or relations, the narrative thus proceeds: — 
 Xi And be it known, that the three brothers, already 
 <c named, went to sea with a royal navy, in search of 
 " military adventure, and at last they all arrived in 
 " Ireland. Harold Harfager had already, before 
 f* this, gone, with a mighty host, and cruised round 
 66 all Ireland, and cruelly slain her inhabitants, and 
 "robbed them, and made incursions through the 
 " country ; and he built (or repaired) the city of 
 " Dublin, and many other cities, and castles, and 
 " fortresses, and fortified and settled the boundaries 
 < c of his kingdom. And one of his brothers did he 
 " place in one of the cities which he built, and which 
 " is called in their language, Port- JLarg (Water ford), 
 " and his heirs have been kings of the same city, 
 " from that time to the present day"* 
 
 I have not met with much detailed account of the 
 kingdom which Harold founded in Ireland, and of 
 the history of his successors, in that dominion ; but 
 the notices which we have upon this subject, in the 
 respectable chronicle of Caradoc of Llancarvan/f~ 
 and other Welsh annals, are sufficient to establish 
 
 * Welsh Archaiol. v. ii. p. 585. 
 t Notwithstanding many accidental and trivial errors in these annals, 
 their general authenticity is evident in every page, so that they deserve the 
 attention of the historian of every part of the British islands. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 152 
 
 the reality of the events here recorded: I shall, 
 therefore, quote a few of them. 
 
 Between the years 910 and 920, Ireland and 
 Mona were desolated by the men of Dublin.* 
 These appear to have been the new settlers of 
 that city. About the time when Howel Dda went 
 to Rome, A. D. 933, Awlaff (Olave) lands in Wales 
 from Ireland, with a host of Northmen, and another 
 Gwyddyl (Native Irish) — he returns to Ireland, 
 where he is made king.t A. D. 940, Abloyc, king 
 of Ireland, died.J A. D. 961, the sons of Abloyc, 
 king of Ireland, came to Caer Gybi (Holy Head), 
 which they utterly destroyed, and took the shrine 
 of Cybi with them into Ireland, where it remained 
 a hundred years. They afterwards marched into 
 Leinster, which they wasted dreadfully. § A. D. 988, 
 Clumayn, the son of Abloyc, was slain.[| A. D. 999, 
 the Scots (that is, the native Irish), wasted Dublin.^" 
 A. D. 1010, 1013, Brian, king of all Ireland, Mur- 
 chath, his son, and a multitude of other kings, 
 assaulted Dublin, where Sitruc, the son of Abloyc, 
 was king. The men of Leinster, and their king, 
 Mael Mordav, took arms to oppose Brian. Sitruc 
 hired a fleet of long ships of war, manned with 
 loricated warriors, and commanded by a chief, 
 named Taradyr, or Brodyr, to engage with Brian. 
 In a battle, which was destructive to both parties, 
 Brian and his son were slain on the one part, and 
 
 * W. Archaiol. v. ii. p. 393, 
 § Ibid. p. 491. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 426. 
 || Ibid. p. 498. 
 
 % Ibid. p. 487. 
 * Ibid. p. 499. 
 
153 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the commander of the fleet, and Mael Mordav, on 
 the other.* About seven years after this, we find 
 another Awlaff landing in Wales, with a host of 
 Northmen and Irish. | 
 
 The age of Fingal does not seem to fall in with 
 this period of Norwegian sway in Ireland. We must, 
 therefore, go back to the time when the Island was 
 only threatened with the tyranny of the Northmen. 
 The first, or predatory invasion of Harold, men- 
 tioned by Gruffudd's biographer, I suppose to be 
 the same which is celebrated in the poem of Fingal : 
 and I would offer some conjecture respecting the 
 date, collected from a singular incident, recorded 
 by Caradoc, and by all the Welsh annalists. 
 
 *< In the year of Christ 893, the Northern pagans 
 
 ?' came into Wales-— and, in the summer of that 
 
 " year, certain vermin, of an unknown species, were 
 
 " seen in Ireland. They resembled moles in their 
 
 " shape, and each of them was furnished with two 
 
 " long teeth. They destroyed all the corn and 
 
 "grass land, wherever they went, devouring the 
 
 " root of every herb and plant, so as to produce a 
 
 *' famine in the country. It is supposed they were 
 
 te brought thither by the pagans, who also at- 
 
 " tempted to introduce them into Britain. In order 
 
 " to be delivered from these pests, the inhabitants 
 
 " offered up prayers to God, gave alms to men, and 
 
 " corrected the errors of their lives : and God sent 
 
 * W. Archaiol. p. 395, 502. t Ibid. p. 502, 504* 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 154 
 
 " a frost before the end of the summer, which 
 " destroyed all these vermin."* 
 
 The animals thus described could have been no 
 other than a species of rats, which sometimes do 
 great mischief in the North of Europe, though they 
 could not live long in the air of Ireland, which is 
 peculiarly pernicious to several kinds of vermin. 
 The sera of their appearance must have coincided 
 with the arrival of their pagan conductors, who, 
 undoubtedly, contributed their share in producing 
 the famine. These creatures had been hitherto 
 unknown in the country. The fleets of Norway 
 could not, therefore, have appeared much on the 
 coasts before this time. But as Harold now cruised 
 quite round the whole Island, and made descents 
 upon all the coasts, these new visitors were generally 
 introduced, so as to give the inhabitants, who viewed 
 them in a portentous light, occasion to represent 
 them as the authors of a public calamity. This may 
 be deemed a trivial circumstance to bring forwards, 
 for the purpose of ascertaining the age of a Fingal. 
 I avail myself of it, however, as a confirmation of 
 the point which I principally insist upon ; that the 
 story of Fingal, generally considered, corresponds 
 with the history of those times, and of those times 
 only. 
 
 In the days of that hero, the Norwegians were 
 endeavouring to establish themselves in Ireland. 
 
 * W. Archaiol. p. 483. 
 
155 THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN, 
 
 By his valour and vigilance — by setting up beacons 
 in sundrie places of the land, where, in time of 
 danger, they might have direction for relief e,' — their 
 efforts were baffled, for a time; but when Fingal 
 was no more, the race of little, or subjugated men, 
 immediately succeeded. Agreeably to this, we are 
 told, that Harold, in a second attempt, did establish 
 a kingdom in Ireland, and, according to the nar- 
 rative already quoted, left it to his descendants, 
 Auloedd, Sutric, Afloedd, Sufric, Afloedd, the 
 maternal ancestors of Gruff udd ab Cynan.* I have 
 already shewn that Caradoc's chronicle has many 
 notices relative to the affairs of these princes, and 
 that, as early as the year 910, the new occupiers of 
 Dublin were beginning to spread devastation over 
 Ireland and Mona. It is not to be wondered at, 
 that the inhabitants, now groaning under a foreign 
 yoke, or smarting under the lash of tyranny, should 
 have remembered their late valiant and successful 
 protectors, with gratitude and veneration ; should 
 have amplified all their gallant actions, and made 
 them the theme of the heroicjtale, and patriotic 
 fiction. 
 
 There are other circumstances, which bring 
 Fingal and his heroes to the same age. — Many of 
 their victories are represented as having been 
 achieved in the Islands of Lochlin. Romance 
 places the scene of these victories in Scandinavia ; 
 
 * W. Avchaiol. p. 584. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 156 
 
 but history whispers, that such achievements could 
 have happened only in those Islands, bordering 
 upon Scotland, which had been occupied by the 
 men of Lochlin or Scandinavia. But where shall 
 we find an historical period that afford probable 
 grounds, as much as Romance requires, for the 
 report of such victories ? I think it must be sought 
 only in the interval between the subjugation of 
 those Islands, and their peaceful settlement — after 
 Harold's invasion of the Hebrides, in 875, and 
 before the Norwegians had organized a general 
 plan for the defence of their new conquests ; which 
 they may be supposed to have done, about the year 
 900. This people had conducted a fleet of con- 
 siderable force amongst the Hebrides, exploring 
 and conquering them in succession. But as the 
 extent of the individual Islands was small, they 
 could only leave a few settlers in each of them, 
 with a military force, just sufficient to keep the 
 ancient inhabitants in awe, whilst the bulk of the 
 armamant was hastening to other conquests. At 
 this critical juncture, before the Norwegian govern- 
 ment was confirmed, a moderate force, arriving 
 from Caledonia, in either of the new conquered 
 Islands of Lochlin, might easily have obtained such 
 momentary advantages as those which the tra- 
 ditional tales ascribe to Fingal and his heroes. And 
 the victories are ascribed to Fingal, because Fenit, 
 or men of Fin, seems to have been a general term 
 for the guards of the coasts, in Ireland and Scotland, 
 
157 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 though Fin Mac Coul himself could not have been 
 present with all their parties. It may also be 
 remarked, that the tales and poems sometimes 
 represent the men of Lochlin, as in the act of 
 assaulting an Island for the first time. Such atoms 
 of history, therefore, as they may possibly contain, 
 must be referred to the former part of the reign of 
 Harold Harfager, and to no other period. 
 
 Again : the poem of Carthon, one of the best in 
 the whole collection, records the overthrow of the 
 Strath Cluid Britons. Balclutha, the Alcluth of 
 JBede, was destroyed in the days of Fingal's father. 
 The survivors of that catastrophe retired further 
 into the territories of the Southern Britons, and the 
 city lay desolate in the days of Fingal. " I have 
 " seen (says that hero), the walls of Balclutha, but 
 " they were desolate. The fire had ascended in 
 " the halls ; and the voice of the people was heard 
 ** no more. The stream of Clutha had removed 
 " from its place, by the fall of the walls. The 
 " thistle shook there its lonely head : the moss 
 " whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from 
 " the windows ; the rank grass of the wall waved 
 " round his head. Desolate is the dwelling of 
 li Moina; silence is in the hall of her fathers." 
 
 The city is not represented as having been, pre- 
 vious to its fall, under the protection of a Roman 
 garrison: it had been governed by a native and 
 independent prince. The incidents of the poem 
 will by no means accord with the ages of Roman 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 15$ 
 
 government ; but they are remarkably consistent 
 with the history of the place, in the ninth century^ 
 as it is preserved by Caradoc— u A. D. 870> the 
 " northern pagans destroyed Alclud. — A. D, 890, 
 " those men of Strath Quid,, who refused to unite 
 " with the Saxons, were compelled to leave their 
 " country, and remove into North Wales, where 
 " they had lands assigned to them by Anarawd."* 
 Such were, evidently, the historical facts which the 
 compiler of the tale of Carthon had in view : and 
 they relate to that very age, in which I have placed 
 the achievements of Fingal. 
 
 Of all the incidents of this hero's private life, there 
 is none upon which the Irish and Scots are more 
 perfectly agreed, than his marriage with a daughter 
 of Cormac, king of Ulster, and nominal sovereign 
 of all Ireland. But then, the Irish and Scotch tales 
 carry back this Cormac to the middle of the third 
 century, a very suspicious age, in Irish annals; 
 
 For the hero who successfully resisted the Nor- 
 wegians—who lived after this people had obtained 
 possession of the Western Islands, and before they 
 had established themselves in Ireland, we can look 
 no higher than the ninth century, — the age of Alfred 
 and Harold Harfager* And in this very age, his- 
 tory presents us with a Cormac, a very religious 
 and charitable prince, and the king and bishop 
 of all Ireland. He died in the year 905/f Con^ 
 
 * W, Archaiol, V, ii. p. 480, 482. t Ibid. p. 393> 484* 
 
 W 
 
159 THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 
 
 necting this with what has gone before, I conjecture 
 that this Cormac, and no other, was the father-in- 
 law of the great Fingal. The different copies of 
 Caradoc, and the Welsh chronicle of the Saxons, 
 add that Culennan, or the son of Culkennan, was 
 slain in battle about the same time ; or, as the last 
 mentioned chronicle expresses it, in the same battle* 
 The Irish name here intended may, possibly, be the 
 same which Mr. Macpherson writes Colculla, and 
 we learn from Temora, Book iv. and a note on 
 Book vi. that this Colculla rebelled against Cormac, 
 a little before his death, and that he was slain by 
 Fingal. And the subject of the whole Temora is 
 the rebellion of the nephews of Colculla against the 
 family of Cormac, and their overthrow by the arms 
 of Fingal. Till I find reason for altering my opinion, 
 I shall, upon these premises, ground a conjecture, 
 for I pretend to nothing more, that this hero ren- 
 dered himself famous, in the former part of the reign 
 of Harold Harfager. 
 
 The Scots will object, that they have an authentic 
 record of their kings, during this period; and that 
 no such names as Trenmor, Trathal, Comhal, and 
 Fingal, are found in the royal catalogue of the ninth 
 century. These heroes have not yet been conceded 
 to Caledonia : but, without detracting from the credit 
 of the Galic Bard, more than truth requires, it may 
 be replied, that upon the face of the poems, which 
 have been published in his name, Fingal is no where 
 represented as king of Scotland. He is only de- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 100 
 
 scribed as chief of a desart called Morven, in the 
 west of that country. Here stood his royal castle 
 of Selma. This kingdom of Morven may have 
 been nothing more than a small territory still known 
 by the same name, opposite to the Isle of Mull, in 
 which I suppose his Scandinavian hill of Gor-mul 
 to have been situated. Our hero may have ac- 
 tually been Lord of this filorven, and yet, as the 
 son and the consort of Irish princesses, he may have 
 commanded a military corps, whose province it was 
 to watch the motions of the Norwegians, upon the 
 coast of Ulster, as well as in the west of Scotland. 
 And these are the principal scenes of his actions. 
 
 In attempting to ascertain the age of a hero, of 
 whom I can hardly catch a steady glimpse, through 
 the mists of fable, I have availed myself of a few 
 slight, but leading circumstances, which uniformly 
 reduce him from the third to the ninth century. 
 Should this degradation offend his noble relatives, 
 in Ireland or Scotland, I must plead, in my own 
 vindication, that I am still more indulgent to 
 Fingal's claims of antiquity, than some of their own 
 tales and poems, which recite his adventures. In 
 support of this assertion, I will now produce a re- 
 markable instance of the communication of romance 
 between these two countries, and of the confusion 
 of ancient and modern times. 
 
 The antiquaries of Ireland, astonished by the 
 confidence with which Mr. Macpherson had robbed 
 them of their Qisin, and of all their venerated Fenii, 
 
161 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 began loudly to remonstrate. And in 1789, a 
 volume appeared, which I have had frequent occa- 
 sions to quote. In vindication of the cause of her 
 country, Miss Brooke, daughter of the celebrated 
 Henry Brooke, Esq. published her Reliques of 
 Irish Poetry. This lady did not imitate the editors 
 of the Caledonian Ossian, in stopping to compose 
 her ancient poems, before they were publicly 
 exhibited. She gives her originals, literally tran- 
 scribed from old copies, and offered to the inspection 
 of the curious, with all their imperfections on their 
 head. 
 
 The first poem in this collection is upon the death 
 of Conloch, a hero of remote antiquity indeed, if 
 antiquaries are infallible : for he was the son of 
 Cuchullin ; and we are told by Mr. O'Halloran, in 
 his introduction to this piece, that Cuchullin, and 
 the three sons of Usneach, Naoise, Ainle, and 
 Ardan, lived in the reign of Conor Mac Nessa, 
 king of Ulster, about the year of the world '3950: 
 that is, according to our chronology, about fifty 
 years before Christ. The Caledonian Ossian brings 
 all these heroes upon the stage, in the days of 
 Fingal, a chief of the third or the ninth century 
 after Christ. There must be a trifling anachronism 
 somewhere : but be this where it may, the poem 
 represents Conloch, who had never seen his father 
 from his infancy, as arriving from the coast of Scot- 
 land. He lands in Ireland, armed cap-a-pie, in the 
 §tyle of a true knight errant, vanquishes several of 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 162 
 
 the knights of Ulster, and is, at last, opposed, in 
 single combat, to his own father, by whom he is 
 mortally wounded. He then reveals the secret of 
 his birth, dies with doleful lamentations, and is as 
 dolefully bewailed by the unfortunate Cuchullin. 
 
 I would just remark that, amongst these heroes, 
 who flourished fifty years before the birth of Christ, 
 we find the Norwegian name of Auliffe, or Olave. — 
 
 " Quick let a rapid courser fly, 
 et Indignant Auliffe cried." — 
 
 The earliest Auliffe whom I can discover, con- 
 nected with Irish history, is he whom GrufFudd's 
 biographer introduces, as Harold's successor, on 
 the throne of Dublin. He died in the year 940, 
 according to Caradoc, who also records an Irish 
 prince, named Congaloch or Conloch, slain in 950. 
 But to pass over these and the like circumstances, 
 which might give rise to conjecture, the Scottish 
 muse has seized on the incidents of this poem, and 
 worked them up into two episodes of the eventful 
 poem of Cathula* a labour of Ossian ! Cathula, 
 king of Inistore, or Orkney, had a son named 
 Conloch, whom he had lost at sea, in his infancy. 
 The babe was carried to shore, upon a shield, 
 brought up by a Norwegian chief of one of the 
 islands, accidentally opposed to his father, in single 
 combat, mortally wounded, and then recognized. 
 The lamentations of the fallen hero, and of his dis- 
 consolate parent, are a mere echo of the Irish poem. 
 ■- ' ■ ... .... ... 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p, 229. 
 
163 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 The only difference is, that one of the fathers is 
 named Cuchullin, or Cuthullin, and is president of 
 the knights of Ulster, whilst the other is called 
 Cathula, king of Inistore — but tradition is not con- 
 stant in this variation. — The editor of the Galic 
 Antiquities observes,— " From the resemblance 
 " between the names of Cathula and Cuthullin, and 
 * both having a son called Conloch, many who 
 Ci repeat the poem, in place of Cathula, substitute 
 " the more familiar name of Cuthullin, and call the 
 " poem by the title of ' Mar marbh Cuthullin a 
 u nihacf — c How Cuthullin slew his son.' " 
 
 The authority of one oral reciter is as good as 
 that of another. Neither this apology, therefore, 
 nor the difference of eleven centuries and a half, in 
 chronology, Cuthullin having lived, according to 
 Mr. O'Halloran, fifty years before Christ, and 
 Cathula, in the days of Magnus the Great, king of 
 Norway, can persuade us, that the two stories are 
 not from the same origin. It is not brobable, that 
 two fathers had lost their Conloch in his infancy, 
 accidentally encountered and slain him in single 
 combat, recognized him, as he lay upon the field, 
 and then attended to, and uttered, the very same 
 lamentations. 
 
 But which of the two poems is the original ? The 
 story of the Irish poem is simple and unaffected ; 
 whilst that of the Scotch is eventful and artificial. 
 Of the former, Miss Brooke observes, — " I have 
 " not been able to discover the author of the poem 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIA.N. 164 
 
 iC of Conloch ; nor can I ascertain the exact time 
 " in which it was written ; but it is impossible to 
 u avoid ascribing it to a very early period, as the 
 " language is so much older than that of any of my 
 " originals, the war odes excepted, and quite dif- 
 46 ferent from the style of those poems, which are 
 " known to be the composition of the middle ages.'' 
 The Highland poem, on the contrary, is but just 
 emerging into verse. — " As several parts of this 
 " poem are supplied from the tale or Sgeulachd, the 
 " narrative is more prolix than it is in the general 
 " run of old Galic poems."* We have, then, pretty 
 clear evidence, that the venerated Bard of Selma 
 has condescended to imitate the rhapsodies of his 
 Hibernian namesake. 
 
 I have just remarked, that the adventure ofCathula 
 happened in the days of Magnus the Great, king of 
 Norway. The second poem in Miss Brooke's col- 
 lection introduces this prince to our acquaintance. 
 There we find Oisin entertaining St. Patrick with 
 a story of his adventures. We are told that there 
 are numberless copies of this poem in the hands of 
 the learned and curious. The subject is an engage- 
 ment between Finn and Magnus the Great, high 
 king of Lochlin or Norway. Miss Brooke observes, 
 that Magnus is pronounced in the Irish, Manos, but 
 that the name, being a foreign one, is here purposely 
 written according to the spelling of the original, 
 
 * Galic Antiq. p. 230, note. 
 
165 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 
 
 She adds, that the language is too modern to be 
 ascribed to any earlier period than the middle cen- 
 turies ; and intimates a suspicion, that the Magnus 
 of our Bard is the king of that name, who made 
 some descents upon Ireland, about the latter end of 
 the eleventh century. This suggestion I conceive 
 to be well founded. For, before the eleventh cen- 
 tury, I cannot discover, either in history or romance^ 
 a Magnus, who deserved the epithet of Mor or 
 Great, and who was Aird High, or supreme monarch 
 of Norway, as he is styled in this poem. 
 
 And if such was the age of the hero, I must allow, 
 at least, four centuries more, for the production of 
 a Bard, who could have been so utterly ignorant of 
 the chronology of his subject, as to confound the 
 ages of St. Patrick, Fingal, and Magnus, and to 
 make them all contemporaries with Ossian : so that 
 the poem could not have been composed before the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 The argument is, briefly, this ; — Fingal, whilst 
 engaged in the chase, is surprised by the appearance 
 of a strange fleet upon the coast of Ireland. He 
 calls a hero, to go and enquire who the adventurers 
 were, and to demand their business. Conan, a 
 bald-pated, cowardly babbler, makes some taunting 
 remarks upon the peaceable disposition of Fergus, 
 the son of Fingal, who, after a sharp reproof of 
 Conan's insolence, accepts the commission* He 
 returns, and reports the haughty demand of Magnus. 
 The Fenii prepare for battle* Several heroes claim 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 166 
 
 the honour of the day, which Fingal reserves for 
 himself. Be vanquishes Magnus, in single combat, 
 and binds him " on the blood-stained field ;" but 
 afterwards generously spares his life, and dismisses 
 him, upon his promise to abstain from future injury. 
 
 The tale in this form, pleased the ear of the an- 
 cient Ossian of Caledonia, who adorned it with his 
 numbers, and thus furnished Mr. Smith with an 
 opportunity of presenting the public with the dis^ 
 grace and downfall of Magnus, in the texture of 
 two poems, which occupy thirty-eight quarto pages. 
 The first of these is the Cathula, mentioned above : 
 the other is entitled Manos ; for Mr. Smith's oral 
 editors had suppressed the g, in the middle of the 
 name. 
 
 The whole of the Irish tale is incorporated into 
 these two poems. But, as it may be admitted, that 
 the Highlanders add something of their own, to 
 what they borrow from Ireland, I shall prove that 
 they have a national claim to one of the incidents 
 contained in this latter part. Let me, first of all, 
 demonstrate the general identity of this adventure 
 of Magnus with that which is recorded in the Irish 
 poems. We here find the invasion of Magnus, king 
 of Lochlin — the contemptible insolence of the bald- 
 pated Connan — the commission of Fergus — the 
 single combat of Fingal and Magnus — the binding 
 of the latter upon the field, and his release, upon 
 promise of abstaining from future injury. All 
 these particulars the reader has already observed* 
 
167 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 in the argument of the Irish poem, the scene of 
 which is upon the bank of the stream Laoghaire, in 
 the original, Eas Laoghaire.* The Scottish editors, 
 suppressing the quiescent letters, as usual, call their 
 poem of Manos, La Eas Lao'aire, the Bay of the 
 Water of Lor a. \ 
 
 If we need a stronger proof, that the Caledonian 
 Bard had his eye upon this Irish poem, it is pre- 
 sented to us, in the close imitation, or rather, the 
 direct copying of several of the verses. Thus, in 
 the few specimens which the Scotch editor has 
 given of his Galic originals, Ossian describes his 
 brother Fergus : — 
 
 " Db/ imich Fear'as mo breathair fein, 
 11 Mar orra* shleibhte bha cliruth."^ 
 
 In the Irish poem thus : — 
 
 i{ Tilleas Feargus mo brathair fein, 
 " Fe samhalta le grein a chruth."§ 
 
 And again, in Connan's taunt over the prostrate 
 hero :— 
 
 " Cumaibh rium Manos nan lann 
 
 tc S' gu sgarainn a cheann f 'a chorp. y '[{ 
 
 In the Irish poem : — • 
 
 " Cuingbhidh dhamh Maghnus na lathi 
 " Go sgarfad a ceann re na chorp."1T 
 
 In these passages, the Highland poem recites the 
 very words of the Irish, as nearly as they can be 
 supposed to have been preserved by oral tradi- 
 tion. The Caledonian Ossian, therefore, not only 
 
 * See Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 64, 277. t Galic Antiq. p. 251. 
 X Galic Antiq. p. 260. § Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 273. 
 
 || Galic Antiq. p. 263. f Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 276, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 168 
 
 adopts the subject of his Hibernian brother, and 
 repeats his very language, with only a slight change 
 of dialect and orthography; but even employs the 
 same identical metre, which was used by the Irish 
 poets of the fifteenth century. This is an important 
 hint : it must not be lost. 
 
 The Scotch antiquary will demur to my opinion 
 respecting the originality of the Irish poem. I have 
 already offered some remarks in support of that 
 opinion. I may now add, that the very metre, as 
 I shall prove hereafter, gives strong testimony in 
 favour of the Irish. And, as the dialogues between 
 Oisin and St. Patrick were found in manuscripts 
 of some antiquity, in the time of Edward Llwyd, 
 I cannot throw them aside, in compliment to the 
 detached episodes of the Highland reciter, which 
 were, for the first time, committed to writing, and 
 connected by the incidents of oral tales, in our 
 o*vn age. 
 
 If Fingal lived in the third century, which is the 
 sera assigned to him, both by the Scots and Irish ; 
 or even if he was coeval with Harold Harfager, his 
 personal conflict with Magnus, king of Norway, 
 must be the subject of pure romance: and if we 
 attend to the progress of romance, we shall always 
 find that the copy which is most simple in its plan, 
 and least decorated with adventitious incidents and 
 descriptions, is the most ancient. No poet of any 
 country, having the Scotch tale before him, would 
 throw away the noble flights of fancy which it pre- 
 
160 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 sents, and reduce it to the simple narrative of the 
 Irish filagmis Mor. But on the other hand, when 
 popular tradition had got hold of the latter, and 
 embellished it with the decorations of a thousand 
 tongues ; when a man of genius found the tale in 
 this enlarged form, and began to model it anew, he 
 may easily have produced the Cathula and the 
 Manos of the Caledonian Ossian. And, if the Irish 
 Bard is not the copyist, he must have been the 
 author : for the tale is one, in its leading incidents, 
 and we find several of the Irishman's verses in the 
 Scotch poem. 
 
 It appears, then, that the great Bard of Selma, 
 not only makes his father enter the lists with a 
 champion of the eleventh century, but actually con- 
 descends to imitate an Irish romance of the fifteenth. 
 I have hinted that the Manos contains one incident 
 which is historical, and to which the Scots have a 
 national claim. I will now produce my authority, 
 and thus ascertain the action, and identify the king 
 of Lochlin, commemorated in these poems. We 
 are told that Magnus, after his expedition in the 
 Orkneys, according to the Highland poem, or, more 
 truly, into Ireland, agreeably to the Irish tale, made 
 an inroad on the western coast of Scotland ; and 
 this in direct violation of his promise. The brave 
 Fingal, arriving soon after this upon the spot, 
 found a neighbouring chief concealed in a cave, 
 took him along with him into the field of battle, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 170 
 
 where he encountered with Magnus, and mortally 
 wounded him.* 
 
 In the chronicle of Caradoc of Llancarvan, a 
 writer of credit, and almost a contemporary)' with 
 the northern king, we have the following curious 
 notice, respecting that identical Magnus, who shot 
 Hugh, earl of Chester, on the shore of Anglesea: — 
 " About the year 1101, Magnus, king (of Germany), 
 Ci came the second time to Anglesea, and having cut 
 " down a great quantity of timber, he returned to 
 " the Isle of Man, where he is said to have repaired 
 " three castles, which he had formerly destroyed, 
 " and to have garrisoned them, the second time, with 
 6i his own men. He sent to demand the daughter 
 Ci of Murchath, the chief man of Ireland, as a con- 
 " sort for his son, and obtained her with a good 
 " grace. He made that son king of Man, and 
 " remained in the island himself during that winter. 
 
 u The next year, Magnus, king (of Germany),! 
 " set sail with a few ships, and began to lay waste 
 " the coast of North Britain. When the inhabitants 
 6i perceived this, they began to ascend in troops, 
 u like emmets, out of holes and caves, to drive away 
 a their stock: and when they perceived that the 
 u king had but few attendants, they advanced boldly 
 "'to give him battle. The king, observing their 
 
 * See the poem of Manos at large. 
 
 t He died A. D. 1156, W. Archaiol. v. ii. p. 389. 
 i I conceive the word Germania was introduced by some copyist, and 
 that Caradoc only wrote Magnus Vrenin, King- Magnus, 
 
171 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 
 
 "motions, drew out his lines, regardless of the 
 " multitude of his enemies, or the smallness of his 
 ff own company. And whilst the Albanians, ac- 
 " cording to their custom, were vaunting of their 
 " numberless victories in days of yore, he engaged 
 " them with disadvantage. The battle being joined, 
 " many fell on both sides, and the king was slain 
 " by the trampling of the numerous host of his 
 " enemies. 5 '* 
 
 The king here commemorated was Magnus, sur- 
 named Barford, who, according to the Norwegian 
 history, conquered part of Ireland, invaded the 
 Western Islands of Scotland, and died somewhere 
 in the British Islands, in 1103-t I presume he was 
 the only Magnus, high king of Lochlin, whose 
 death has been imputed to the Caledonians, by any 
 page of history. Caradoc's account, if I may judge 
 from its tone, must have been derived from some of 
 the surviving friends of this prince," who seems to 
 have been engaged, not with any regular force, but 
 with an assemblage of the populace. 
 
 According to my conjecture, the heroes whom 
 the Irish and Scotch Bards have confronted in this 
 field, lived at a distance of two centuries from each 
 other : and I think the first compiler of the tale was 
 led into this anachronism, by his ignorance of the 
 real aera of Fingal and Magnus. He had heard 
 
 * W. Archaiol. v. ii. p. 404.— From a copy of tiae fourteenth century, 
 t See Hist, of Norway, in the Atlas Geograph. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 172 
 
 some vague tradition of the Norwegian king's defeat* 
 He knew not when it had happened, or to whom 
 the victory ought to be ascribed : but in some 
 remote age, the Fenii had been the brave antagonists 
 of the men of Lochlin ; and the chief of the Fenii, 
 as every one knew, was the renowned Finn Mac 
 CouL Upon the accuracy of these ideas, let the 
 antiquaries of Caledonia and Erin decide. 
 
 The historical incident, quoted from Caradoc, 
 affords, at least, a fair criterion, whereby to judge 
 of the antiquity of the poems which have been 
 ascribed to Ossian. Cathula and Manos present 
 us with some of the most sublime and most pathetic 
 passages which are to be found amongst the pro- 
 ductions of the Galic muse. Ossian is never more 
 beautiful, more original, or more at home. Here 
 are examples of every species of his excellence, 
 which is displayed in Dr. Blair's Dissertation. Here 
 we have also the fairest picture of primitive man- 
 ners, the allusions to Fingal's wars with the kings 
 of the world, and all the antiquated opinions and 
 customs, upon which the fame of Ossian has been 
 reared. But, if the Irish Bard relates the tale of 
 Magnus to St. Patrick, his imitative brother intro- 
 duces the Culdee, or one of the first propagators of 
 Christianity. This violent anachronism alone de- 
 monstrates, that the tissue has been woven long, 
 very long after the days of Magnus. With Magnus, 
 king of Lochlin, must therefore necessarily sink, all 
 
173 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the internal evidence of the Bard's antiquity : and 
 when this is gone, what support is there left to him? 
 In vain shall we be told, that these two poems are 
 not in Mr. Macpherson's collection. That gentle- 
 man published and suppressed what he thought 
 proper. Mac Vurrich, who had his treasure first 
 committed to writing, came down to our own times. 
 Mr. Smith's originals, as well as those of his pre- 
 decessor, were collected from oral repetitions of the 
 Highlanders, in the eighteenth century. They had 
 the name and character of Ossian equally stamped 
 in their very texture. They were equally accredited 
 by national opinion, as his genuine productions, and 
 equally favourites of the people. Remove one of 
 these columns, and down falls the triumphal arch of 
 the Bard of Selma. 
 
 
Section IV. 
 
 ■BBBBBBESBSaaS 
 
SECTION IV. 
 
 On the principles of versification, in the Galic poems, ascribed to Ossian, 
 
 The structure of Ossian's verse adduced by the favourers of his cause, 
 as an argument of his antiquity— The form of his verse— its principles un- 
 known amongst the present Highlanders — but taught by the Irish — and 
 explained, by extracts from their grammars— that it was invented in 
 Ireland— and borrowed from thence by the Scots— that it is not older than 
 the fifteenth century— and, therefore, it limits the antiquity of the Galic 
 poems. 
 
 The system of versification amongst the old Celtic tribes — founded in 
 rhyme and alliteration — remains of this system in the Irish Bards — and in 
 some fragments of Galic poems— that such fragments alone preserve the 
 character of antiquity.— A few concluding remarks upon the Highland 
 dialect. 
 
Of the many arguments which have been brought 
 forward, in proof of the high antiquity of Ossian's 
 poems, one still remains to be considered. It is 
 grounded upon the peculiar structure of the verse, 
 and is deserving of particular attention, though it 
 has been rather modestly insinuated, than closely 
 urged, by the learned editors. 
 
 Mr. Macpherson has not, in his translated 
 volumes, indulged the public curiosity with any 
 specimens of the metres of his author ; neither does 
 he explain the principles upon which they are 
 constructed : but he insists upon their general 
 mechanism, as a circumstance which must have 
 greatly facilitated the oral preservation of the 
 poems. u The use of letters (he tells us), was not 
 u known in the north of Europe, till long after the 
 u institution of the Bards: the records of the families 
 " of their patrons, their own, and more ancient 
 u poems, were handed down by tradition. Their 
 tc poetical compositions were admirably contrived 
 " for that purpose. They were adapted to music ; 
 " and the most perfect harmony was observed. 
 u Each verse was so connected with those which 
 " preceded or followed it, that, if one line had been 
 (t remembered, in a stanza, it was almost impossible 
 
177 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 " to forget the rest. The cadences followed in 
 te so natural a gradation, and the words were so 
 " adapted to the common turn of the voice, after it 
 ce was raised to a certain key, that it was almost 
 " impossible, from a similarity of sound, to substi- 
 u tute one word for another."* 
 
 I know not how this general description could, 
 pertinently, have a place in our author's Disserta- 
 tion, unless it was meant, particularly, to apply to 
 the metres of Ossian : and yet, such application 
 must appear a little surprising to those who have 
 learned from Mr. Smith, and Mr. Shaw, that hardly 
 any two persons repeat the same poem alike. The 
 contradiction, here, is not in matter of opinion, but 
 in the statement of plain facts. Passing over such 
 objections, and receiving the above paragraph, as 
 it stands, we may be led to suppose some consum- 
 mate efforts of art, or some happy developement of 
 natural principles, in the structure of Galic verse ; 
 and to wish that these principles had been elucidated 
 by the learned editor, who speaks of them as if he 
 understood them : but, from him, we hear nothing 
 more. , 
 
 Dr. Blair, who introduces into his Dissertation 
 an account of Gothic verse, with a marked reference 
 to the poems of Ossian, seems to prepare us for the 
 contemplation of stanzas without rhyme. — " Glaus 
 " Wormius — has given a particular account of the 
 
 * Diss, on the ./Era. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 178 
 
 u Gothic poetry — he informs us that there were no 
 " fewer than 136 different kinds of measure, or 
 f verse, used in their Vyses; and, though we are 
 " accustomed to call rhyme a Gothic invention, he 
 u says expressly, that among all these measures, 
 ■ e rhyme, or correspondence of final syllables, was 
 " never employed. lie analyzes the structure of 
 " one of these kinds of verse — which exhibits a very 
 u singular species of harmony — depending neither 
 " upon rhyme nor upon metrical feet, or quantity 
 (i of syllables, but chiefly upon the number of sylla- 
 " bles, and the disposition of letters. In every 
 " stanza was an equal number of lines; in every 
 " line, six syllables. In each distich, it was requisite 
 " that three words should begin with the same letter; 
 " two of the corresponding words placed in the first 
 tc line of the distich, the third in the second line. 
 " In each line were also required two syllables, but 
 " never the final ones, formed, either of the same 
 " consonants or same vowels. As an example of 
 " this measure, Oiaus gives us these two Latin lines, 
 f c constructed exactly according to the above rules 
 u of Runic verse :— - 
 
 " Christus caput nostrum 
 " Coronet te bonis." — 
 
 " The initial letters of Christus, caput, and coronet, 
 " make the three corresponding letters of the dis- 
 " tich. In the first line, the first syllables of Christus 
 *' and of nostrum ; in the second line, the on, in 
 
179 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 u coronet, and in bonis, make the requisite corres- 
 " pondence of syllables."* 
 
 I have given this long extract, that the reader 
 may have an opportunity of comparing the principles 
 of Runic verse, with those of Ossian's stanzas, which 
 will be produced hereafter. I do not find in them 
 an absolute identity of structure; yet I perceive a 
 closer analogy than I should have expected, between 
 Celtic and Gothic verse. 
 
 The want of rhyme in Ossian has been regarded 
 as a circumstance highly favourable to his claim of 
 antiquity : for Mr. Laing, in his strictures upon this 
 Bard, adduces the rhymes of the Welsh poems as 
 an argument, that they cannot be so old as the age 
 to which they pretend. 
 
 In the year 1778, Mr. Shaw published the first 
 grammar that was written or attempted to be written, 
 for the Scotch dialect of the Galic. In that work 
 he produces the two following stanzas from Mai- 
 Tina's Dream, as a specimen of Ossian's verse : — 
 
 {t Thainic errach le sioladh nan speur r 
 " Cha d'eirich duill' uaine dhamh fein ; 
 u Cliuinic oigna me samh act's an talla, 
 " Agusblmail iad clairsach nam fonn. 
 
 " Biia deoir ag taomadh le gruaidhan Mlialmhin 
 " Chunic oigli' me's mo thuiradh go trom 
 " Cuim' am bheil thu eo tuirsach a' m'f hiamiis 
 " Cliaomh Ainnir og Luath-ath nan sruth."t 
 
 * Critical Dissertation, note. 
 t " The spring returned with its showers, but no leaf of mine arose. The 
 4< virgins saw me silent in the hall, and they touched the harp of joy. The 
 " tear was on the cheek of Malvina : the virgins beheld me in my grief. 
 « Why art thou sad, thou fairest of the maids of Lutha V 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 180 
 
 Here, a stranger to the subject of Galic verse will 
 discover neither rhyme nor alliteration, nor any 
 other trace of artificial structure. He will be utterly 
 at a loss to guess at the meaning of Mr. Macpher- 
 son's connection, which would suggest a whole 
 stanza, from the recollection of a single line ; and 
 of his harmonious cadence, which rendered it almost 
 impossible to substitute one word for another. The 
 reader can only observe, that the lines are nearly 
 of equal length, and that the composition divides 
 itself into periods of four lines each. But this does 
 not always happen: for the editors of Ossian are in 
 the habit of striking out a lame or unnecessary line, 
 whenever they please. 
 
 But let us hear the Galic grammarian, upon the 
 foregoing passage: — " The measure of Ossian's 
 " poetry is very irregular and various. Generally, 
 " he has couplets of eight, though they do not rhyme, 
 " and seven, and sometimes nine syllables. These 
 " feet are most commonly, trochee and dactyle. 
 " The trochee occupies the first, the dactyle the 
 u second and third, and a long syllable ends the 
 " line."* 
 
 In this passage, which is not eminently perspi- 
 cuous, Mr. Shaw speaks of couplets; but Mr. 
 Macpherson's term, stanzas, is more appropriate ; 
 as it is evident, from the numerous specimens in 
 
 * Analysis of the Galic Lang. p. 132.— 2d edit. 
 
151 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the Galic Antiquities, that the lines of these poems 
 generally resolve themselves into tetrastichs. 
 
 If we demand of the Caledonians some informa- 
 tion respecting the principles of these stanzas of 
 Ossian, so highly characterized by Mr. Macpherson, 
 what must be our surprize, upon being told by their 
 only grammarian, that " Galic poets never jet wrote 
 u by any other rule than the ear, and certain pieces 
 " of music ; and for that reason, though we may 
 " easily see what sort of measure each piece delights 
 " in, the uniformity of the same number of similar 
 C( measures in every line, does not always return. 
 u This may be easily accounted for, by observing 
 " that all compositions have hitherto been orally 
 " repeated, and which, by different persons will ever 
 Ci be differently performed : whereas, had the pieces 
 " been written, every one would have repeated them 
 u alike. Even Ossian's poems could not be scanned : 
 " for every reciting Bard pronounced some 'words 
 " differently, and some times substituted one for 
 " another*— Having no correct edition of any poem 
 " in the language, we can only, in general, observe 
 u what, measure the poets employ, and recommend 
 il regularity and method to future writers."* 
 
 Mr. Shaw does not attempt to analyze a single 
 stanza of any kind of verse. He was, probably, no 
 Galic poet: but his grammar was several years in 
 preparing ; and his undertaking demanded of him 
 
 * Analysis of the Galic Lang. p. 130, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 182 
 
 to make diligent enquiry, and procure the best 
 information upon the subject, that was to be obtained. 
 We will suppose that he has done this, and that he 
 acquiesces in the discovery, that the Caledonians 
 had never possessed a national prosody. 
 
 But the ear of the versifierjnust have proposed 
 to itself some model, either of native or foreign 
 device. There must be some rules to ascertain 
 wherein a legitimate verse consists : some criterion 
 to distinguish verse from mere prose. And if the 
 best informed Caledonians are not able to produce 
 any such rules, nor even a tradition that their an- 
 cestors had ever possessed any rules of their own ; 
 we must not only think them very incompetent to 
 descant upon the beauties of their national versifi- 
 cation ; but we shall also be induced to suspect, 
 that their Bards only imitated some verse of foreign 
 device, the principles of which ought to be sought 
 for in another country. 
 
 Mr. Shaw was fully aware, that the Galic had 
 been abandoned to the caprice of an illiterate 
 populace, and that, to such of his countrymen, who 
 aspired to the knowledge of letters, the Irish had 
 always been the written and the studied language. 
 And ought not this conviction to have suggested a 
 hint, that the language, which had furnished the 
 Highlanders with letters and books, might also have 
 supplied them with the rules of composition? 
 
 In my comparison between the Irish poem of 
 Magnus the Great; and Ossian's Caledonian poem, 
 
183 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 upon the same subject, I have produced instanced 
 of the same verse, and the same identical couplet 
 appearing in the work of the Irish and Scotch Bard, 
 This coincidence exhibits an absolute demonstration, 
 that the verse used by the Bards of both countries 
 is the very same, in its principles and structure. 
 Nor is this identity of metre merely accidental. 
 Excepting a few short passages, which are adapted 
 to some popular airs, and a few other anomalies, the 
 printed specimens of Ossian, in general, amounting 
 to some thousands of lines, are composed in the 
 tetrastichs of those Irish Bards, whom Mr. Mac^ 
 pherson confidently assigns to the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth century. Some punctilios of Irish prosody 
 may have eluded the attention of the illiterate* 
 composers, and the more illiterate reciters of Galie 
 poetry, such as they have been described by Mr. 
 Shaw ; notwithstanding this, in every essential arti- 
 cle, they have copied with success. Had the 
 grammarian of Caledonia, therefore, compared the 
 Galic with the Irish tetrastichs, and then consulted 
 the Irish grammarians, he would have found an 
 easy access to the Parnassus of Ossian. 
 
 Is there no legitimate son of the Hibernian Muse 
 — no grammarian of Erin, still in being, to attend 
 to this circumstance, and, with one dash of his pen, 
 to dispose of the question, respecting the antiquity 
 
 * I mean illiterate with regard to Celtic grammar, and the rules of Celtic 
 composition : in other respects the Highland poets may have been accom- 
 plished scholars. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN* 184 
 
 of the Galic poems ? Such a man might demon- 
 strate, that one of these nations borrowed the 
 laws of verse from the other : he might boldly aver, 
 that his countrymen, who have written a host of 
 grammars, did not derive their prosody from the 
 Caledonians, who, till within these thirty years, had 
 never possessed so much as the skeleton of a na- 
 tional grammar. He might insist upon it, that, 
 though the Highlanders, who look only to their 
 Galic, are utterly ignorant of the mechanism of 
 these tetrastichs, the case is very different in Ireland; 
 and that the stanzas of, seemingly, a loose texture, 
 as not being constructed upon obvious principles, 
 are, nevertheless, extremely artificial, and the result 
 of much grammatical refinement. And, considering 
 by what means Ossian has been preserved, and 
 through what medium he has reached the public, 
 the critic need not be alarmed, upon the discovery 
 of a few occasional irregularities, in the Caledonian 
 Bard. 
 
 Till our sister island calls forth a patriotic son, 
 duly qualified for this task, she will forgive my 
 wielding a feeble pen in defence of her cause. Our 
 Welsh antiquary, Edward Llwyd, in the Brief 
 Introduction prefixed to his Irish Dictionary, has 
 given a considerable detail of the principles and 
 rules of the Hibernian prosody, extracted from the 
 grammar of Father O'Molloy,* and another in manu- 
 
 * Published at Rome, 1677. 
 
185 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 script, by an unknown author. I shall present the 
 reader with a few sketches from this compendium. 
 1, The Irish Bards divide the vowels into Broad; 
 as A, O, U ; and Small, as E, I. 2. Diphthongs 
 and triphthongs, when employed in concords, gene- 
 rally belong to the class of their leading vowel; 
 but, in terminations, they often follow the rank of 
 their concluding vowel. 3. The consonants are 
 distributed into eight several classes ; thus, C, P, 
 T, are Soft.—B, D, G, are Bar d.— Ch, Th, Fh, Ph, 
 Sh, are Hough. — LI, Nn, Rr, M, Ng, are Robust.— 
 Bh, Dh, Gh, Mh, L, N, R, are Light.— F, is 
 Weak — S, Barren — and H, Hollow. 
 
 In the various kinds of alliteration, introduced 
 into Irish verse, the return of the same identical 
 vowel or consonant is not required, it being deemed 
 •sufficient to exhibit correspondent letters of the 
 same class, agreeably to the above table. 
 
 I must stop here, to make a few remarks. -~-Mr. 
 Shaw discovers part of this system^ or of a similar 
 system, in the rude and neglected Galic. Thus :— 
 " The vowels — are either Broad or Small — «, o, u, 
 " are broad — c and i, small.''* " Sounds are either 
 <e quick or slow, rough or smooth, strong orjeeble.^f 
 " In the Galic, certain letters have strong, bold, 
 ** smooth or solemn sounds. O and u are bold, 
 61 strong, and solemn. The combinations ai, ei, are 
 " cheerful and soft — ao is soft and solemn— eo, io 9 
 
 * Analysis, p. 19. f Ibid. p. 127. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 186 
 
 " are musical. Consonants likewise have their in- 
 u herent power of expression. L, Bh, and Mh, are 
 " soft and meek. C, G, Ch, Gh, are soft, sprightly, 
 " and forcible. R, is angry and proud.''* &c. 
 
 Whether such a classification as that of the Irish 
 Bards, be founded in nature or not, it is surely, by 
 no means obvious or simple : and I hardly think 
 that a Bard of the third century could have told, by 
 his ear, that Th was rough, Gh light, &c. ; especially 
 if they were equally* reduced to quiescence, as in 
 the present mode of pronouncing the language. 
 
 But to return to the prosody. — Syllables are long, 
 middle, or short. — Ai, eu t ia, and ua, are always 
 long. The other diphthongs, and all the vowels, 
 are doubtful. 5. Any vowel may be substituted for 
 another of the same class, for the sake of quantity. 
 
 6. The several sorts of Irish metre, now in use, 
 consist of verses of six, seven, eight, nine, or, 
 sometimes, more syllables. Two of these verses 
 constitute a couplet, and two couplets, a stanza. 
 All verse is composed in such stanzas, excepting 
 some short lyric pieces, adapted to any particular 
 tune. 7. Every stanza, and every couplet, must 
 begin and conclude, without any grammatical de- 
 pendence on any word preceding or following. 
 
 8. There are five sorts of metre called Direct or 
 Just metre, each line of which generally consists of 
 seven syllables, admitting of the figure synalcepha. 
 
 * Analysis, p. 128. 
 
187 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAJf. 
 
 These metres require the following ornaments:— «* 
 Concord, or that two words in each line, begin 
 with the same vowels or consonants, or with vowels 
 or consonants of the same class. This rule is sub- 
 ject to many modifications and grammatical minutiae; 
 as, that no particle makes or prevents a concord : 
 that a concord after a verb is not approved of, and 
 may be avoided by seven kinds of transposition, 
 which are all described, &c. The next thing re- 
 quired is Correspondence, or the agreement of two 
 words in number of syllables, quantity of vowels, 
 and class of consonants, as in the words roc, sop, 
 lot i but the agreement of the final consonants is 
 dispensed with in particular cases, Termination 
 is also demanded ; or a correspondence between 
 the final words in the verses of the same couplet. 
 This is sometimes imperfect, and is then called 
 Union. Next comes Chief ; or an agreement in 
 the class of letters which conclude the two couplets 
 of the same stanza. This is the hinge which con- 
 nects the two couplets together ; and, as the same 
 identical letters are admissible, as well as letters of 
 the same class, it often produces a perfect rhyme, 
 between the second and fourth line, both in Irish 
 and Galic tetrastichs. 
 
 9. In the kind of verse called Seuda, the first 
 line of each couplet contains eight syllables, and 
 ends with a dissyllable : the second line has seven 
 syllables, and closes with a monosyllable. 
 
£hE CLAIMS OF OSSXAN. 188 
 
 10. The Great Metre has seven syllables in each 
 line, and the termination is always a monosyllable : 
 it requires an Union between the final words of the 
 second and fourth line. 
 
 11. The Small Metre has the like Union between 
 the terminations of the second and fourth; but 
 concludes each line with a dissyllable. 
 
 12. The laws of verse, as described by my author, 
 are so numerous and punctilious, that they must 
 have rendered the composition of regular verse, very 
 difficult, notwithstanding the variety of exceptions 
 and licences which are authorized. The Bards have 
 therefore devised a kind of stanza, called Oglathas, 
 in imitation of either of the preceding metres, only 
 that it dispenses with true correspondence and true 
 union, contenting itself with producing the same 
 general effect upon the ear, with the more rigid 
 metres. This must be very convenient for the in- 
 dolent, illiterate, or less accurate Bard. And many 
 of the stanzas of Ossian, as they are now brought 
 forward, will be found to muster under this banner. 
 
 It appears from these extracts, that the Irish 
 muse delights in a variety of correspondent sounds. 
 Yet these are not direct alliterations, which ob- 
 viously strike the ear, as in the old Runic poetry ; 
 but are regulated according to the table of classes 
 which I have given above. So that the composition 
 of a regular stanza, which leaves so slight a percep- 
 tion of harmony upon the organs of a stranger, is 
 frequently a thing of difficult accomplishment. 
 
189 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 This prosody delivers also a variety of rules* 
 respecting the number of syllables in the concluding 
 word of each line, and the agreement between the 
 terminations of the several verses in each stanza ; 
 all which are either exactly copied by the Caledo- 
 nian Bards, or else imitated, with such equivalent 
 conceits, as to impress full conviction upon the 
 mind, that both nations versified upon the very same 
 system, and that the model is found in the Irish 
 grammars of the seventeenth century, and in the 
 practice of Irish Bards, perhaps for an age or two 
 preceding that period. Of the principles and struc- 
 ture of this verse, the few particulars which I have 
 extracted may serve to communicate a general idea* 
 If the reader wishes for more information upon the 
 subject, I must refer him to my author, or to the 
 Irish grammars of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Puerile as some of these laws of verse may appear, 
 they were evidently the invention of a people who 
 applied closely to the study of letters, however they 
 may have perverted the use of them. This appears 
 upon the hypothesis, that the words were pro- 
 nounced as they are written. But if we suppose 
 that the Irish pronunciation has remained fixed, as 
 it is at present, from the time when these laws 
 were ratified, their invention must have been utterly 
 impossible to illiterate genius : for there are several 
 of these laws which apply only to the eye, and 
 escape the cognizance of the most accurate ear. 
 Elements which return precisely the same sound, or 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 190 
 
 no sound at all, from the mouth of an Hibernian 
 or Caledonian speaker, are disposed in separate 
 classes, by the edicts of the Bards. 
 
 For the better comprehension of my meaning, it 
 may be proper in this place, to acquaint the reader, 
 that the Irish, of our days, entirely suppress the 
 sound of several of their aspirated consonants, and 
 run the vowels which precede, and those which follow 
 such consonants, all into one syllable, pronouncing 
 Aghaidh as yi ; Amhuil as Awl, &c. But this 
 seems to me to be a modern corruption. It could 
 hardly have been the case, when the system of pro- 
 sody, now before us, was first adjusted. And in 
 some of the older Irish poems, which were composed 
 with full sounding alliterations, this corruption of 
 oral language, appears more forcibly. For in the 
 modem copies of those poems, we often find one 
 consonant retaining its due sound, whilst that which 
 ought to be its correspondent, is rendered absolutely 
 quiescent, by a point placed over it, or an h sub- 
 joined. 
 
 It was the decided opinion of Edward Llwyd, 
 that the ancient Irish did, distinctly, pronounce all 
 their aspirated consonants : and, if my recollection 
 does not deceive me, Mr. Walker, author of the 
 Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards, declares 
 that, as late as the fifteenth century, the laws of 
 metre required that all the aspirates should be 
 distinctly pronounced. 
 
 A A 
 
191 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Whenever a living and oral language differs 
 materially from its ancient orthography, it may be 
 received as a general maxim* that the latter is cor- 
 rupted or changed: for why should letters have 
 been introduced, that were not essential to their 
 appropriate words ; and how could they have been 
 essential, if they did not represent certain sounds, 
 at the time of their introduction ? why should the 
 old Irish have written Aghaidh or Agaid, if the 
 sound intended to be expressed was nothing more 
 than yi ? 
 
 For the corruption of Irish enunciation, Mr. Shaw 
 accounts, very probably, in the introduction to his 
 grammar. u Though there were English colonies 
 " in Ireland, the Gael (ancient inhabitants) of that 
 C( country enjoyed their own laws and customs, till 
 " the reigns of Elizabeth, and James the first, wheu 
 iC the English laws were universally established* 
 <c Then, for the first time, the Galic ceased to be 
 Ci spoken, by the chiefs of families, and at court. 
 " English schools were erected, with strict injunc- 
 ** tions, that the vernacular language should no 
 " longer be spoken, in those seminaries." The 
 Irish language was, of course, abandoned to the 
 caprice of the populace. 
 
 Agreeably to this, we learn from Miss Brooke's 
 JReliques, that during the eighteenth century, this 
 language was in such low estimation, that their 
 favourite Bards were such as had been deprived of 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 102 
 
 sight, in their infancy, and, consequently, were 
 absolutely illiterate. 
 
 This venerable tongue having thus been at the 
 mercy of the vulgar for two centuries, the natural 
 consequences have ensued. The populace gene- 
 rally abridge the labour of speaking. In the 
 borders of Wales, where the gentlemen despise the 
 Cambro-British, and the people understand just 
 English enough, to dispense with Divine service 
 in their native tongue, how often do we hear such 
 phrases as — " Be' sy' dalu," instead of " Beth sydd 
 i dalu," What is to pay?—" Ble i' ch' i' myn'd," 
 for " 1 ba le ydych chwi yn myned,'' Where are you 
 going, &c. So the English peasant says, " Icanna" 
 for I cannot ; (C Le ma ha'n woot,'' for, Let me have 
 it, will you, &c. As we appeal from all such 
 jargons as these, to the Welsh and English lan- 
 guages, as written and spoken by persons better 
 informed, so I would appeal from the " fragmina 
 vocum'' of the peasant of Erin, to the orthography 
 of Irish books. 
 
 At all events, those laws of verse, which we have 
 been considering, were not the invention of a nation 
 which had no established orthography — they could 
 not have been observed by the illiterate versifier— 
 they could not have been the device of the ancient 
 Celtse, a people who were never studious of letters. 
 
 In Ossian, a Caledonian of the third century, we 
 should naturally look for a versification, constructed 
 upon the most simple and obvious principles, such, 
 
193 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 for instance, as the stated return of similar sounds, 
 which make a forcible impression upon the ear : we 
 should expect a measure that did not depend upon 
 minute grammatical distinctions. But these tetras- 
 tichs were clearly the invention of the Irish, who 
 compiled several grammatical tracts between the 
 fifteenth and seventeenth century; and in whose 
 grammars alone their principles are to be found. 
 
 Upon what grounds can this proposition be 
 denied ? The system of versification which was 
 used both by the Scotch and Irish Bards, being the 
 very same, we must either suppose, that a people 
 comparatively learned, and who, for several ages, 
 diligently studied the structure of their native lan- 
 guage, borrowed a prosody, constructed upon the 
 most minute grammatical and orthographical rules, 
 from a nation who, confessedly, never possessed 
 either grammar, orthography, or prosody of their 
 own, or else we must admit the contrary. 
 
 And as I apprehend the mind of every unpre- 
 judiced man will, immediately, take the latter 
 direction, it must follow, that the poems ascribed 
 to Ossian could have had no existence before the 
 Irish Bards had digested their present system of 
 prosody, and the Scotch had learned to imitate their 
 versification. 
 
 The history of the invention of this system is 
 somewhat obscure ; but it is evidently of no ancient 
 date. It could have had no being till after the Irish 
 had established the custom of regularly distinguish- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 194 
 
 ing their aspirated consonants by a particular mark, 
 which they first began to do about the twelfth 
 century, when the admixture of Englishmen with 
 the native inhabitants rendered such a distinction 
 necessary. It must have originated after the intro- 
 duction of exotic learning into Ireland, and after that 
 learning had deviated from the road of important 
 research, in pursuit of curious trifles. In short, its 
 birth seems to have coincided with the expiring 
 moments of Erin's literary fame. The oldest ex- 
 amples of stanzas, constructed upon this system, 
 are found in those romantic poems which bear the 
 name of Qisin, and which Mr. Macpherson posi- 
 tively, and with apparent accuracy, ascribes to the 
 Bards of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. And 
 there can be no doubt that the practice of the Bards 
 accompanied the several stages of their invention. 
 The completion of this scheme cannot be carried 
 farther back than the fifteenth century : for, in 
 pieces which preceded that age, at a short interval, 
 it appears unformed, and in its embryo state. And, 
 in poems which are still more ancient, the structure 
 of Irish verse is totally different. This will be seen 
 hereafter. But the poems of Qssian, published by 
 Mr. Smith, and those fragments of Mr. Macpher- 
 son's originals, which have been allowed to see the 
 light, exactly resemble, in the structure of their 
 verse, the tetrastich form of the modern Irish Bards. 
 In some instances, a few deviations may be re- 
 marked. But these are such only as may be found 
 
195 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 in the less accurate Bards of the Irish themselves, 
 and such as might be expected in the works of any 
 unlearned versifier, who should attempt to imitate 
 measures, of a structure so very artificial and intri- 
 cate. In the Caledonian poems, these irregularities 
 may have been increased, by the faulty recital of 
 persons who had no idea of any rules of verse what- 
 soever, or by the corruptions of Galic orthography. 
 And after all, the general model is preserved. 
 
 The Highland poet, instead of placing before him 
 a table of classifications, which, in many instances, 
 addressed itself only to the eye, may have, occa- 
 sionally, aimed at nothing more than to produce 
 the same kind of audible harmony, by the mere 
 assistance of his ear, and the same measure and 
 cadence which he perceived in the Irish stanzas. 
 
 Thus a schoolboy, whilst a novice in his Cfradus, 
 may make half a dozen false quantities, in a copy 
 of hexameters and pentameters ; but still, it will be 
 easy to ascertain the species of verse which he has 
 aimed to produce. I think there can be no incon- 
 sistency in supposing that a Highland poet has 
 sufficient general learning, to improve upon the 
 plan of old Irish poems, whilst, at the same time, 
 he may not be a perfect adept in Irish versification.* 
 
 * I had in this place, analyzed some of the stanzas in the Galic An- 
 tiquities; but as Mr. Macpherson's originals are now before the public, they 
 may afford a more satisfactory opportunity of illustrating my argument* 
 The reader is therefore referred to my first additional section. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 196 
 
 If any doubt should remain, as to the position here 
 laid down ; if any specimens of the unedited Ossian, 
 which differ more essentially from the structure of 
 modern Irish tetrastichs, be quoted against me, I 
 only ask, that the morsels of lyric measure be 
 excepted, and that the specimens be fairly copied 
 from manuscripts as old, at least, as the middle of 
 the eighteenth century, in order to guard against 
 injury, from the carelessness of oral reciters, or the 
 abundant care of editors. And let a due comparison 
 with Irish stanzas determine the question, 
 
 Till these vouchers be produced, and their testi- 
 mony substantiated, I must be allowed to observe, 
 upon the evidence that has already appeared — That 
 the measures of Ossian's poems are essentially the 
 same as those which are found in the works of the 
 Irish Bards : that these measures arise from prin- 
 ciples which are developed in the grammars of the 
 Irish, as deduced from the practice of their national 
 poets : that the application of these principles 
 demand such a variety of punctilious grammatical 
 observations, as to render it evident, that they were 
 the invention of a people who studied the grammar 
 of their own language ; whereas the Highlanders, 
 the only people who use the same language with the 
 Irish, never reduced their native dialect to any 
 grammatical rules, before the year 1778. It follows, 
 that the measures employed in Ossian's poems, are 
 undoubtedly the invention of the Irish. 
 
197 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 But as the original inventors were, certainly, the 
 first people who used these measures, they must 
 have appeared in Irish poems, before they could 
 have been known in Caledonia. And the Irish 
 never used them before the fifteenth century. Not 
 a single fragment, therefore, of the Caledonian 
 Ossian, in which these measures are either copied 
 or imitated, can possibly be ascribed to any earlier 
 period. 
 
 Notwithstanding, therefore, all that has been 
 brought forward, relative to the high antiquity of 
 Ossian, and his primitive metres, we have still to 
 inquire for the mode of versification used by the 
 ancient Celtic tribes. 
 
 The language of the passions is not less natural 
 to man than the passions themselves : so that I can 
 hardly conceive the existence of a nation, which had 
 not some idea of poetry ; but, whatever may be 
 objected upon this head, it is certain that the Celtae 
 had their poets. And though it should not appear, 
 at first sight, that verse is essential to poetry, yet 
 we have the best authority to assert, that the poets 
 of the Celtae, like those of most other nations, did 
 compose in verse, upon whatever principle it was 
 constructed. 
 
 For the universality of this concomitant of poetry, 
 even amongst the barbarous nations, the following 
 reason may be assigned. When we utter a single 
 sentence, expressive of any passion, affection, or 
 sudden emotion of the mind, nature dictates a 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 198 
 
 corresponding tone and modulation of the voice. 
 Such modulations, however rude and simple we may 
 suppose them to have been, amongst the primitive 
 nations, may be regarded as natural music, and the 
 foundation of that art; which study and cultivation 
 have rendered so exquisite. 
 
 The first Bard, whether his subject was devotion, 
 a victory, love or grief, uttered his ardent feeling, 
 accompanied with an artless modulation. Emotion 
 and passion delight in short sentences : this modu- 
 lation had, therefore, its limited compass : and if 
 the theme called for a second or a third strain, the 
 very repetition of the tune would suggest a sentence 
 of nearly the same length and cadence. Such divi- 
 sions of poetic language, having been once pointed 
 out, by the hand of nature, the way was open for 
 gradual improvement ; for the acquisition of regu- 
 larity and ornament, all which were introduced, 
 when poetry began to be studied as an art. 
 
 Then the poets of every country established such 
 rules of versification as were suggested by the genius 
 of their language, or such as their own taste and 
 dexterity could devise. But as art, by this time, 
 began to supersede nature, we might expect to find 
 different principles of versification prevailing in the 
 great primitive nations. The most ancient speci- 
 mens of verse, which we have at present, are found 
 in some parts of the old testament. And Dr. Hare, 
 in his edition of the Psalms, has rendered it probable, 
 that Hebrew verse was regulated by a determinate 
 
 B £ 
 
199 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 number of syllables, or even by poetic feet; but 
 owing to our ignorance of the true pronunciation of 
 that language, the fact seems to be incapable of 
 absolute demonstration. We also find, in the sacred 
 poets, frequent alliterations and final rhymes. It 
 is evident that these were by no means avoided, as 
 blemishes, though we do not perceive their constant 
 return, with that regularity which might warrant 
 the conclusion, that they were studied as necessary 
 appendages of verse. All that we can positively 
 assert is, that the several periods of the same sacred 
 poem are nearly of equal length; and that there is, 
 generally, a kind of harmonious relation between 
 the thoughts, or sentiments, expressed in the dif- 
 ferent members of the same period. 
 
 The Greeks and Romans, and some of the Asiatic 
 nations, measuring the exact time or quantity of all 
 their syllables, disposed them into feet of deter- 
 minate length, which they employed in the con- 
 struction of verse, and lyric strophes, of unrivalled 
 harmony. 
 
 The Gothic nations, a people who were barely 
 acquainted with letters, contented themselves with 
 the simple device of numbering the syllables in 
 every line, and decorating every couplet, or stanza, 
 with a determinate number of strong alliterations, 
 which made an immediate and forcible impression 
 upon the uncultivated ear. This obvious contri- 
 vance is exemplified in the Latin distich of Wor- 
 mius, already recited, and may be remarked in the 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 200 
 
 following lines of the Voluspa, the oldest of their 
 poems now extant : — 
 
 23r<edor mono fterias 
 Oc at ftonom verda 
 Muno systrungar 
 *Sifiom spilla 
 Hart er med Aauldrom 
 JFferdomr mikill 
 iSkeggold scalmold 
 tfkildir klofnir, &c. 
 
 Some principles of versification, equally obvious 
 and simple with these before us, may be supposed 
 to have existed in the national poetry of the ancient 
 Celtse : for though these people were perfectly dis- 
 tinct from the Gothic nations, they were nearly 
 upon a level with them, as to the cultivation of the 
 fine arts. We cannot suppose that they studied 
 the harmony of thought, the elegant antithesis and 
 repetition of the Hebrew poetry ; nor does it appear 
 that their language was analyzed with due accuracy, 
 and sufficiently polished, to admit of any thing like 
 the harmonious feet of Greek and Roman verse. 
 
 If we may judge of their verse, by the oldest spe- 
 cimens which can be produced by their descendants, 
 in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall, they 
 carried their art no farther than to adjust the number 
 and cadence of syllables, in each line, to add the 
 embellishment of strong and impressive alliteration, 
 and to connect their verses with final rhymes, which 
 were sometimes continued without variation, for 
 several lines together. 
 
201 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 
 
 Of the old poetry of the Irish, I shall have occa- 
 sion to produce some examples, in the course of 
 this section. For that of the Britons, in Scotland 
 and Cornwall, I refer to the works of the great 
 antiquary, Edward Llwyd.* And, lest I should be 
 accused of prepossession, in speaking of the Welsh 
 Bards, I shall commit their cause entirely to Mr. 
 Turner, who, in his learned and candid Vindication, 
 has proved that the Welsh have considerable re- 
 mains of the poetry of the sixth century, and that 
 their verse is wholly constructed upon the principles 
 here described. 
 
 Rhyme has been employed as an ornament in the 
 verse of almost every nation, in modern Europe. 
 Some critics had, indeed, asserted, that it was 
 utterly unknown in this part of the world, before the 
 eighth or ninth century. But the gentleman to whose 
 able defence I have now referred, has removed this 
 objection, by shewing that rhyme was sufficiently 
 known, long before the time of the oldest Welsh 
 Bard, whose works have been preserved. 
 
 I am searching, however, for the national verse 
 of the ancient Celtae, and I think it must be detected 
 in that of their oldest descendants. Whom should 
 the Bards of the sixth century have imitated, but 
 their predecessors in their own country, and who 
 
 * See a specimen of the poetry of the Strath Cluid Britons, from a copy 
 which Llwyd judged to be 1000 years old, now 1100, in the Archaeol. p. 221. 
 For the Cornish, see Llwyd's 5 th Letter to Mr. Tonkin.— Archaol. Coma- 
 B>'itan } append. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 202 
 
 had composed in their own language ? What had 
 they to do with the Saracens, or the monks of Italy ? 
 Had not sufficient proofs been adduced, that rhyme 
 was generally kown in Europe, as early as the first 
 century of our aera, yet it might have been admitted 
 as probable, that it was peculiarly known to the 
 Celtse, amongst whose ancient poets we find it in 
 full establishment. 
 
 It cannot be objected, that it was of too complex 
 and artificial a nature, to have occurred to this 
 people, in their pagan state. For, of all the em- 
 bellishments of verse, it is the most simple and 
 obvious. Few men have produced hexameters 
 and pentameters without design ; but spontaneous 
 rhymes often occur in common conversation ; and 
 when they occur, they strike the most uncultivated 
 ear. The most illiterate are sensible of their im- 
 pression, and can imitate them at pleasure. 
 
 This embellishment of verse must have been 
 peculiarly convenient for the use of the Druidical 
 order. It is recorded of them, that they learned to 
 recite a multitude of verses, treating of their national 
 superstition ; and that the committing of such verses 
 to writing, was prohibited by a positive law. They 
 would, therefore, naturally avail themselves of every 
 method they could device to assist the memory. To 
 this end, nothing could have been more conducive, 
 than the strong alliterations, and long-continued 
 rhymes, which we find in the old Welsh Bards. 
 The very sound of one word suggested the sue- 
 
203 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 ceeding ; and one line gave the echo of another. 
 It must have been for the same purpose of assisting 
 the memory, that these Bards frequently began 
 several periods with the same phrase, and several 
 successive lines with the same letter. 
 
 And as the perfect rhyme, which returns precisely 
 the same sound at stated intervals, makes the 
 strongest [impression upon the ear; as it is most 
 obvious to immediate remark, and, at the same 
 time, the easiest model for imitation ; so it must, 
 for these reasons, have been more ancient than that 
 which depends upon artificial classifications of the 
 letters. Thus a stranger to the language, immedi- 
 ately sees the repetition of the same letters, and 
 hears the return of the same sound, in the following 
 lines of an old Welsh Bard : — 
 
 Mor yw gwael gweled 
 Cynnwro cynuired 
 .Brathau a brithred 
 JSrithwyr ar gerddedf. 
 
 But in the subjoined example of complete Irish 
 metre, the correspondence of letters is not so 
 obvious : — 
 
 " Naoi cced is tri fichid feibh, 
 " Ag righadh deilis abett j 
 " Soisir glic armtha f huinn, 
 " Coisir Chalbhagh mhic Conuill/ 51 
 
 Who can discover any correspondence between 
 the terminations of these lines, till he has learned 
 by his table, that ei, in the minor terminationjfef'6^, 
 constitute an Ephthong, of the same class with the 
 small vowel e, in the major termination abett ; and 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 204 
 
 that nn, in fhuinn, and M, in Conuill, are equally of 
 the class of robust consonants ? 
 
 In poetry of this kind, the judgment of the ear is 
 superseded by the rules of an artificial prosody. A 
 minute knowledge of the Irish grammar is requisite, 
 not only to compose, but even to read and under- 
 stand it. If we had not positive evidence to decide 
 the question, general history and common sense 
 would have led us to the conclusion, that such was 
 not the ancient verse of the Irish nation, or of any 
 Celtic tribe whatsoever. The system, as I have 
 already observed, appears to have originated in an 
 age, when the genius of Ireland was turned from 
 solid learning to the pursuit of curious trifles ; and 
 not to have been completed before the fifteenth 
 century. But to proceed — 
 
 Alliteration, or the repetition of similar sounds, 
 in the first and middle syllables of lines, does not 
 present itself to the ear with the same force as final 
 rhyme. It is less obvious ; and, therefore, I think 
 its regular introduction, at stated intervals, is of 
 more recent date than the other, amongst the Celtic 
 Bards. But being of the same nature, or nothing 
 more than a repetition of similar sounds, rhyme 
 itself may have opened the way for the study of this 
 embellishment, which was highly approved of by 
 those Bards, as we may judge from the oldest re- 
 mains of verse in Ireland and Wales. 
 
 The modern Welsh Bards have, indeed, carried 
 their fondness for this ornament to a vicious excess. 
 
205 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 
 
 For the sake of this, they neglect regularity of plan, 
 arrangement of thought, and perspicuity of diction. 
 But their correspondent sounds are those which are 
 fixed by nature, and which the ear of a stranger 
 cannot help perceiving, though it may not approve 
 of their frequency. 
 
 The modern Irish Bards, as we have seen, are 
 equally partial to correspondent sounds, of which 
 they sometimes require six or seven, under different 
 names, in a single couplet or half stanza, of their 
 finished metres $ and though they have licence to 
 dispense with some of them, yet the rule must 
 have been established before the exception was 
 authorized. But their correspondences are wholly 
 artificial. They escape the cognizance of the un- 
 tutored ear ;. and no Irish composer, or reader, can 
 point out the graces of metre, unless he remem- 
 ber his table, which tells him that these vowels 
 and dipththongs are broad, and the others small; 
 and that the consonants of one class are soft, — of 
 another, hard, — of a third, rough, &c. Thus the 
 difficulty of versification is augmented, whilst its 
 effect is destroyed, and the pretensions to remote 
 antiquity utterly overthrown. 
 
 Upon the whole it appears, that the mechanical 
 correspondence of articulate sounds, however differ- 
 ently understood, is the great principle of Celtic 
 verse in general, and that the obvious correspond- 
 ence of sounds, naturally similar, was attended 
 
THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 206 
 
 to, before the Bards thought of that which is more 
 complex and artificial. 
 
 We have already seen that the system of versifi- 
 cation, which has been established in Ireland, for 
 three or four centuries, as far as it regards the 
 terminations of lines, in the same couplet, or of 
 couplets in the same stanza* demands only a kind 
 of artificial agreement. It dispenses altogether 
 with natural rhyme. But of the specimens of Irish 
 poetry which I have seen, I discover none in which 
 the principles of this system act in their full force >, 
 of an earlier date than Fitzgerald's poem upon a 
 ship, written in the reign of Elizabeth.* Through- 
 out this piece, legitimate rhymes, between the second 
 and fourth line of the stanzas, are but thinly 
 scattered, and seemingly by accident, as in the 
 poems of the Caledonian Ossian, published by Mr. 
 Smith. 
 
 And though the adjustment of the system before 
 us be of somewhat higher antiquity, it seems to have 
 been employed, at first, rather as a licence for the 
 occasional neglect of rhyme, than as a general rule 
 to supersede it altogether. For in the poems of the 
 fifteenth or sixteenth century, we perceive a greater 
 number of true rhymes than what could have been 
 produced by accident, and more than what the laws 
 now in force demand. Thus in the poem upon 
 Magnus the Great;\ the second and fourth line of 
 
 * See Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 300. t Ibid. p. 271, 
 
 C C 
 
207 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the several stanzas, generally, rhyme audibly, and 
 sometimes also, the first and third. The same is 
 observable in The Chase*, a poem of considerable 
 length, which mentions the expedition of Magnus ; 
 which confounds his sera with that of St. Patrick, 
 and is, therefore, a modern composition. See also 
 the Romance of Moira JSor&f , which has a consi- 
 derable number of alternate rhymes. 
 
 From these instances it is evident, that natural 
 and audible rhyme was not wholly neglected, two 
 or three hundred years ago, and that the artificial 
 system was then only getting into vogue. 
 
 I have already quoted Miss Brooke's account of 
 the poem of Conloch, th6 first in her collection — 
 that it is impossible to avoid ascribing it to a very 
 early period-— that the language is much older than 
 any of that lady's originals, the War Odes excep- 
 ted, and that it is quite different from the style of 
 those poems, which are known to be the composition 
 of the middle ages — that is, of the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth century, according to Mr. Macpherson, 
 and, I believe, according to truth. 
 
 I have also observed, that Mr. O'Halloran, in his 
 introduction to this piece, dates the subject about 
 Anno Mundi, 3950. But 1 observe further, that 
 the poet introduces the Norwegian name, Auliffe 
 or Olave, amongst his Anno Mundi heroes ; he 
 speaks familiarly of " Proud India's splended plain," 
 
 * See Reliques of Irish Poetry, p, 278. t Ibid. p. 288. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 208 
 
 of" Grecian shores," u Persian foes/' Pietish chiefs," 
 " Lochlin, 5 ' " Spain/' &c. and records a dispute 
 about paying the toll] of a bridge in Ulster. The 
 piece is a high flown tale of chivalry, and taking it 
 altogether, I cannot persuade myself that it is older 
 than the thirteenth century, when that kind of 
 romance began to be fashionable." Be that as it 
 may, we here find several paragraphs in regular 
 rhyme. The poem, for instance, opens thus: — • 
 
 Tainig friath an bovb laoch, 
 An cttraidh crodha Conlaoch ; 
 An sna mmt 7ia garr£/ta grinn, 
 O Dhunsgaf/iaig go Heirinn, 
 Failte dhuit, a Zaoch luinii, 
 A mhacaoimh aluinn airmghrinn ! 
 
 In this passage, I have marked the alliterations, 
 which are direct and obvious, like those of the old 
 Gothic and Welsh verse, and do not depend upon 
 artificial classifications of the letters, as in the more 
 recent poems of the Irish and Scots. 
 
 Miss Brooke regards the War Odes as the oldest 
 of all her originals. Of these, she has favoured us 
 with two examples. That upon Gaul seems to be 
 by far the most modern of the two. It hangs upon 
 an awkward romance, respecting a contest for pre- 
 cedence, between Finn and Gaul, when the Bards, 
 apprehensive of the consequence, shook the chain 
 
 * The lamentation of Cuchullin, which concludes the poem, cannot be 
 older than the fifteenth century. In some copies this appears as a separate 
 piece ; in others, it is connected with the rest of the poem,— Assuitur 
 pannas. 
 
209 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 of silence, and flung themselves among the ranks, 
 extolling the sweets of peace, and the achievements 
 of the combatants' ancestors, &c. The Bard, 
 addressing the two chiefs alternately, in long strings 
 of heroic epithets, conjures Gaul to submit, and 
 Finn to use moderation. At length, Gaul answers 
 the Bard in verse, and the latter concludes with an 
 appropriate compliment. 
 
 This piece may possibly contain the substance of 
 an old sonnet, not composed upon the spur of 
 occasion, but written to commemorate a traditional 
 reconciliation between the two heroes. The modern 
 Bards, however, according to their custom, seem to 
 have amplified it abundantly, and shaped it into a 
 conciliatory song, adapted to the appeasing of 
 broils, at the carousals of their chiefs. But as the 
 measure of the old poems is preserved, we scarcely 
 discover in it any thing of the present system of 
 versification. There are several parts of the poem 
 which will not divide at all into tetrastichs ; and 
 those that will admit of such distribution, frequently 
 drop into alternate rhymes, as in these examples :— 
 
 Laoch feinnidhe fial 
 
 Is gile glor 
 Ni saobh acbiall 
 
 Laoch aobhdha mor. 
 
 A Fhinn an f huilt tais 
 
 Ar Gholl na bris 
 A mheirge ni tais 
 
 Is mairg thagmhus ris. 
 
 Eire fa chios 
 
 Budh coir dha chuis 
 Is meanmnach bhios 
 
 Is dcalbhach aghnuis, &c. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 210 
 
 I cannot produce parallels to these stanzas from 
 the Welsh Bards, who seem not to have been 
 acquainted with alternate rhymes. 
 
 The war ode, commemorating the battle of Osgur, 
 the son of Oisin, with Cairbre, king of Ulster, is 
 undoubtedly the oldest of all Miss Brooke's ori- 
 ginals. It is said to have been composed extempore, 
 at the battle of Gabhra, in the year 296, so that the 
 subject is intimately connected with the first book 
 of Mr. Macpherson's Temora. 
 
 But the Irish appear to entertain some very 
 romantic ideas of their ancient Bards. These gen- 
 tlemen did not, surely, rush into the very tumult of 
 battle, accompanied with their band of performers, 
 upon instruments of music — they did not actually 
 place themselves close to the back of their patrons, 
 catching inspiration from the scene before them, 
 and pouring forth an ode, of eighty or a hundred 
 regular lines, with a stentorian voice, which drowned 
 the din of arms! If such was the case, the strain 
 which described the falling stroke, and animated 
 the rising arm, however accurate in its metre, must 
 have been not only extemporaneous, but instan- 
 taneous. And the musicians who could seize the 
 flying words, and play in unison with these Carmina 
 non prius — audita, must have been inspired with 
 the very soul of the Bard. And this is not the 
 whole of the difficulty which presents itself. How 
 are we to account for the preservation of these 
 subitaneous effusions ? Ought not a couple of secreT 
 
211 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 taries to be introduced, one at the elbow of the 
 Bard, and the other at that of his chief harper, to 
 take down the words and the music in short hand? 
 
 It should seem more probable, that those odes 
 which describe the circumstances of a battle were, 
 invariably, composed after the tumult was over. 
 And, as Osgur did not live to hear the encomium of 
 the Bard, the composition of the present strain may 
 have been delayed for an age or two, till an occasion 
 offered itself of animating some other young hero, 
 by a recital of the song of fame. 
 
 But not to irritate the genius of Erin, it may be 
 candidly admitted, that the ode before us, in the 
 very structure of its verse, shews considerable marks 
 of antiquity. For, instead of the tetrastichs of the 
 modern Irish muse, it exhibits throughout the 
 venerable remains of Celtic rhymes, which are often 
 continued, without variation, for several lines toge- 
 ther, as in the works of the old Welsh Bards. Thus 
 we have four lines in ach, twenty-four in a and e ;* 
 four in inn, four in ach, four in e,four in a, &c. 
 
 The following is a specimen : — 
 
 Na gabh osadh uatha 
 Cosguir arightha 
 A Osguir eirigh fubhtha 
 Tarsa agus trioplitha 
 Aghnuis is caoimhe crotha 
 Eirigh adtus accalha 
 Lean le feirg mo ghotha 
 A meirg is dearg datha, &c 
 
 * These two terminations are oddly mixed in the present copy ; but it & 
 probable that, originally, all these lines ended in a. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 212 
 
 Was this intended for rhyme, or was it not ? I 
 think the answer cannot be doubtful. As for the 
 few irregularities and defective rhymes, which we 
 now mid in the poem, they may well be supposed 
 to have arisen from the interpolation or corruption 
 of copies, or from the change of aspirated conso- 
 nants, some of which I could point out, did I not 
 find sufficient evidence already, to establish all that 
 I want to prove — that rhyme was anciently used by 
 the Irish Bards— and that the higher we ascend in 
 the annals of Irish poetry, the less we find of the 
 unrhymed stanzas of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 century, and the nearer we approach to the manner 
 of the old Welsh Bards. 
 
 I have observed that the subject of this ode falls 
 in with the death of Oscar, in the first book of the 
 Temora. I may add that, if I have been at all suc- 
 cessful, in picking out the meaning of the original, 
 several of the thoughts are more happily rendered 
 in that poem than in the translation of the Irish 
 lady. 
 
 Mr. Smith speaks of the death of Oscar, which 
 his predecessor had incorporated into his epic poem, 
 as a separate piece, and one of the best known in 
 the Highlands.* In another part of his volumef 
 he gives two extracts from this piece, by which it 
 appears that, whilst the Irish poem, upon the combat 
 of Oscar and Cairbar, is composed in an antiquated 
 
 Galic Antiq. p. 97. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 300. 
 
213 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 and forgotten kind of verse, that of the Highlanders 
 exhibits the unrhymed stanzas, which were used by 
 the Irish poets, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth 
 century ; as for example— 
 
 Donnalaicli nan con remthaobh, 
 Agus buirich nan seanlaoch 
 Gul a phannail so co snitheacb, 
 Sud is mo chraidh mo chroidhe.* 
 
 Hence it appears, that the Scots had a poem upon 
 the battle of Oscar and Cairbar, before they could 
 boast of the Temora, an epic poem in eight books, 
 and that the Irish had a poem upon the same sub- 
 ject, long before either of the others could have 
 been composed. 
 
 I shall carry my inquiry after the ancient versifi- 
 cation of the Irish but one degree farther. In 
 the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, for 
 the year 1788, Mr, O'Halloran has introduced an 
 encomiastic poem, addressed to Goll, the son of 
 Morna, or Gaul, the son of Mirni. This ode, 
 according to the editor, was sung at the battle of 
 Cuacha, fought A. D. 155. Whatever I may think 
 of the date which is here assigned to the poem, or 
 of the occasion upon which it was composed, it 
 would be trifling to dispute with Mr. O'Halloran 
 about the small interval of six or seven centuries. 
 Let it suffice, that the piece is brought forward, as 
 one of the very oldest reliques of the poetry of Erin. 
 
 * " The gvoans of aged chiefs ; the howling of my dogs ; the sudden 
 u bursts of the song of grief, have melted Oscar's soul."— Macpherson, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 214 
 
 And, if it be admitted that such a hero as Gaul ever 
 did exist, this rhapsody, allowing for a few modern- 
 izations, and perhaps, a few interpolated lines, bids 
 the fairest of any thing which I have seen, to be the 
 genuine productions of his age. For here we dis- 
 cover the unsophisticated barbaric muse, without 
 a shred of borrowed ornament, simple, even to 
 rusticity, without plan, without invention, without 
 even connection of ideas. The piece, consisting of 
 eighty-eight short verses,* has neither beginning, 
 middle, nor end. It is a mere hampered string of 
 epithets, and has hardly a single verb to hang them 
 together. 
 
 But as to the structure of its verse, its measure, 
 its strong alliterations, and its final rhymes, they 
 are, in general, precisely the same as those of the 
 early Welsh Bards, Let the reader compare them, — 
 
 Irish. 
 
 Goll mear wrileata 
 Ceap na crodhachta 
 Laimh f hial arrachta 
 Mian na mordhasa. 
 
 Welsh of Aneurin. 
 
 Gredyfgwr oed g-was 
 Gwrhyt am dias 
 Meirch mwth myngoras 
 Y dan mordhwyt mygrwas.f 
 
 Welsh of Taliesin. 
 
 Mydwyv wierwerydd 
 Jfolawd Duw Dovydd 
 Llwrw cyvranc cywydd 
 Cyvreu dyvnwedydd4 
 
 * In this edition, two verses are crowded into one line, 
 
 t W, Archaiol, p. 1. % Ibid. p. 37. 
 
 D D 
 
215 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 The structure of ancient British and Irish verse, 
 being thus one and the same, I cannot persuade 
 myself that the Bards of either country deserted 
 their own established mode, to imitate that of the 
 other : on the contrary, I infer, that they had equally 
 retained the same mode, from some remote age, in 
 which their ancestors had been better connected ; 
 and consequently, that this was the style of versifi- 
 cation amongst the ancient Celtic tribes, under the 
 direction of the Druids. 
 
 What I deem another remarkable circumstance 
 iy this — Almost every line in the Irish poem, ex- 
 cepting a few which depart from the general laws of 
 the verse, and are, therefore, either modernized or 
 interpolated, may, by a mere change of orthography, 
 be converted into pure Welsh, preserving the sense 9 
 the measure, the alliteration, and the rhyme, and 
 exhibiting a phraseology very similar to that of 
 Taliesin. Though not a Bard myself, I will take 
 the liberty, in my appendix,* of recommending a 
 few specimens to the attention of those Irish and 
 Galic critics, who affirm, that our language is nothing 
 more than a depraved dialect of the Celtic. To me, 
 it appears an evident fact, that, in the age of our 
 unknown Bard, the Irish language had much greater 
 analogy with this depraved dialect, than it has at 
 present. 
 
 * No. l. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 9A0 
 
 This piece also exhibits some specimens of alter- 
 nate rhyme, still preserving the alliteration, as in 
 the following example : — 
 
 IViath na from clianna 
 JSriathra 6inn mhala 
 Mile wear dhanna 
 Dlightheach diongmhala, &c. 
 
 It must not, however, be dissembled that, in the 
 copy before me, I find twenty out of eighty-eight 
 lines, which do not rhyme at all. Yet, T cannot 
 entertain the smallest doubt, that this piece was, 
 originally, composed throughout, in the same kind 
 of full-sounding rhymes and alliteration, which were 
 employed by the ancient Welsh Bards, and are con- 
 stantly used by their successors to this day. For 
 the occasional want of these ornaments in the poem, 
 as it now stands, many reasons may be assigned. 
 By a careless reciter or copyist, the lines may have 
 been transposed, and separated from their corres- 
 pondents : for the piece is of so loose a texture, that 
 the disjointed verses may be all shaken in a bag, 
 and placed, as they are drawn out at random, with- 
 out injury to the construction or the plan. This 
 defect in the composition may also have furnished 
 the modern Bards with an easy opportunity to throw 
 in a few additional epithets, to grace the character 
 of the hero ; and as rhyme was not used in their 
 age, it would, of course, be neglected in such inter- 
 polations. We learn from Miss Brooke, who was 
 in the secret of the Irish antiquaries, that some 
 recent copies of old poems exhibit several lines, 
 
217 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 which are not to be found in others, of an earlier 
 date. And we are informed, by the same lady, that, 
 when a word in the ancient poems was become very 
 obsolete, it was customary to change it for one 
 better understood. Such changes would also be 
 made without any regard to the preservation of 
 rhyme, which was now got out of fashion. 
 
 Mr. O'Halloran contemplates this ode to Goll, in 
 an important light, as proving, ad ins tantiam cruris, 
 the early state of arts, letters, and civilization, in 
 Ireland. This gentleman will not think, therefore, 
 that I pay an ill compliment to his country, by 
 transcribing his translation at full length. And I 
 wish to contrast its style with that of Macpherson's 
 Ossian. 
 
 6 ' Goll, vigorous and warlike. Chief of heroes ! 
 Generous and puissant hand. Meditator of glorious 
 deeds. Bulwark dreadful as fire. Terrible is thy 
 wrath! Champion of many battles. Royal hero. 
 Like a lion, rapid to the attack. Ruin to the foe. 
 Overwhelming billow. Goll frequent in action. 
 Invincible in the most dreadful conflicts. Great in 
 the conflicts. Warrior of increasing glory. Hero 
 of mighty deeds. Lion, furious in action. Ani- 
 mating, harmonious Bard. Destroyer of councils. 
 Puissant, all- victorious. Subduer of fierce legions. 
 Ruin to the renowned. In anger impetuous. Ad- 
 mired by mighty monarchs. Chief of heavy tributes. 
 Of all- persuasive eloquence. Bold and intrepid 
 warrior. Unbiassed legislator. Goll of martial 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 218 
 
 pride. Strong in body. Great in arms. Courteous 
 and polite to the legions. Fierce and powerful in 
 action. Shield of great lustre. Flower of unfading 
 beauty. Rapid as the mountain flood is the force 
 of your strong arm. A sea over rivulets. Sullen 
 in the duel. Great in the uproar of battle. Tower 
 of strong defence. Billow over swelling seas. Goll, 
 terrible in the shouts. Lover of constant desolation. 
 Son of the great Morna. Patron of Bards. Respite 
 to champions. A tribute to septs. Ruin of invaders. 
 Prince of sure protection. Subduer of every 
 country. Conspicuous in royal laws. Imposer of 
 heavy tributes. Presiding in every great assembly. 
 Unboundedly generous. Penetrating in council. 
 Gallant issue of the great Darius. Watchful of 
 every great charge. Of unsullied reputation. Head 
 of the long- reigning sept. Valiant and invincible. 
 Sea of resounding billows. Lord of high cultivations. 
 Companion of gallant feats. Mighty are the strokes 
 of the illustrious Goll. Vigilant commander of the 
 legions. Deviser of exalted deeds. Fierce, all- 
 victorious. In words, graceful and nervous. Goll, 
 of fierce and mighty blows. Hero of rigid partition. 
 Despoiler of the Ernains. Sword of rapid and 
 severe execution. Hero of many contributions. 
 Constant benefactor to Munster. A swift flowing 
 stream. Fair as the snowy foam. Protector of 
 Connaught. Of unbounded enterprize. Generous 
 hero of the long flowing hair. Shield to the retreat- 
 ing. Commander of mighty legions. Unrivalled 
 
219 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 in prowess. Solid and extensive support. Great 
 in the rout of battle. Great is the majesty of my 
 Goll. His glory is unsullied. My Goll is a bulwark. 
 The spirit of close conflict." 
 
 Such is this celebrated rhapsody. Its obsolete 
 language and antiquated verse bear testimony to its 
 high antiquity. And why may it not, with the ex- 
 ception of a few sentences, be as old as the days 
 of Gaul and his contemporary, Fingal? If it be 
 admitted that Ireland could ever boast of such 
 heroes, we cannot entertain a reasonable doubt, but 
 that their age was also graced with Irish poets, such 
 as they were. Nor can we account better for the 
 romantic fame which those worthies acquired, in 
 recent times, than by supposing that some frag- 
 ments of their encomiastic Bards descended to 
 posterity. This piece, surely, is not too methodical, 
 or too classical, to be deemed one of the number. 
 
 The Irish had a written language in an earlier age 
 than that which I assign to Gaul and Fingal. They 
 have various remains of their national literature, 
 preserved in manuscripts, some of which are pretty 
 old : and they constantly affirm, that amongst these 
 a few specimens of their ancient poetry are to be 
 found. I know not where to ground a reasonable 
 objection to this testimony. 
 
 The ode upon Osgur's combat, and this panegy- 
 ric upon Gaul, are brought forwards as some of 
 the very oldest remains of this kind. Their style 
 of composition is not calculated to excite envy, nor 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSI'AN. 220 
 
 to encourage scepticism. They appear extremely 
 rude and uncouth, far below the worst episode of 
 Mr. Macpherson's Ossian, and by no means superior 
 to the rustic effusions of the old Cambrian Muse, 
 which they exactly resemble in the idiom of lan- 
 guage and the structure of the verse. 
 
 The Irish pretend not to boast of any other kind 
 of poetry of equal age, as exhibiting a superior style 
 of composition. These pieces may, therefore, be 
 regarded as fare documents of the ancient state of 
 poetry in Ireland : for, had the art been brought to 
 a higher degree of perfection, in an early age, we 
 should have seen some better specimens of it. No 
 satisfactory reason can be assigned, why all the good 
 pieces should have perished, whilst several copies of 
 indifferent compositions havebeen preserved. Those 
 which were committed to writing, and carefully 
 transcribed from age to age, must have been the 
 most esteemed by the Bards and the people* They 
 must have been those which approached nearest to 
 their ideas of perfection — the best they had to 
 produce. 
 
 This panegyric may, therefore, be regarded, not 
 only as a fair, but a favourable specimen of the 
 poetry of Ireland, in the days of Gaul, and of his 
 contemporary Fingal. And, after we have struck 
 out a few epithets, which do not appear consistent 
 with the character and situation of the hero, it is 
 precisely such as we might have expected, from the 
 
221 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 state of society in that country, whether in the third 
 or in the ninth century. 
 
 I am aware of an objection — It is said that the 
 Ode addressed to Osgur, and this, to Gaul, were 
 extemporaneous effusions, in the heat of battle. 
 But this objection is overruled by the art and regu- 
 larity of the verse, the only art which we perceive 
 throughout the poems. The Ode on Osgur was 
 evidently composed after the battle, and this com- 
 pliment to Gaul carries no internal evidence, that it 
 was composed either in a battle, or even in time 
 of war. It appears, on the contrary, to be a cool 
 panegyric, in which the artless Bard endeavours to 
 recommend himself to the hero's notice, by loading 
 him with every good quality, either for the cabinet 
 or the field, which his rude fancy could suggest. 
 But, even were we to grant to the antiquaries of 
 Erin, that the Bard poured out his rhapsody in the 
 heat of battle ; in order to account for the preser- 
 vation of his work, it is necessary to suppose also, 
 that he afterwards recollected his thoughts at an hour 
 of leisure, and committed them to writing, or else, 
 recited them to some persons, who could duly attend 
 to the song of fame, and treasure it in their memory. 
 Is it likely, that during this favourable interval, the 
 poet did not correct the errors of hasty effusion, and 
 make as good a thing as he could of his poem, both 
 to do credit to himself and to his patron? This 
 cannot be supposed. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OS8IAN. 222 
 
 But if such was the genuine poetry of the Irish 
 Bards, in the age of these heroes, it is evident that 
 the genuine works of Ossian, had they reached our 
 times, must have presented us with something of 
 the same kind. For whether that Bard be classed 
 amongst the luminaries of Erin or of Caledonia, he 
 must have found the state of society, and of the arts, 
 nearly the same, in either situation. The two coun- 
 tries were inhabited by tribes of the same people, 
 who spoke the same language, and had their arts, 
 manners, and customs, in common. 
 
 The poems published by Mr. Macpherson, and 
 his own notes upon them, represent the state of 
 poetry, in the days of Ossian, as being exactly upon 
 a level in both countries. Hence he makes his 
 author introduce long and eventful episodes of the 
 Irish Bards, into his Caledonian poems.* These 
 episodes, so totally different in the style of their 
 composition, from the genuine poetry of the ancient 
 Irish, are undoubtedly spurious : and the poems 
 which contain them are as evidently the productions 
 of a more cultivated age. 
 
 When we have the good fortune to discover any 
 genuine remains of old Caledonian poetry, we must 
 not expect to be reminded of the model of Homer 
 and the rules of Aristotle ; nor even to contemplate 
 
 * See the Song of Althan, which occupies seven pages, in the first book 
 of Temora — the Song of Cathmor's Bard, in the second book, &c. 
 
 If the works of Ossian are authentic, these passages contain genuine 
 Irish songs. 
 
 E E 
 
223 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the artificial stanzas of the late Irish Bards, but the 
 verse which these rude poems exhibit, and which, 
 like that of our ancestors, is adorned with full- 
 sounding and long-continued rhyme. How absurdly, 
 then, does the daughter of the modern Irish muse 
 reproach the Cambro-Britons with the use of rhyme, 
 which was the favourite decoration of her own great 
 grandmother ! Had the wardrobe of this assuming 
 lady contained any ancient family habits, we should, 
 undoubtedly, have distinguished the true Celtic 
 fringe. And, even now, we may perceive a few old 
 fashioned shreds hanging about her, of which the 
 stately dame herself seems to be totally unconscious. 
 
 I shall not insist upon the old oracular verse 
 respecting the fatal stone, which is quoted by Toland 
 and Borlase. Its rhymes are very good, but they 
 may, possibly, be of Irish manufacture. Nor shall 
 I lay much stress upon those stanzas of Ossian, in 
 Mr. Smith's specimens, which have natural rhymes 
 between the second and fourth line. For, as the 
 Highland Bards copied the Irish metres of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth century, they may be sup- 
 posed to have blundered upon all their peculiarities. 
 But the author of the Galic Antiquities exposes to 
 our view something more to the purpose. 
 
 Twenty lines of Ossicles poem, entitled Dargo, 
 are introduced as specimens, with this preface, — 
 " Such has been the fate of the Galic poetry, that 
 61 its most beautiful passages are, generally, those 
 " which have been most objected to, To suppress 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 224 
 
 " any of them, on this account, would be as cow- 
 iC ardly, as it would be presumptuous, to treat the 
 a prejudices against them with indifference. Every 
 " body has as much right, in this case, to judge for 
 " himself, as the translator has, who does all he can 
 ct to put this in their power, by laying before them 
 " the words of the original." Twelve of these lines, 
 which exemplify the very best manner of Ossian, 
 are as follows :— 
 
 Tha codhail nan cathan ann sith 
 
 *S iad air sgiathan na doininn gun strith, 
 
 Gun bheum-sgeithe gun f haruui lainne 
 
 'N co'nuidh thosdach na caomh-chlainne. 
 
 Tha sliochd Lochlinn is Fhinn gu h ard, 
 
 Ag eisdeachd caithream nan aona bhard. 
 
 An uigh cho'n eil tuille ri stri' 
 
 ? S gun uireas' air siothan no fri\ 
 
 Mar sgeul nam blianai' chaidh seach 
 
 Air iteig aonaich le'n ciar-dhreach, 
 
 Tha aisling na beatha dhuibh's a Fhlaithibh : 
 
 Mar tha dhamhsa Dearg nan cathaibh.* 
 
 Here we have twelve lines of Ossian, taken from 
 one favourite passage, which rhyme not, indeed, 
 precisely in the manner of the old Welsh and Irish 
 poems, but exactly like the couplets of Dryden and 
 Pope. If these are genuine, the Bard of Selma was 
 no stranger to the use of rhyme ; if they are not 
 genuine, Scotland has produced some unknown 
 Bard in recent times, who could successfully per- 
 sonate his character. However this may be, as it 
 appears that rhyme was a general ornament of 
 
 * Galie Antiq. p. 290. 
 
225 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 ancient Celtic poetry, such passages as these ex- 
 hibit the best title to antiquity that Ossian has to 
 produce. If ever he deigns to descend from the 
 shades of the fourth century to pay us a visit, without 
 this credential, he will be deservedly regarded with 
 suspicion and distrust. But as the absence of rhyme 
 is thought to contribute to the credit of the royal 
 Bard, there can be little doubt but that the care of 
 editors will knock off most of his remaining shackles, 
 before they introduce his larger poems to the public. 
 And how easily may the rhyme and the measure be 
 disguised in any language ! 
 
 The lamb which thy riot dooms to bleed this morning, 
 Had he but thy knowledge, would he skip and play ! 
 Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry pasture, 
 And licks the hand that is just rais'd to shed his blood. 
 
 In the printed specimens of the poems ascribed 
 to Ossian, it were easy to point out perversions, 
 somewhat like the above, whether accidental or 
 designed, I know not. The author of the Galic 
 Antiquities introduces a favourite passage, with the 
 following remark : — " The Galic reader will wish to 
 f see these lines in their native terror." 
 
 Le sgreadail an lanna garbha 
 
 *S le caoiribh teine o'n cruaidh arma ; 
 
 Chulr iad iasg nan cuantaidh stuadhach, 
 
 Ann an caoilte caola fuara. 
 
 Chuir iad feidh nam beanntaidh arda 
 
 Gus na gleanntaidh fuara fasail; 
 
 ? S eunlaith bhinn-f hoclach nan coillteach, 
 
 Anns na speuran le crith-oillte.* 
 
 * Galic- Antiq. p. 302. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 226 
 
 In these verses we have evident remains of such 
 alliterations and rhyme as were employed by the 
 ancient Bards of Ireland and Wales ; but the rhyme 
 is broken, and the construction injured by the 
 change of a few letters. For stuadhach, ridgy, in 
 the third line, let us read stuadha, ridges : restore 
 the adjective to its natural situation in the sixth line, 
 by reading fasailfuara: for coillteach, wooddy, in 
 the seventh line, read coillte, woods; the rhyme 
 will be perfectly restored, and the sense will be 
 rendered perspicuous. — 
 
 At the crash of rigid swords, 
 
 And fiery sparks from steel armour, 
 
 The fish of the bays, between the hills, retire 
 
 To the narrow, cool straits : 
 
 The deer of the lofty mountains retire 
 
 To the desart, and cold vallies ; 
 
 And the sweet-singing birds of the woods, 
 
 Towards the sky, with trembling tenor. 
 
 Whatever the Scots have borrowed from the 
 poetry and tales of the Irish, they have generally 
 improved. This people must, therefore, possess 
 genius, and taste for poetry ; and there can be no 
 doubt, but that they had poets of their own for many 
 ages. When they bring forward passages which 
 bear the genuine stamp of 0I4 Celtic verse, and 
 Celtic composition, it will readily be admitted, that 
 they have preserved some fragments of their na- 
 tional Bards for four or five centuries, which is, 
 perhaps, as long as poetry can exist by oral tradition. 
 But when the modern critics reject every appearance 
 
227 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 of rhyme, they deprive the Galic songs of all preten- 
 sions to credit for remote antiquity. 
 
 As to the authenticity and genuineness of Ossian's 
 poems, I have now delivered my opinion candidly 
 and freely. I am far from wishing to bias the 
 judgment of others. Let my Essay be regarded 
 as anonymous, but let my reasons be weighed. I 
 have only stated what occurred to my own mind, 
 as objections to the high degree of historical im- 
 portance which some writers have attached to these 
 poems. If these objections can be fairly set aside, 
 so far from being an obstinate adversary, I shall 
 rejoice in having occasioned a full vindication of the 
 most elegant effusions of the Celtic muse. 
 
 It was my intention to have added a section, upon 
 the subject of the Caledonian language, with a view 
 to discuss its title to the emphatical name of The 
 Celtic ; but as such inquiries excite little interest, 
 I shall conclude with a few short observations. 
 
 Prior to the publication of the translated Ossian, 
 the Erse or Galic of Scotland was regarded, both 
 at home and abroad, merely as the patois of the 
 Irish. But since it has pretended to the preserva- 
 tion of heroic poems of the third and fourth century, 
 in the living voice of the people, it has aspired to a 
 higher rank: it now affects to be styled emphati- 
 cally, The Celtic, whilst the Irish, Welsh, &c. are 
 degraded and considered as depraved dialects. It 
 may be worth inquiry, how this degree of pre^ 
 
THE CLAIMS OF 09SIAN. 228 
 
 eminence is to be supported, by the language of 
 Caledonia, if the voice of Ossian should faiL 
 
 Mr. Macpherson tells us — " The first circum- 
 *' stance that induced me to disregard the vulgarly 
 " received opinion, of the Hibernian extraction of 
 u the Scottish nation, was my observations on their 
 " ancient language. That dialect of the Celtic 
 " tongue, spoken in the north of Scotland, is much 
 " more pure, more agreeable to its mother language, 
 " and more abounding with primitives, than that 
 " now spoken, or even that which has been written, 
 " for some centuries back, amongst the most un- 
 " mixed part of the Irish nation." 
 
 Were all this admitted, it does not follow, that 
 Scotland must needs be the mother country. In 
 the last six hundred years, the Irish may have been 
 more mixed with strangers than the northern Cale- 
 donians have been. The Icelanders are said to 
 have preserved their ancient tongue better than the 
 inhabitants of the mother country ; yet this has not 
 been adduced as an argument for deriving the 
 Norwegians from Iceland. 
 
 But the purity of the Galic does not appear from 
 the printed specimens of Ossian, which abound with 
 words analogous to terms of the Latin language, 
 and of the Gothic dialects. Of its advantage over 
 the Irish, in the abundance of primitives, a stranger 
 cannot well judge, as the terms of both dialects are 
 huddled together, without distinction, in their com- 
 mon dictionary. But Mr. Shaw's account of his 
 
229 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 labours, in collecting vocables, does not seem to 
 favour the above assertion. 
 
 And how does Mr. Macpherson compare his Galic 
 with the mother tongue ? It is not easy to procure 
 an authentic and connected specimen of the ancient 
 Celtic of Gaul, unless it be found in the Armorican ; 
 and, in that case, the Welsh and Cornish would step 
 in long before the Galic or Irish. By the mother 
 tongue, the author, perhaps, means only the language 
 of Ossian — then his assertion amounts to nothing 
 more than this, that the Galic is more similar to 
 itself than to a foreign dialect. But to proceed — 
 
 " A Scotchman, tolerably conversant in his own 
 " language, understands an Irish composition, from 
 " that derivative analogy which it has to the Galic 
 " of North Britain. An Irishman, on the other hand, 
 " without the aid of study, can never understand a 
 tc composition in the Galic tongue." 
 
 If the Scotchman here described, can read any 
 Galic at all, he must necessarily understand Irish : 
 for Mr. Shaw, in the introduction to his grammar, 
 informs us, that he could find no books but Irish, 
 and a few late tracts, which were written in imitation 
 of that dialect: and in the introduction to his dic- 
 tionary, he asserts further, that the Irish has always 
 been the written and studied language. A Scotch- 
 man may, therefore, be supposed to understand the 
 language which he reads, or is in the habit of hearing 
 others read, and which is studied in his country, 
 much better than an Irishman can comprehend the 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 230 
 
 neglected idiom of the Scottish populace. A 
 provincial labourer in England, understands the 
 question of a stranger who addresses him in plain 
 English; but the latter often finds it difficult to 
 make out the meaning of the peasant's answer. 
 Let us hear the author out — 
 
 " The Irish, however backward they may be to 
 " allow any thing to the prejudice of their antiquity, 
 " seem, inadvertently, to acknowledge it, in the 
 " very appellation they give to the dialect they 
 " speak. — They call their own language Caelic 
 u Eirinach, i. e. Caledonian Irish, when, on the 
 Ci contrary, they call the dialect of North Britain, 
 " a Chaelic, or, the Caledonian tongue, emphati- 
 " cally."* 
 
 If I may trust the dictionaries of the language, 
 this designation is not perfectly accurate. Mr. Shaw 
 interprets Gaoidhal, " an Irishman, a Highlander 
 of Scotland ;" and Gaoidhleag, cc the Irish, Gaelic, 
 or old Celtic tongue." If priority, in the order of 
 declaration, implies emphasis, it is here introduced 
 in favour of the Irish. The Welsh apply the terms 
 Gwydel, and Gwyddelaeg, to the Irishman and his 
 language exclusively. 
 
 Mr. Shaw, in the introduction to his dictionary, 
 speaks of the Galic, as the greatest monument of 
 antiquity now in the world: as the language of 
 Japhet, spoken before the deluge, and, probably, 
 
 * Diss, on the Poems of Ossian. 
 F F 
 
231 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the speech of paradise! These are high preten- 
 sions. But how does the author prove the originality 
 of the Highland dialect, and its preeminence over 
 the Irish? 
 
 He tells us that it wants that variety of inflections 
 and terminations, which we find in the latter.—- This 
 argument will not hold good in parallel instances. 
 The country of the Greeks was overrun by Bar- 
 barians. The people, in consequence, became 
 rude : their noble language lost its inflections ; and 
 they now form the tenses of their verbs by the aid 
 of auxiliaries. The same thing happened to Rome 
 and her provinces : the various terminations of the 
 Latin nouns have, consequently vanished, in the 
 modern Italian, French, and Spanish. Our Saxon 
 ancestors used a variety of inflections and termina- 
 tions; but, for some centuries after the Norman 
 conquest, their language was abandoned to the 
 populace ; when it began to re-emerge into fashion, 
 about the time of Edward the Third, it appeared 
 to have been stripped of most of its terminations. 
 The patois of our present English has still fewer 
 terminations than the standard language. In the 
 rustic idiom we hear the verbs gets, has, does, &c. 
 carried through all the persons of both numbers, 
 without variation. What is the inference from these 
 examples ? 
 
 Are the present dialects of the Greek and Roman 
 languages more original and pure than those of the 
 classical writers ? Is the modem English older than 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 232 
 
 the Anglo-Saxon, or the jargon of the peasant than 
 the written English ? If not, why should we think 
 the Erse more original and pure than the Irish, when 
 we discover that it wants several formative inflec- 
 tions, which the other has retained ? Shall we not 
 rather say that men, during a retrograde lapse in 
 the scale of society, find themselves possessed of a 
 language too precise for their use, and naturally 
 drop into a simple and slovenly mode of expi assing 
 their contracted ideas. 
 
 And such is the state in which Mr. Shaw repre- 
 sents the Caledonians. Their country was once 
 the seat of government, and their language, that of 
 the court. The government has been removed ; and 
 the language, long since neglected, even by the 
 natives. Let us hear this gentleman's detail of 
 simple facts, relative to the state in which he found 
 the language when he published his grammar, in 
 1778. — " In this situation I found the Galic — with 
 " few books, and fewer manuscripts, in the living 
 " voice of many thousands, who entirely neglected 
 " it, v * Not one manuscript is named or described ; 
 and the only books were, the Irish translation of 
 the Bible, the Confession of Faith, and the Psalms 
 in Metre, both imitations of the Irish dialect. To 
 these are added two or three collections of songs, 
 and Baxter's Call — all of which are wretchedly 
 orthographied. 
 
 * Introd. to the Gram, p. 8. 
 
233 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Ci At present, 1 much doubt (continues the author), 
 " whether there be four men in Scotland, that would 
 " spell one page the same way ; for it has hitherto 
 ct been left to the caprice and judgment of every 
 " speaker, without the steadiness of analogy, or 
 cc direction of rules. The taste at this day, of the 
 " clergy, a learned and respectable order, is to 
 <c understand the English, content with what Galic 
 " enables them to translate a sermon, they originally 
 u wrote in English. And though they are obliged 
 "to speak in public once in seven days, there are 
 " not five ministers in Scotland, who write their 
 c ? discourse? in their own tongue ; yet there are 
 " several ambitious to be reputed the translators of 
 " a few lines of Galic poetry.* Conceiving an early 
 " taste for Galic — I thought, for my own private 
 Ci amusement, of subjecting it to certain rules, to 
 " be observed when I had occasion to speak it, an 
 " undertaking which, without any precedent, I 
 u thought at first impracticable. — Considering a 
 " Galic Grammar as an addition to the stores of 
 " literature—I was encouraged to persevere in at- 
 i( tempting to do what was never done before "\— 
 
 " To reduce to rule a language without books, 
 <c and having no standard but the judgment of 
 " every speaker, is an undertaking, perhaps, ad- 
 " venturous." &c. 
 
 This, surely, is the picture of a corrupt and 
 expiring jargon of the populace, rather than of a 
 
 * Introd. to the Gram. p. 11. f Ibid. p. 13. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 234 
 
 pure and original language. Mr. Shaw, however, 
 did persevere. He attempted to frame and esta- 
 blish a Galic orthography, founded on the general 
 philosophy of language. — This proved, at last, to 
 be a close imitation of the Irish, excepting that some 
 aspirated consonants, which custom had rendered 
 quiescent, were discarded, and those only retained 
 which were necessary to preserve the etymology, 
 and express the sounds of words. Having completed 
 this process, the grammarian, rather prematurely, 
 introduces a compliment on his native language, as 
 possessing a more commodious system of ortho- 
 graphy than the Irish. — " Unlike the Irish, the Scots 
 " Galic delights to pronounce every letter, and is 
 u not bristled over with so many useless and qui- 
 " escent consonants. " 
 
 Soon after the publication of his grammar, this 
 gentleman felt an impulse to attempt snatching 
 from oblivion the Galic tongue, which was now in 
 her last struggles for existence. — He began to 
 collect materials for his dictionary. 
 
 In the Highlands, there being few books, and 
 still fewer manuscripts, in the Scotch dialect, the 
 language in the living voice was the only source, 
 from which he could gather vocables. Having ex- 
 torted from a niggardly populace, who would not 
 open their mouths without being first paid, a few 
 oral mites of the language of Japhet, of the ante- 
 diluvians, and of paradise, which were only current 
 from hill to hill, amongst the defiles of Caledonia, he 
 went over into Ireland. Here he found a language 
 
235 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 rich in manuscripts, and cultivated by men of learn 
 ing — here he finished his collection ; and here he is 
 compelled to abandon his philosophical system of 
 Galic orthography. 
 
 "The Galic reader will find no innovations in 
 " orthography ; for I have considered it my business, 
 " rather to record words, as they have been written 
 ** in the ancient Irish manuscripts, than attempt to 
 " write a dictionary, by altering the spelling from 
 u the received method, to what I might conceive it 
 " ought to be, according to the powers of the letters 
 " and the philosophy of language. — The Irish dia- 
 ic led has always been the written and the studied 
 " language."* 
 
 Such a view of the expiring dialect of Caledonia, 
 taken by its national lexicographer, and its first, if 
 not only grammarian, must, undoubtedly, derogate 
 from its lately assumed pretensions. The circum- 
 stances and facts here recited, would have deserved 
 Mr. Smith's attention, when he was compiling a 
 History of the Druids, founded upon Galic etymo- 
 logies, not to mention the numberless dissertations, 
 sketches, and criticisms, which, since the appearance 
 of Mr, Macpherson's Ossian, have swarmed and 
 buzaed in the atmosphere of letters. Unsupported 
 by the genuine works of the Bard of Selma, the 
 Galic must, in my humble opinion, return to the 
 station which it occupied fifty years ago, and be 
 content to rank as a patois of the Irish language. 
 
 * Introd. to Shaw's Diet, 
 
Section V. 
 
SECTION V. 
 
 FIRST ADDITIONAL. 
 
 On the general evidence disclosed in those volumes which contain the 
 original Galic. 
 
 The originals taken only from copies in Macpherson's hand writing — 
 this circumstance not calculated to remove suspicion.— Search Sir John 
 Sinclair's Dissertation for better arguments — the authorities quoted from 
 Buchanan, Johnston, &c. wholly irrelevant. — Testimonies of authors, upon 
 Scotch tradition, prove that the character of Fingal, as drawn in these 
 poems, was unknown before the middle of the seventeenth century— the 
 argument drawn from the names of places, &c. inconclusive— the account 
 given of MSS. too general and indistinct to decide any thing — testimony 
 of the Danish historian perfectly nugatory— the laws of the metre, which 
 are supposed to have assisted the memory — proved to be founded in the 
 modern prosody and orthography of the Irish— the poems, therefore, of 
 recent composition. 
 
Having stated, in the preceding pages, some 
 circumstances, in Macpherson's translation, and its 
 attendant dissertations and notes, that appear un- 
 favourable to Ossian's claim of high antiquity, and 
 historical credit, I now proceed briefly to consider 
 the evidence of the recent publication which an- 
 nounces the Galic originals. 
 
 This long promised work has, at length, come 
 forth, in three volumes, royal octavo, bearing the 
 following title: — "The poems of Ossian, in the 
 " original Gaelic, with a literal translation into 
 " Latin, by the late Robert Macfarlan, A. M. toge- 
 " ther with a Dissertation on the authenticity of the 
 Ci poems, by Sir John Sinclair, Bart. ; and a trans- 
 " lation from the Italian of the Abbe Cesarotti's 
 " Dissertation, on the controversy respecting the 
 <c authenticity of Ossian, with notes, and a supple- 
 iC mental Essay, by John Mc. Arthur, JLL. D. 
 " Published under the sanction of the Highland 
 u society in London." 1807. 
 
 These respectable names, by which the Galic 
 Hard is introduced to the public, may be viewed 
 as a certain pledge, that in the work before us, his 
 cause has obtained all the solid support it is capable 
 of receiving. And this support is deemed ampiv 
 
 G G 
 
239 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 sufficient to withstand all the objections that have 
 been made, or can be made, against the credit of 
 these poems : for Sir John Sinclair concludes his 
 dissertation, by declaring his trust, that he has 
 established two important propositions, which he 
 hopes can no longer be questioned: namely, u 1. 
 ct That the poems of Ossian are authentic, ancient 
 " poetry ; and 2. That, in a remote period of our 
 " history, the mountains of Scotland produced a 
 " Bard, whose works must render his name immortal, 
 " and whose genius has not been surpassed, by the 
 " efforts of any modern, or even ancient competitor." 
 (Signed) " John Sinclair," 
 
 It will therefore be proper for me, with candour 
 and attention, to weigh the chief arguments in this 
 dissertation, that I may discover how far it may be 
 expedient to alter or retract the opinion I have 
 already formed, or in what particulars I may still 
 persist in maintaining it. But, previous to this, I 
 must state a few general facts, which may give the 
 reader an easy introduction into the subjects before 
 him. 
 
 The editors of the present work direct their chief 
 efforts to prove, that the Galic poems did not origi- 
 nate with Mr. Macpherson — that poems composed 
 in that language, and ascribed to Ossian, were 
 known in Scotland, before his time ; and that he 
 collected such poems from MSS. and oral tradition. 
 All this is admissible; but having established these 
 points, our editors assume as a necessary consequence, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 240 
 
 that the poems published by Mr. Macpherson are 
 ancient and authentic. Such arguments, and the 
 facts upon which they rest, may be effectually di- 
 rected against those critics who maintain that the 
 tales relative to the affairs of the Fingalians, were 
 the pure invention of Mr. Macpherson ; but I cannot 
 perceive their force, in ascertaining the genuineness 
 and antiquity of the poems in question. They may 
 be Galic poems of some standing, and yet not the 
 work of Ossian, or of a remote age. 
 
 Be that as it may, this publication will not go far, 
 in proving the identity of the present collection, as 
 to its verse and phraseology, with the genuine recitals 
 of the aged Highlanders : or, if that identity, in 
 general, be supposed, it will not enable us to judge 
 of the alterations which the poems may have under- 
 gone in the translator's hands : for the Galic text is 
 wholly derived, with some orthographical corrections, 
 from papers which Mr. Macpherson had left behind 
 him, at his death, in his own hand writing ; and the 
 originals of eleven of the poems are wanting,* 
 because no Galic copies of them were found amongst 
 his papers. We are, indeed, told, in an adver- 
 tisement prefixed to the first volume, that such 
 deficiencies might have been supplied from other 
 manuscripts, or oral tradition ; but that the com- 
 mittee appointed to superintend the printing of this 
 
 * Namely— Oithona— The War of Caros— Cathlin of Clutha— Sulmala 
 of Lumon— The War of Inisthona — The Songs of Selma— Lathmon — Dar- 
 thula— The Death of Cuthullin— The Battle of Lora, and Berrathon. 
 
241 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 work, were scrupulous about making any addition 
 to the manuscripts left by Mr. Macpherson. 
 
 This scruple, surely, was ill judged. The editors 
 must have been aware of the prevailing suspicion, 
 that Macpherson had kept back his promised pub- 
 lication so many years, for no other reason but to 
 gain time, that he might finish his Galic composi- 
 tions. Had the supplemental originals been given to 
 the public, by these gentlemen, to whose characters 
 no suspicion has attached, it might be presumed, 
 they could not have injured the cause of Ossian. 
 If these deficiencies can yet be supplied, it will be 
 well ; but if they had been supplied at once, and 
 without hesitation, it would have been much better. 
 In spite of all suspicions, I can freely declare, as 
 an individual, that I never questioned Mr. Mac- 
 pherson's veracity, when he thought proper to speak 
 out. I never doubted that he produced the poems 
 from materials of that very kind which he professed 
 to have received ; namely, a variety of traditional 
 tales in prose, and fragments of verse, which bore 
 the name of Ossian, and which this gentleman col- 
 lected either from the mouths of the people, or from 
 written copies of recent dates. But he has not told 
 us plainly how much these materials were improved 
 under his direction ; and I regret that the editors 
 of the present work afford me no opportunity of 
 correcting the opinion I had formed upon this sub- 
 ject, from a few of Macpherson's mysterious hints, 
 combined with the evidence of Mr. Smith.* Here 
 
 * Author of the Galic Antiq. now Doctor iSmith, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 242 
 
 is not one paragraph, here is not a single line col- 
 lated with any copy prior to Mr. Macpherson's 
 collection. 
 
 Let us then proceed to consider the principal 
 arguments of Sir John Sinclair, for the authenticity 
 of these poems. 
 
 In the first chapter, our respectable author pro- 
 poses — ** A statement of the evidence adduced in 
 " behalf of the authenticity of Ossian's poems, 
 " independently of the Gaelic originals being now 
 6i published, with some observations on the ob- 
 jections which have been urged against their 
 " authenticity." 
 
 This subject is opened with a remark — " That 
 " the Celtic tribes, in general, were addicted to 
 " poetry, and accustomed to preserve, in verse, 
 es whatever they considered to be peculiarly entitled 
 " to remembrance." To this succeeds an inquiry — 
 Ci Whether various Gaelic poems did not exist in 
 ** the Highlands, and Islands of Scotland, in remote 
 " periods of our history." 
 
 Here the affirmative, in general terms, may be 
 granted without hesitation : for it is well known 
 that the Celts had their Bards ; and no good reason 
 can be assigned, why the Highlanders should not 
 have had their poets, as well as the Irish, the Welsh, 
 and other kindred tribes. But as this part of the 
 Dissertation adduces some authorities, which are 
 thought to allude particularly to the poems before 
 us, it may be proper to consider the scope and com- 
 
243 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 prehension of those authorities. The celebrated 
 Buchanan observes, that the Bards were held in 
 great honour, both among the Grauls and Britons, 
 and that their function and name doth yet remain 
 amongst all the nations which use the old British 
 tongue — in which the Highlanders of Scotland are 
 certainly included. He adds — " They compose 
 " poems, and those not inelegant, which the rhap- 
 " sodists recite, either to the better sort, or to the 
 " vulgar, who are very desirous to hear them ; and 
 u sometimes they sing them to musical instru- 
 " ments.'' 
 
 This circumstance is still more strongly stated, 
 in the description given, by the same distinguished 
 author, of the Hebrides, or Western Islands. He 
 there mentions that the inhabitants of those islands 
 Cl Sing poems not inelegant, containing oommonly 
 " the eulogies of valiant men ; and their Bards 
 €i usually treat of no other subject."* 
 
 These extracts of the historian furnish our author 
 with an opportunity to urge the following questions : 
 " Is it possible that such a judge of literary merit 
 u as Buchanan, should have bestowed such praise 
 " on the works of the ancient Scottish Bards, if 
 (i they had not been justly entitled to his applause; 
 
 * The words of Buchanan are these: — " Carmina autem non inculta 
 il fundunt, quae rhapsodi proceribus, aut vulgo, audiendi cupido, recitant, 
 " aut ad musicos organorum modos canunt."— " Accinunt autem carmen 
 " non inconcinnc factum, quod fere laudes fortium virorum contineat ; nee 
 " aliud fere arguuientum eoruni bardi tractant." 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 244 
 
 u and if such poems actually existed in his time, 
 f* and were recited by the Bards, from memory, 
 16 where is the impossibility of their being handed 
 i' down for one hundred and fifty, or two hundred 
 p years longer? Or is it to be considered as in- 
 iC credible, that those very poems which the most 
 " elegant classical scholar of modern times should 
 u consider as non tncutta, non inconcinnb facta, 
 " should turn out to be the identical poems, which 
 " have since been so justly celebrated as the cora- 
 " positions of Ossian ?" 
 
 In this passage our author affirms nothing ; but 
 if I may hazard a remark, he seems by his mode of 
 reasoning, to carry his conclusions a great way 
 beyond his premises. 
 
 Buchanan, in the first quotation, only speaks of 
 the Bards of the Celtic tribes in general, Irish and 
 Welsh, as well as Scotch : and if he alludes to any 
 particular poems, it is evident, from his manner of 
 expression, that he does not mean ancient poems, 
 but the compositions of the very age in which he 
 wrote. The Bards compose poems, which the 
 rhapsodists recite. The authors as well as the 
 reciters are persons of the historian's own times. 
 The latter quotation certainly alludes to Scottish 
 poems ; still, however, they are the works of 
 Buchanan's own contemporaries. They are the 
 poems which the Bards are now composing, the 
 subjects of which they now treat. If, therefore, it 
 should turn out, that Buchanan's Carmina non 
 
245 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 inculta, non inconcinnb facta, are the identical 
 poems which have since been celebrated as the 
 compositions of Ossian, what must follow ? Why, 
 that we have good historical authority to fix their 
 date, not in the conclusion of the third century, or 
 the beginning of the fourth, but in the middle of 
 the sixteenth. But however, as Buchanan has not 
 named the Bard, nor any one of his poems, nor 
 quoted a single verse, nor specified either of his 
 subjects, we have still to regret that Ossian's claim 
 to this moderate portion of antiquity, is not sup- 
 ported by an authority so respectable. 
 
 Sir John Sinclair's next authority is contained in 
 this quotation from Johnston : — " Although it is 
 " well known, that the Scots had always more 
 " strength and industry to perform great deeds, 
 " than care to have them published to the world ; 
 " yet in ancient times they had, and held in great 
 " esteem, their own Homers and Maros, whom they 
 " named Bards. These recited the achievements of 
 " their brave warriors, in heroic measures, adapted 
 " to the musical notes of the harp ; with these they 
 " roused the minds of those present, to the glory 
 " of virtue, and transmitted patterns of fortitude to 
 " posterity. This order of men do still exist, 
 .*' amongst the Welsh and ancient Scots, and they 
 " still retain that name in their native language."* 
 
 * The original runs thus:—" Quamvis intelligunt omnes, plus semper 
 " virium et industrial Scotis fuisse ad res agendas, quam commentationis ad 
 " preedicandas, habuerunt taraen antiquitus, et coluerunt, suos Homeros et 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 246 
 
 Great stress is laid upon the " Homers and Maros" 
 of this passage, but it seems to me that the author 
 means nothing more than to assert in general, that 
 the ancient Scots (a name which embraces the Irish 
 and the Highlander) as well as other Celtic tribes, 
 had their Bards; that the subjects of these Bards 
 were often martial ; and that, amongst the Welsh 
 and Scots, the order was n©t extinct, in his time. 
 Had Johnston known any thing of the Fingal, the 
 Temora, and other poems, which are now ascribed 
 to Ossian, he could not have affirmed that the Scots 
 always had more vigour in performing than in cele- 
 brating great deeds ; and if he knew nothing of 
 these poems, his testimony can afford no support 
 to the Bard of Selma. In describing the office of 
 the Bards and the character of their compositions, 
 he does not seem to have his eye, so much, upon 
 these celebrated compositions, or upon any national 
 subject whatsoever, as, upon the words ofAmmianus 
 Marcellinus — u Bardi fortia virorum illustrium 
 " facta, heroicis composita versibus, cum dulcibus 
 iC lyrse modulis cantitarunt.'' Here is the fountain 
 from which Johnston draws his supply of panegyric. 
 Why then has not Sir John Sinclair quoted the 
 original author, a Roman Historian, who wrote of 
 
 " Marones, quos Bardos nominabant. Hi fortium virorum facta versibus 
 " heroicis et lyrae modulis aptata concinebant ; quibus et prsesentium aminos 
 " acuebant ad virtutis gloriam, et fortitudinis exempla ad posteros trans- 
 " mittebant. Cujusmodi apud Cambros et priscos Scotos nee dum desidre ; 
 " et nomen illud patrio sermone adhuc retinent." 
 
 H H 
 
247 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 those very battles, which Fingal is reported to have 
 fought, and Ossian sung? But if Ammianus, in 
 his encomium upon the Bards, does not celebrate 
 the strains of Ossian, we cannot suppose them to 
 have been celebrated by his copyist, Johnston, who, 
 had he been apprized of the preservation and high 
 antiquity of such national treasures, was too precise 
 a writer, and too good a patriot, to have delivered 
 himself in these common-place descriptions, and to 
 have lumped together the Welsh and Scots Bards, 
 in the manner he does. Neither Buchanan, there- 
 fore, nor Johnston, can be supposed to add a single 
 leaf to the garland of the venerable Ossian. The 
 authorities of three other writers are brought for- 
 ward : but as they all wrote below the middle of the 
 eighteenth century, and as they are adduced only to 
 prove the existence of Galic poetry, previous to 
 Mr. Macpherson's publications, in 1760, 1761, &c. 
 we need not stop to consider their evidence. 
 
 In the third section of this chapter, a variety of 
 testimonies are produced, with a view to prove that 
 Fingal, Ossian, &c. were Scots and not Irishmen. 
 Of these, it will be proper to take some notice, as 
 far as they may seem to apply to the great question, 
 respecting the genuineness of the Galic poems. 
 
 John Barbour, in a poem called " The Bruce," 
 composed about the year 1375, incidentally men- 
 tions our hero, by the name of Fyngal. This is 
 deemed a circumstance of considerable importance, 
 as appears by the words of our author ; — " It is 
 

 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 248 
 
 singular that, in this most ancient of the Scottish 
 works, in any respect connected with this sub- 
 u ject, the hero should be called by the name of 
 " Fingal; whereas in Ireland, he is uniformly dis- 
 " tinquished by the name of Finn" (Fionn.) To 
 this passage is subjoined the following note : — 
 " Pinkerton, in his Enquiry, v. ii. p. 73, 74, remarks 
 " it as a circumstance difficult to be accounted for, 
 '• that the name of Fingal is unknown to the Irish, 
 si and that the Scotch alone give the hero that 
 " appellation." Here we seem to have a just cri- 
 terion, whereby we may distinguish between Irish 
 and Scotch tradition. If the Highlanders are con- 
 tented to abide by this test, we shall soon perceive 
 the consequences that must follow. 
 
 Hector Boethius says — tc Some conjecture that 
 " in those times lived Finnanus the son of Coelus 
 Cl (in common language, Fyn Mac Coul), a man, as 
 " they report, of an incredible stature, for they 
 " describe him as being seven cubits in height. He 
 ** was of Scottish extraction, remarkable for the art 
 " of hunting, and, in other exercises, to be dreaded, 
 " on account of his unusual size of body." 
 
 Here I must stop to make a few remarks, which 
 will also apply to some of the following quotations. 
 Instead of the Scottish name Fingal, we perceive the 
 Irish Fyn ; instead of the amiable hero, a monstrous 
 giant ; instead of the magnanimous and accom- 
 plished warrior, a ferocious hunter, formidable only 
 
249 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 on account of his savage disposition and enormous 
 corporeal strength. This is not the Fingal of the 
 Galic poems : and the tradition of Scotland, two or 
 three hundred years ago, being of a character so 
 very inconsistent with those poems, instead of sup- 
 porting their claim to antiquity, must be regarded 
 as throwing great weight into the opposite scale. 
 
 Again : Bishop Leslie informs us — Ci It is the 
 " opinion of many, that one Finnanus the son of 
 " Ccelus (in our language, Fyn ma Coul), a man of 
 " a huge size, and sprung, as it were, from the race 
 iC of ancient giants, at that time (namely, in the 
 6C reign of Eugenius II.) lived amongst us." Here 
 again the giant of fabulous tradition answers to his 
 Irish name Fyn, and it is of this portentous cha- 
 racter and his Lieutenant, Gaul, the son of Morni, 
 that Bishop Douglas thus expresses himself in his 
 ei Palice of Honour :" — 
 
 " Greit Gow Mac Morne, and Fyn Mac Coul, and how 
 " They suld be Goddis in Ireland as they say" 
 
 The giant Fyn, whom ancient tradition acknow- 
 ledges as a demigod of the pagan Irish, is thus 
 described in another poem, written about the time of 
 James IV. and entitled The Interlude of Droichis : — > 
 
 u My fore grandsyr becht Fyn Mac Cowl, 
 " That dang the Devil, and gait him yowll, 
 " The sky is rained when he wald scowll, 
 " And trublit all the air : 
 
 a He gat my grandschir Gog Magog ; 
 u Ay when he dansit, the warld wald schog ? 
 (( Five thousand ellis yeid in his frog, 
 f l Of Hieland pladdi* of hair." 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 250 
 
 This, surely, is not the picture of that most 
 amiable and refined hero, who is celebrated in the 
 poems published by Mr. Macpherson. For my 
 own part, I must acknowledge that I cannot recog- 
 nize a single feature of his character, as delineated 
 in those compositions, till we come down to the 
 writers of the seventeenth century. Here Colmlle, 
 in his " Whig's Supplication," published in 1681, 
 condescends to place him upon a level with certain 
 heroes of the human race : — 
 
 " One man, quoth he, oft times hath stood, 
 " And put to flight a multitude, 
 " Like Samson, Wallace, and Sir Bewis, 
 " And Fyn Mac Cowl, beside the Lewis"* 
 
 We also find that Kirk, in 1684, commemorates 
 the generous land of the heroes of Fingal, or 
 Fionn, as the name is written in this author's 
 original. But even after this, Nicolson, in an 
 Essay, written anno 1702, takes notice of an old 
 romance, of the valour and feats of Fin Mc* Cowl, 
 a giant of prodigious stature. 
 
 Upon these testimonies of Scottish writers, I 
 would make a few obvious remarks. — In the first 
 place, then, it must be granted to the worthy Baronet, 
 that Scotland puts in her claim to some romantic 
 traditions, relative to Fin Mac Coul. But the 
 language of all the authors here quoted, down to 
 the middle of the seventeenth century, at least, 
 leave a strong impression upon the reader's mind, 
 
 * That is, the Island of Lewis : one of the Hebrides. 
 
251 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 that not one of the authors here quoted, knew, or 
 had even heard of the poems, now ascribed to 
 Ossian. The general tradition of Scotland uniformly 
 represents Fingal, or rather Fin, as a monstrous 
 giant, a heathen god, or a powerful ar J terrific 
 demon, that troubled all the air. This representa- 
 tion must have originated in wild and grotesque 
 fiction, of a character totally different from the fine 
 effusions of the Galic muse. And it may fairly be 
 inferred, that the poems in question did not exist, or 
 were utterly unknown, in the ages when these fictions 
 were invented, and during the whole period of their 
 popularity. For if the son of Fingal celebrated 
 the wars of his father, his songs must have been 
 prior, in time, to the composition of the grotesque 
 romances. And if the poems of Ossian have been 
 preserved, from the third or, fourth century, to the 
 present age, by oral tradition, they must have 
 been highly popular, in every intervening age: for 
 the nature of oral tradition is such, that it cannot 
 lay down a tale for five hundred years, and then 
 take it up again. The chain must be unbroken, or 
 it is utterly lost. 
 
 If Ossian's poems have been preserved by oral 
 tradition, they must have taken a strong and imme- 
 diate hold upon the minds of the people, and have 
 maintained that hold uninterruptedly, through every 
 succeeding age. Wherefore, upon the supposition 
 that Ossian's poems are genuine, there could have 
 been no age, subsequent to their composition, in 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 252 
 
 which the truth of their story was so far obliterated, 
 as to give place to the popular reception of lawless 
 fable. 
 
 But it appears by the testimony of the authors 
 here cited, that the Scotch nation, from the earliest 
 notice they take of Fingal or Fin, down to the 
 seventeenth century, knew nothing of his character, 
 but as a giant hunter, a demigod, or a foul fiend; 
 whence it is evident, that the romantic fiction did 
 prevail among the people, and that the story of the 
 poems was utterly unknown. Therefore the poems 
 did not exist in popular tradition, during those ages 
 of romance, and consequently, they must be re- 
 garded as the fabrication of more recent times : for 
 it is not even pretended, that they were preserved 
 in writing. 
 
 Again : in Macpherson's Gaelic Ossian, the great 
 
 hero of the poems is generally distinguished by the 
 
 name Fionnghal, Fingal. If these poems were the 
 
 genuine composition of Ossian ; if they remained 
 
 in the mouths of the people, from the third to the 
 
 eighteenth century, they must have constituted the 
 
 very foundation of the mighty warrior's fame ; they 
 
 must be regarded as the pure source from which the 
 
 national tradition was supplied. And whilst the old 
 
 Highlanders cultivated their acquaintance with the 
 
 hero, through the medium of these poems, it is 
 
 impossible they should have forgotten his proper 
 
 name, as consecrated to posterity by their venerable 
 
 Bard: it is also highly improbable, that popular 
 
253 THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 
 
 tradition should have substituted any other name 
 for this distinguished character, the glory of Cale- 
 donia, and the mirror of heroism. Yet we find 
 that Scotch tradition, invariably, excepting in one 
 solitary instance, designates him by the appellation 
 of Fionn, or Fin Mac Cout, which the Galic scholars 
 of the present day regard as his Irish name. 
 
 If we expunge a single passage in Barbour's 
 poem, we know of no writer whatsoever, prior to 
 Macpherson, who has announced to the public the 
 name of Fingal. And as Barbour's verse required 
 a name of two syllables only, T am greatly mistaken 
 if his Fyng.cH is any thing more than a contraction 
 of Fyn Mac Coul, omitting the Mac, and softening 
 the c into g, agreeably to the genius of the Galic 
 language. The Scotch literati of the eighteenth 
 century, finding the name Fingal upon record, 
 rightly judged that, as the name of a hero, it sounded 
 much better than the simple monosyllable Fin; but 
 they furnish the sceptical critic with occasion to 
 object, that the poems which present us with this 
 well-sounding term, have not only utterly departed 
 from Scottish tradition, in delineating the character 
 of Fin Mac Conl, but have even forgotten his 
 proper name. They must therefore have been 
 composed, or greatly tampered with, in very recent 
 times. 
 
 Upon the whole it may be concluded, that the 
 character of Fingal has gradually improved with the 
 refinement of the age, The hideous and terrific 
 
THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 254 
 
 giant of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
 having contracted his stature, and lengthened his 
 name, has become the amiable and accomplished 
 hero of the eighteenth, and the grotesque romances 
 of our great grandfathers have given place to the 
 elegant and interesting poetry of cultivated society. 
 
 Sir John Sinclair has produced satisfactory evi- 
 dence, that in the days of Hector Boethius, Bishop 
 Leslie, Bishop Douglas, and the author of the 
 Interlude of Droichis, Scotch tradition knew nothing 
 of the Fingal or Macpherson's English or Galic 
 Ossian. I have supposed, that the poems, which 
 now pass under that name, owe their origin to the 
 romantic narratives which were popular, in the 
 times of those authors : and notwithstanding the 
 great pains which have been bestowed upon the cul- 
 tivation of those poems, some lineaments of these, 
 their genuine parents, occasionally appear, as when 
 Fingal moves the rocks, overturns the woods, and 
 diverts the course of the streams, with the impulse 
 of his heels; or when he terrifies the birds of the 
 air, the deer of the mountains, and even the ghosts 
 of night, with the awful sound of his shield. 
 
 Our author proceeds, in the next place, to point 
 
 out certain Valleys, Mountains, Rocks, Hivers, &c. 
 
 which retain the names of Fingal and his heroes, 
 
 such as Dun'inn or Dunien, FingaVs Fori or Hill, — 
 
 Kem Fein or Kemin, Fingal' s Steps or Stairs, &c. 
 
 Amongst these examples, 1 should have expected 
 
 to find Elgin, as I recollect that an ingenious etymo- 
 
 1 1 
 
255 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 logist, extracted from this name, the words Shealg 
 Fhionn, which he interpreted, FingaVs limiting field. 
 But to the fastidious critic, all such etymologies are 
 as light and airy as the thistle's heard, which amused 
 the .young heroes of Ossian, in the days of their 
 infancy. If the syllable in or inn, when it termi- 
 nates the name of a place, must imply Fion or 
 Fionn, why may it not be interpreted Old, Small, 
 White, &c. the common appropriations of words, 
 composed of those letters ? We have heard, indeed, 
 of one or two caves, which retain the name of Fionn, 
 or Fin Mac Cotd ; but it must be recollected, that 
 Fin is the hero of the recent Irish Bards, and of 
 romantic tradition, not of the classical Ossian. But 
 however these names are to be understood, we 
 cannot admit them as evidence, that Fin ever visited 
 the places in which they occur. The renowned 
 Arthur has a chair of considerable dimensions in 
 Scotland ; he has another in Brecknockshire, three 
 thousand feet high, and more than ten thousand 
 wide : but what man in this enlightened age, sup- 
 poses that Arthur ever sat in either of these mag- 
 nificient seats ; that he baked his bread in his 
 capacious oven in North Britain ; that he played 
 with quoits of thirty or forty tons weight, or, that his 
 cloth has been spread on all his grey tables, through- 
 out the principality of Wales? 
 
 I should suppose that the tales and rhapsodies 
 which have prevailed amongst the Scottish Bards, 
 of the last three or four hundred years, would 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 250 
 
 abundantly account for all the local traditions of 
 the country, as well as for the proverbial expressions 
 commemorative of Fin and his heroes. It appears 
 otherwise to the respectable author of this Disser- 
 tation : — " This strain of evidence (says he) must 
 " be satisfactory to every impartial reader; and it 
 " is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that Ossian 
 " should be called the Prince of the Scottish Bards, 
 " and the Homer of the ancient Highlanders.'' As 
 1 would willingly preserve the character of impar- 
 tiality, I pause to consider over again, what is the 
 train of evidence here produced in favour of Ossian 
 or his poems. Amongst all the writers quoted, 
 there is not a man, prior to the middle of the 
 eighteenth century, who even names the Bard, 
 records one of his titles, points out a single piece, 
 or a line of his composition, or as much as drops a 
 hint whereby it might be guessed that he had known 
 or even heard of such compositions. 
 
 The preservation of Ossian's poems has generally 
 been ascribed to oral tradition ; but in the fourth 
 section of this chapter, we are reminded of what 
 we had heard before, that some parts of them have 
 been found in manuscript. Sir John Sinclair men- 
 tions a manuscript, bearing the dates 1512, and 
 1529, which contains two pieces, but neither of 
 them in this collection. May we presume to ask, 
 what is the size and the general subject of this 
 manuscript? What is the length and the argument 
 of the poems, supposed to be Ossian's ? Are they 
 
257 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 part of the original contents of the book, or are 
 they written upon waste leaves? Are they in a 
 legitimate Galic orthography, or merely in the 
 random spelling of an English scholar, attempting 
 to write Galic ? And finally, why are they not 
 literally copied from the manuscript, into some of 
 the dissertations or notes of these volumes, that 
 they may be compared with the presumptive text 
 of Ossian? 
 
 Mr. Macpherson is said to have collected several 
 volumes of manuscripts, in small 8vo. or large 
 12mo.* These, if I mistake not, were, for the most 
 part, Mac Vurrich's books. They were committed 
 to writing for the first time, in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, and we have no particular information relative 
 to their subjects. We have not the name of a single 
 poem which they^ontained. They seem, however, 
 to have been curious. In candid hands, they might 
 have served to elucidate several difficulties, in which 
 the* question is at present involved : but what is 
 become of them? 
 
 The manuscripts of Mr. Macdonald, of Clan- 
 ronald, and of Peter Macdonell, are mentioned. 
 They contained something upon the subject of the 
 Fingalians : but these are also lost. 
 
 Lord Kaimes commemorates a manuscript of the 
 
 first four books of ' Fingal, which Mr. Macpherson 
 
 found in the Isle of Skye, dated as early as the 
 
 * See Ossian of 1807, v. i. p. 37, v. iii. p. 43G, 449, 476, &c. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 258 
 
 year 1403. Here we seem to obtain some direct in- 
 formation. May we, however, venture to ask — was 
 this manuscript in prose or verse? Was it in the 
 Irish or the Highland dialect? These are the en- 
 quiries of due caution, upon the present subject; 
 not of impertinence or unnecessary scruple. The 
 Irish and Scots had romantic tales in prose, upon 
 the subject of Fingal's exploits. The Scots of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries appear to have 
 known that hero principally from such tales. There 
 were manuscripts of Irish poems, scattered about 
 the Highlands and the Isles. Mr. Macpherson, in 
 his Dissertation upon the poems of Ossian, spe- 
 cifies several such pieces, which he had collected. 
 He describes an Irish manuscript poem, upon the 
 same subject as his own Fingal ; but he is pro- 
 foundly silent as to any Galic copy of that poem. 
 Had he possessed a genuine copy, of 350 years 
 standing, I think he would have mentioned it. 
 
 Another gentleman speaks of a manuscript of 
 some of the. poems of Ossian, dated 1410. What 
 were the particular contents of this manuscript, 
 and what was its dialect? Where is the man who 
 is able and willing to produce a literal transcript of 
 a single page, from either of these manuscripts? 
 
 These questions do not imply the slightest dis- 
 respect for either of the several reporters, or the 
 smallest doubt, that some such papers were once 
 in being. It may be admitted, that the Irish, and 
 even the Scots, had some romantic tales, relative 
 
259 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 to Fionn and his heroes, as early as the beginning 
 of the fifteenth century ; but we want documents 
 to prove, that the identical poems, translated by 
 Mr. Macpherson, did exist at that time, in the 
 same language and phraseology which they now 
 display. The friends of Ossian must be aware of 
 the declarations made by Dr. Johnson, and Dr. 
 Shaw, that, upon inquiry, all the manuscripts 
 proved to be Irish, It is known to them, that Mr. 
 Macpherson mentions several Irish, but not one 
 Galic, or Earse manuscript. Hence it may be pre- 
 sumed, that most of the old papers here reported, 
 were in the language of Erin. Their loss, however, 
 is to be regretted. They must have been calculated 
 to throw considerable light upon the subject in 
 debate. What is become of them all ? If Mac- 
 pherson destroyed them, what were his probable 
 motives to do so? I can think but of one. 
 
 Sir John Sinclair's great object, in this Disserta- 
 tion is to prove, that Galic copies of Ossian did 
 exist, prior to Macpherson's time. He therefore 
 lays particular stress upon a collection made by 
 the Rev. John Farquharson, a Roman catholic 
 clergyman, about the year 1745. This was carried 
 by the collector to the Scottish College at Douay, 
 in Flanders, and there left by him when he re- 
 turned to Scotland, in the year 1773. 
 
 As no one in the college, after this gentleman's 
 departure from it, could read the book, it was 
 thrown aside as useless, and the leaves, as long as 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 260 
 
 they lasted, were torn out to light the fire. This is 
 also a subject of regret, as it appears to have been 
 a book of value, which it is now impossible to 
 replace. It is described as a large-paper folio, 
 about three inches thick, and written in a small 
 letter. It should seem, by the collated testimony 
 of several respectable clergymen' that it contained 
 either the whole, or most part, or a considerable 
 part of the poems, published by Macpherson, and 
 that the Galic originals either equalled or surpassed 
 the merit of the English Ossian. This information 
 was derived from Mr. Farquharson himself, who, 
 during his residence at the college, had been ac- 
 customed to compare Macpherson's translation with 
 his own Galic manuscript. 
 
 It would be extremely illiberal to suppose, that 
 the gentlemen who gave in this report, conspired 
 together in a premeditated deception. They cer- 
 tainly meant to tell the plain truth ; at the same 
 time, it is obvious, lhat they were not competent to 
 the discovery of the whole truth. There was not 
 one of them who could read the book : and when 
 they all saw it daily used as waste paper, there was 
 not a man amongst them, so much interested in its 
 fate, as to rescue from destruction, a single leaf. 
 Their acquaintance with the subject and their atten- 
 tion to it, must have been slight indeed. All they 
 knew amounted to this, that Mr. Farquharson, 
 having Macpherson's English Ossian before him, 
 occasionally turned to his own Galic manuscript, 
 
261 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 and pointed out certain passages which he affirmed 
 to be the original of what he was reading ; and this 
 circumstance they reported, upon a recollection of 
 thirty-three years. Notwithstanding, therefore, it 
 might be surmised, upon the first glance at their 
 evidence, that this manuscript contained the whole, 
 or nearly the whole, of Mapherson's poems, in the 
 form in which he published them, it will appear, 
 upon reflection, that this could not have been the 
 real state of the case. For, at the present day, we 
 are not to seek for proofs, that the poems were 
 collected by Macpherson, in detached fragments, 
 from discordant recitals, and mixed with abun- 
 dance of heterogeneous matter. It required great 
 exertion of judgment and industry, to arrange, 
 reconcile, and purify, such materials. And it is 
 impossible that any two persons, acting indepen- 
 dently of each other, should have hit upon the very 
 same mode of executing a task, so difficult and 
 laborious. Hence there must, of necessity, be con- 
 siderable difference between the adjustment of parts, 
 in the English Ossian, and in the Douay manuscript. 
 I am, therefore, disposed to receive the account of 
 this book, which is given by Mr. John Farquharson, 
 the collector's relation, who had, probably, more 
 accurate knowledge of the subject, than the other 
 gentlemen. 
 
 " I perfectly recollect (says Mr. Farquharson) to 
 " have seen in 1775 and 1776, the manuscript which 
 " you mention : but being no Gaelic scholar, all that 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 262 
 
 " 1 can attest is, my having repeatedly heard the 
 " compiler assert, it consisted of various Gaelic 
 " songs y a few fragments of modern composition, 
 " but chiefly extracts of Ossian's poems, col- 
 " lected during his long residence in Strati lglass, 
 " previously to the rebellion of 45; and to have 
 " seen him compare the same with Macpherson's 
 " translation, and exclaiming frequently at its 
 " inaccuracy." 
 
 All this is probable : and it is abundantly suf- 
 ficient to explain the whole mystery of the Douay 
 manuscript. 
 
 Extracts from the most splendid paragraphs of 
 the popular tales, which related to Fionn and his 
 heroes, were versified at various periods, and were 
 familiarly recited in the Highlands, sixty years ago. 
 Some of these fragments, or extracts, were col- 
 lected by Mr. Farquharson, who, being an admirer 
 of Galic poetry, rendered himself familiar with the 
 contents of his own book. Hence he could readily 
 turn from a brilliant passage in Macpherson's trans- 
 lation, to some extract of a similar kind, in his Galic 
 collection. The passages thus compared were found 
 either to correspond, and give the critic an im- 
 pression of their identity, or else to differ so much 
 as to produce an angry exclamation against the 
 translator's inaccuracy. Hence it may be inferred 
 that, had the Douay manuscript survived the de- 
 plorable neglect, or rather the literary treason of 
 these students, it would not have exhibited a corres- 
 
263 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 
 
 pondence with the text of a single poem, as ft 
 appears in the present edition. It would only have 
 proved, what 1 have always been ready to admit, 
 that detached parts of the same tales, which are 
 here exhibited, did exist in Galic verse, independent 
 of the labours of Mr. Macpherson and his coad- 
 jutors. My meaning, with its due restrictions, will 
 be more fully explained in the sequel. 
 
 I now proceed to consider Sir John Sinclair's 
 proof — " That the existence of Swaran and other 
 " personages, mentioned in the poems of Ossian ? 
 " is authenticated by Danish Historians." 
 
 To this part of the Dissertation I turned with 
 eager curiosity, and some glimmering of hope, in 
 favour of the Galic Bard. The characters oiStarno, 
 king of Lochlin, and his son Swaran, as well as 
 their military achievements, are utterly unknown 
 to modern historians; but I was here taught to 
 expect the discovery of their names and actions 
 amongst the ancient monuments of Denmark : and 
 I was prepared to admit such a discovery as a 
 circumstantial proof, that the tales, relative to 
 Fingal and his connections, are not wholly destitute 
 of foundation in historical fact. That the reader 
 may be qualified to judge how far these views have 
 been realized, I shall lay before him the entire sec- 
 tion, with a few cursory remarks. 
 
 " The works of Ossian are certainly to be con- 
 " sidered more in the light of the effusions of a 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 264 
 
 f< poet, than the details of an historian.* At the 
 " same time, if there were any real foundation for 
 " the circumstances therein mentioned, there was 
 u every reason to expect that, however remote the 
 " period, yet that some traces might doubtless be 
 " found of those old transactions, in the historians 
 " of Denmark. With a view of ascertaining that 
 " point, I applied to the Rev. Mr. Rosing, Pastor 
 a of the Danish Church, in London, from whom I 
 '■' received the following particulars, from a work 
 " of great authority, namely, Suhm's History of 
 u Denmark. 
 
 " The author gives an account of Gram, a Nor- 
 " wegian prince, who had acquired a territory in 
 " the western parts of Jutland. He had espoused 
 " the cause of a princess, daughter of &ygtrygg> 
 " king of East Gotha, who was persecuted by a 
 " rude suitor, whom she greatly disliked, and who, 
 " it would appear, was the celebrated Swaran* 
 " Gram took upon him her defence, gained her 
 " favour, but afterwards slew her father, who op- 
 " posed him." 
 
 Suhm then relates the following particulars:— 
 ct Gram had hardly disengaged himself from this 
 " contest, before he was obliged to begin another 
 " with Swaran, king of the West Gothes, who 
 16 would revenge the insult and injury he had suf- 
 
 * But it must be recollected, that Ossian is supposed to relate the history 
 of his own time, and to an audience that could judge of the truth of recent 
 transactions : if, therefore, his works are genuine, they must also be regarded 
 as, in a great measure, historically authentic. 
 
265 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 u fered from Gram, and besides, laid claim to the 
 " East Gothian kingdom, which, however, none of 
 u them, it seems, obtained, as one Humble governed 
 cc there, not long after. Swaran was the son of 
 c * Starno. He had carried on many wars in Ireland, 
 tc where he had vanquished most of the heroes that 
 " opposed him, excepting Cuchullin, who, assisted 
 " by the Gaelic or Caledonian king, Fingal, in the 
 <c present Scotland, not only defeated him, but 
 u even took him prisoner ; but had the generosity 
 " to send him back again to his country : and these 
 " exploits can never be effaced from men's memory, 
 " as they are celebrated in the most inimitable 
 " manner, by the Scotch poet, Ossian; and Swaran 
 " has thereby obtained an honour which has been 
 f denied to many heroes greater than he. With 
 u such an adversary Gram was now to contend. 
 " They met in single combat, and Swaran lost his 
 " life : he left sixteen brothers, seven born in wed- 
 " lock, and nine by a concubine. These Gram 
 " was obliged to meet at once, and was fortunate 
 U enough to slay them all." 
 
 " Mr. Rosing observes that the author gives no 
 " date to this event, but in p. 98, he places the 
 " death of Gram in the year 240, and from the con- 
 " text of the history, the transactions with Swaran 
 u cannot have happened many years before.* 
 
 * This Swaran cannot be made to synchronize with Ossian's king of 
 Loclilin, who invaded Ireland sometime after the expedition of Carausius in 
 the year 287. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 266 
 
 u The existence of Swaran, son of Starno, and 
 46 his wars in Ireland, and his having been defeated 
 " by Fingal, as related by Ossian, are therefore 
 Ci authenticated by the historians of Denmark ; and 
 " in their annals, a number of particulars are related 
 " regarding the manners of the times, which confirm 
 " many of the particulars mentioned by Ossian. It 
 " is very satisfactory to have been the means of 
 " bringing forward a new, and, at the same time, 
 " so convincing a proof of the authenticity of these 
 u ancient poems : and hence, indeed, it appears, 
 " that the more the subject is investigated, the more 
 " clearly will that authenticity be established." 
 
 Such is this celebrated section, so formidable to 
 the adversaries of Ossian, and closed by the worthy 
 Baronet with so much self-complacency. But let 
 us look about us a little. Where does the Danish 
 historian obtain his authority for the name of 
 Swaran, the son of Starno ? Only in the poems of 
 Ossian/ — I correct myself: we are told, in a note 
 upon the place — " Swaran, no doubt, occurs by the 
 " name of Searin, in the very old poem Voluspa, 
 Ci which I believe to be from the sixth or seventh 
 " century, where a hill is denominated after him." 
 How is this ! The Voluspa mentions a hill by the 
 name of Sea-rin, which to me seems to mean pro- 
 montory, or a ridge jutting into the sea: this hill 
 must, undoubtedly, have been named after some 
 prince: but there was no prince from whom such 
 a name could have been derived, excepting the 
 
267 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Swaran of Ossian. Consequently, the occurrence 
 of the word Searin as the name of a hill, is a 
 demonstrative proof, that Swaran was a real his- 
 torical character. Very well ! But where are we 
 to find the title of this Searin ox promontory, to the 
 kingdom of the West Gothes ? This is also pointed 
 out in a note : — " In Cath-Loda (a poem of Ossian), 
 " Swaran is called King of the Lakes, which is very 
 (i applicable to West Gotha." 
 
 For the wars which this Swaran, Searin or 
 Promontory, carried on in Ireland, and for his 
 intercourse with the Caledonian Fingal, the poems 
 of Ossian are the historian's sole authority, as it 
 must be evident to every one who attentively reads 
 the passage quoted above. Suhm met with some 
 legendary tale, of a contest between Gram and a 
 nameless adversary. He labours to identify this 
 unknown hero with the Swaran of Ossian ; and 
 supposing, the connection to be duly effected, by 
 the medium of the hill Searin, he grounds all his 
 imaginary facts of the achievements of this dubious 
 character, upon the faith of the Bard : and the 
 friends of Ossian, reimport the very same facts, to 
 support the credit of the Caledonian Homer. Is 
 it thus the historians of Denmark furnish a new and 
 convincing proof of the authenticity of these ancient 
 poems ! It is clear from what has appeared above, 
 that Suhm can step very lightly over tender ground : 
 yet, notwithstanding his dexterity in the manage- 
 ment of his mud pattens, he has by no means been 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 268 
 
 successful, in the pursuit of Ossian's subjects. He 
 observes in a note — " Our North, in general, is 
 " constantly called Lochlin in these poems, which 
 " name is still given to it, in the Welsh, Galic, and 
 " Irish languages. Many particular names of kings 
 " and countries, in Lochlin, also occur, of which 
 " none hardly can be explained from our language, as 
 il they are entirely transformed after the Gaelic." 
 
 Let us then go on to examine whether the original 
 Galic of Ossian will afford us any thing of a more 
 satisfactory nature, than what we have hitherto seen. 
 
 The patrons of our Bard, from Macpherson down- 
 wards, have thrown out several significant hints, 
 relative to the structure of his verse, as affording 
 some peculiar assistance to the memory, and thus 
 facilitating the preservation of his works, from age to 
 age, by oral tradition alone. Thus Sir John Sinclair 
 informs us—- u Though the poems were not composed 
 " in rhyme, yet there was an emphasis laid upon 
 " particular syllables, of a similar sound, in every 
 " line, which greatly assisted the memory." As I 
 cannot pretend to the possession of a Galic ear, I 
 could have wished that some of these gentlemen 
 had analized the principles of the several kinds of 
 verse, contained in the poems of Ossian, in order to 
 assist the student in pronouncing the language, and 
 discriminating the harmony of the bardic strain. 
 
 Dr. Shaw, in his Analysis, only tells us compen- 
 diously, and not very distinctly — " The measure of 
 'J Ossian's poetry is very irregular and various. 
 
269 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 66 Generally he has couplets of eight, though they do 
 iC not rhyme, and seven, and sometimes nine syl- 
 lables. These feet are most commonly trochee 
 " and dactyle. The trochee occupies the first, the 
 " dactyle the second and third, and a long syllable 
 " ends the line." 
 
 This disposition of feet gives a cadence, something 
 to the following effect:— 
 
 Morven's hero resembles the song, 
 Vaulting, scampering, scudding along j 
 Bolt, from Selma to Lochlin he goes, 
 Hunting, hampering, taming the foes. 
 Thus the rock from the mountain is torne, 
 Thus the stream through the valley is borne, 
 Thus the ghost in the tempest does cry, 
 Thus, at Midsummer, buzzes the fly. 
 
 But although I cannot ascertain the cadence, and 
 the quantity of the syllables, in the several kinds of 
 verse ; yet, if the eye may be depended upon, I 
 can safely affirm, that the general body of these 
 poems consists not of couplets, but tetrastichs, or 
 stanzas of four lines each, and that, in many 
 instances, the verses rhyme alternately, or else, 
 the second and fourth lines of the same stanza 
 rhyme together. 
 
 I must give some examples, and I hope the 
 curious reader will not be displeased, to contem- 
 plate a few choice specimens of the original Ossian, 
 and of the manner in which he is translated, by the 
 scholars of Caledonia : but lest others should be 
 appalled, at the sight of Galic stanzas, it may be 
 proper to apprize them, that I only request their 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN.' 270 
 
 attention to the mechanical disposition of the letters. 
 Without such a direct glance at the chair of Ossian, 
 we shall never be able to discriminate his real 
 features. The poem called Oinamorul, opens with 
 these tetrastichs : — * 
 
 i. 
 
 Marghluaiseas solus speur fo scleo, 
 Air Larmoii mor, a's uaine torn ; 
 Mar sinthig sgeul nan triath nach beo 
 Air m'anam is an oidhche trom. 
 
 2. 
 Nuairthreigeas filidh caoin a mhuirn 
 A chlarsach chiuil san talla ard ; 
 Thig guth gu chluais Oisein o chul, 
 Mosgladh anma an tur nam bard. 
 
 3. 
 
 ? S e guth nam bliadlma thuit a ta ann, 
 Tional uile a mall le'n gniomh. 
 Glacam-sa na sgeula nach fann 
 Cuiream sios iad am fonn gun ghiomh. 
 
 * V. i. p. 177. Thus translated:— 
 
 Vt movetur lux ccelorum sub vapore, 
 Super Larmone magna, cujus est viridissimus collis, 
 Sic venit historia procerum haud vivorum 
 Super meum animum nocte gravi. 
 
 Quando relinquit poeta blandus suam blanditiam 
 Ejus cithara, canora in aula sublime, 
 Venit vox ad aurein Ossiani a tergo, 
 Expergefaciens ejus animam in torpore bardorum. 
 
 Est vox annorum quae cecidernnt, qua? adest, 
 Colligens omnia hue cum eorum factis. 
 Captem ego historias haud futiles, 
 Mittam deorsum eas in cantionem sine fraude. 
 

 271 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 4. 
 
 Cha shruth tha dorcha fonn an righ, 
 'Nuair dh'eirease measg stri nan teud ; 
 O laimh-ghil an Lutha nam frith, 
 Malmhina, cruth clith gun bheud. 
 
 5. 
 A Lutha nan teud a's glaine fuaim ! 
 Gun samhchair air do chruachan ard, 
 Nuair shiubhlas geal-lamh na stuaim 
 Air chlairsaich fo dhuan nam bard. 
 
 6. 
 Sholuis nan smuainte dorcha truagb, 
 Tha tarruing suas air m'anam dall ; 
 A nighean Thoscair nan ceann-bheart cruaidh, 
 Thoir cluas do chaoin f huaim tha mall ! 
 
 When the reader has just cast his eye over these 
 twenty-four first lines of Oinamorul, I think he 
 must readily acknowledge, that they resolve them- 
 selves into six tetrastichs, the lines of which, for 
 the most part, rhyme alternately, or else, the second 
 and fourth rhyme together. Such tetrastichs, or 
 rhyming stanzas, of four lines each, are frequent in 
 all the shorter poems ; nor are they wanting in 
 
 Non flumen, quod est obscurum, melos regis, 
 Quando surgit e media contentione chordarum 
 Ab manu Candida in Lutha saltuum, 
 Malvina, forma concinna. sine defectu ! 
 
 Lutha chordarum quarum est purissimus sonus! 
 Sine silentio super tuis praecipitus altis, 
 Quando pergit Candida manus modestiee 
 Super citharam sub carmine bardorum. 
 
 O lux cogitationum obscurarum, miserarum, 
 
 Quae se-trahunt sursum super meum animum caecum, 
 
 O filia Toscaris galearum durarum, 
 
 Adhibe aurem blando sono qui est lentus ! 
 

 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 272 
 
 Fingal and Temora. I have marked nearly two 
 hundred such stanzas, in the former of those poems, 
 and about half that number in the latter. Rhyming 
 tetrastichs were, therefore, familiarly known to the 
 author or authors of all these poems. 
 
 To a mere English scholar, the rhyme between 
 the first and third line, in the second and sixth 
 stanza, appears to be defective ; but, according to 
 the prosody of the Irish grammarians, it is legiti- 
 mate and perfect. These literati, as I remarked in 
 a former part of this Essay, have arranged the letters 
 of the alphabet in fanciful and artificial classes : 
 and they deem it sufficient, for the purpose of rhyme 
 or correspondence, that a letter should be answered 
 by one of its own class, agreeably to the following 
 distribution :-— 
 
 The vowels a, o, u, are broad — e and i, small. 
 Diphthongs and triphthongs generally follow the 
 class of their first vowel. Of the consonants, c,p 9 
 t, are soft — b, d, g, hard — ch, fh, ph, sh, th 9 
 rough — m, 11, nn, rr, ng, robust — bh, dh, gh, mh, l> 
 n, r, light— f, weak, sometimes rough — s, barren — - 
 h, hollow. 
 
 Now if, by this scale, we compare the word 
 mhuirn, which ends the first line in the second 
 stanza, with chid, which terminates the third line, 
 we shall find that ui in the former word, is a broad 
 diphthong, and u, in the latter, a broad vowel — rn, 
 in the former, and /, in the latter term, are light 
 
273 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 consonants : the rhyme,* therefore, between mhnirn 
 and chid, in spite of the eye and the ear of the 
 Gothic scholar, is legitimate and perfect. So again, 
 in the sixth stanza, truagh and cruaidh make a 
 perfect rhyme, because gh and dh pertain to the 
 same class of light consonants. 
 
 This feature, in the versification of Ossian, pre- 
 senting itself so readily, induces me to look more 
 narrowly into the stanzas cited above. Amongst 
 the ornaments of Irish tetrastichs, we generally 
 find a concord or agreement, between the last word 
 of the first line, and some word in the body of the 
 second ; as also between the end of the third line, 
 and some word in the fourth. The same peculiarity 
 appears in the stanzas before us. 
 
 Thus, stanza 2, mhuirn, in the first line, and 
 chiuil in the second, make a concord, because r, n, 
 and /, pertain to the same class. So also tur, in 
 the fourth line, answers to chul in the third, r and I 
 being of the same class. In stanza 3, we have the 
 like concords between ann and mall, and again, 
 "between^/aim and fonn; nn and //being accounted 
 robust consonants, and a and o broad vowels. In 
 the fourth stanza, stri accords with righ, and clith 
 with frith, only instead of righ we ought to read ri 9 
 
 * That I may not puzzle my reader nor myself with the uncouth terms of 
 Irish grammar, I shall call the correspondence of final syllables rhyme; and 
 the correspondence of a final syllable in one line, with another syllable in 
 the middle of the next, concord or agreement. Let it also be noted, that I do 
 not attempt to analyze these stanzas, any farther than what relates to such 
 correspondences. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 274 
 
 an orthography authorized by the Irish Bards, and 
 even admitted in the poems of Ossian. Thus the 
 repeated alterations and improvements of the or- 
 thography of our poet, have occasionally displaced 
 the rules of prosody. But the same rules appear 
 again, stanza 6, in the concords between traagh 
 and suas, and between cruaidh and chaoin ; s being 
 a barren consonant, admits of any associate that 
 may present itself — uai and aoi are broad triph- 
 thongs, and dh and n pertain to the class of light 
 consonants. Hence it is evident, that the composer 
 of these verses was not only acquainted with 
 rhyming tetrastichs, but also, with that identical 
 system of arbitrary classification, to which the Irish 
 grammarians subjected the letters of the alphabet. 
 How, otherwise, was it possible for him to have 
 discovered, that such words as nihuirn and chul — 
 chid and iur — ann and mall, made perfect concords 
 or rhymes ? 
 
 In this part of my Essay, the cursory reader may 
 not find much entertainment ; but T must bespeak 
 his patience and attention for a few pages. He 
 has here presented to him, the very thing he has 
 often called for— not hypothetical reasoning relative 
 to the poems of Ossian, but plain matter of fact. 
 It must be a subject of no small curiosity, to con- 
 template this renowned Caledonian prince, of the 
 third century, close at his studies, with the Irish 
 grammars of the seventeenth century, laid open 
 before him. The Scots have surely been very 
 
275 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 moderate in their charge against the Irish: they 
 only accuse them of having stolen the poems of 
 Ossian, whilst it should seem, that they laid their 
 rapacious hands upon his grammar also ! In order 
 to render the fact incontrovertible, that this gram- 
 mar was known to the Bard, who composed the 
 present poems, I shall consider a few tetrastichs, 
 in which the rhyme is less obvious to the general 
 reader. In the first Duan of Cath-Loda, v. 10&, 
 is the following : — * 
 
 A Thorcuil-torno nan ciabh glas., 
 Am bheil astar do chas mu Lula. 
 Do ghath teine mar eibhle dol as 
 Aig sruth a tha cas fo dhubhra. 
 
 Here the concords between glas and chas— as 
 and cas, are sufficiently obvious ; but /, dh, bh, and 
 r, all belong to the class of light consonants, it 
 therefore follows that, according to the laws of Irish 
 prosody, Lula and dhubhra constitute a perfect 
 double rhyme. 
 
 The two first stanzas in Carricthura : — t 
 
 An d'f hag thu gorm-astar nan speur 
 A mhic gun bheud, a's or-bhui ciabh 
 Tha dorsa na h-oiche dhuit fein 
 Agus pailliun do chlos 'san iar. 
 
 * V. i. p. 11. Translation:-— 
 O Torcultorno cirrorum glaucorum, 
 An est iter tuorum pedum circa Lulam, 
 Tuo radio ignis instar prunae se-extinguentis, 
 Ad fluentum quod est praeceps sub umbra ? 
 
 t V. i. p. 97. Translation :— 
 An reliquisti tu caeruleum iter caelorum, 
 O fill sine defectu, cujus est aurato-flavus cirrus ? 
 Sunt portae noctis tibi ipsi, 
 Et tentorium tuee requietis in occidente. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 276 
 
 Thig na stuaidh mu'n cuairt gu mall 
 A choirnhead fir a's glaine ghruaidh ; 
 A' togail fo eagal an ceann 
 Ri d' f haicinn cho aillidh 'na d' shuain. 
 
 In the first of these stanzas, the termination speur 
 rhymes with the termination Jein, eu and ei being 
 small diphthongs, and r and n light consonants— 
 ciabh and iar rhyme, for the same reasons. Mall, 
 in the second stanza, rhymes imperfectly with ceann, 
 a being a broad vowel, and ea a small diphthong : 
 this, however, has the licence of Irish prosody: // 
 and nn in these words pertain to the class of robust 
 consonants. Gruaidh rhymes with shuain, dh and 
 n being light consonants ; and ceann forms a concord 
 with the syllable cinn in f 'haicinn. The system upon 
 which these stanzas are constructed is thus ascer- 
 tained, beyond the possibility of dispute. 
 
 The same poem, v. 23 : — * 
 
 Bha mhaile ghorm mu cheann an t-sonn, 
 Mar nial nach trom air aghaidh grein, 
 Nuair ghluaiseas e'na eideadh donn, 
 A* feuchainn leth a shoills 'san speur. 
 
 A stanza in which the principles of Irish prosody 
 are more strictly observed, never came from the 
 pen of a Bard. Sonn, in the first line, rhymes with 
 
 Veniunt fluctus circumcirca tarde, 
 
 Visum virum, cirjus est purissima gena, 
 
 Tollentes sub metu suum caput, 
 
 Inter te cernendum adeo formosum in tuo sopore. 
 
 * V. i. p. 99. Translation : — 
 Est galea caerulea circa caput herois, 
 Sicut nubes haud gravida super vultu solis y 
 Quando movet-se ille in veste subfusca, 
 Ostendens dimidium suae lucis in caelo. 
 
277 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 donn, in the third : it also accords with from, in the 
 middle of the second, nn and m being robust con- 
 sonants. Grein in the second line, rhymes with 
 speur in the fourth, ei and eu being small diphthongs, 
 and n and r light consonants. Dona, in the third, 
 accords with shoill in the fourth, o being a broad 
 vowel, and oi a broad diphthong — nn and 7/ taking 
 their place amongst the robust consonants. 
 
 Examples of this kind might be adduced, from 
 every part of these poems ; but, in dealing out 
 Galic stanzas, I must have some regard to my 
 reader's appetite. Let me then relieve him, for the 
 present, by asking a question in plain English. — By 
 what means could Ossian have discovered, that such 
 syllables as cfoul and tur — ann and mall — threin and 
 deigh — speur and fein — grein and speur — donn and 
 shoill, and the like, constituted legitimate rhymes ? 
 His untutored ear could never have informed him 
 of this circumstance, unless it be said, that the 
 whole system is founded in obvious principles of 
 nature. But to me at least, it appears so fanciful 
 and arbitrary, that I should deem it impossible for 
 two societies of men, without mutual communication, 
 to have adjusted it alike, in all its parts. If there- 
 fore, the Scots insist upon the genuineness, and 
 antiquity of these poems, it remains for them to 
 prove, or at least, to assume, that the system of 
 prosody, taught by the Irish grammarians, of the 
 seventeenth century, was derived from the school of 
 Ossian. But upon that hypothesis, it must follow, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 278 
 
 that Ossian was intimately acquainted with letters* 
 He must have examined them with the penetra- 
 tion of a conjurer, in order to ascertain which was 
 soft, which was hard, which was rough, which was 
 light, &c. especially, when it became requisite for 
 him to adjust the several classes of the quiescent 
 consonants and combinations. He must have often 
 paused over the harp of Selma, to award the several 
 claims of the broad aphthongs, ophthongs or uph- 
 thongs, and the small ephthongs and iphthongs. He 
 must have also known, and duly attended to, the 
 whole orthographical scheme of the present Irish 
 language: for a slight deviation from that ortho- 
 graphy, would throw the whole fabrick of his verse 
 into confusion and utter ruin, as might be proved 
 from several passages, in the present edition of his 
 poems. But if these various branches of knowledge 
 did not appertain to the age and country of Ossian, 
 the Galic scholars, however reluctantly, must admit, 
 that the Caledonian Bard has employed a secretary 
 of more recent times, and of the school of Erin. — No 
 possible doubt can remain upon this subject. 
 
 Although the general principles of Irish prosody 
 pervade the tetrastichs of Ossian, it is acknow- 
 ledged, that there are several paragraphs which, 
 at present, exhibit but a partial attention to the 
 minuter rules of this prosody. Such deviations 
 may be owing to various causes, amongst which we 
 may reckon the repeated alterations of the ortho- 
 
 M M 
 
279 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 graphy. It is well known that Macpherson was 
 very desirous of devising some new scheme of 
 orthography for these poems, and that, for some 
 years, he was resolutely bent upon publishing them, 
 under the disguise of Greek letters. He was pro- 
 bably aware, that the only established orthography 
 of the language, namely, the Irish, would betray 
 the true principles of the versification ; and appre- 
 hensive of the critical decision that must follow. 
 With these feelings, it must have been his wish to 
 obliterate the Irish mark, whenever it appeared 
 too conspicuous. The editors of this work have 
 restored the genuine orthography, to a certain 
 degree. Truth and literary integrity demanded of 
 them something more than what they have done ; 
 but they have done abundantly too much for the 
 cause of the Caledonian Ossian. 
 
 Another cause of the present irregularity of the 
 verse is the change or transposition of several words 
 or lines, by illiterate reciters, or superficial critics, 
 without regard to the laws of the metre. Great 
 allowance must also be made for the mutilation of 
 several stanzas by Mr. Macpherson, who was anxious 
 to suppress every thing that might derogate from 
 the majesty of Ossian; and likewise for the con- 
 nective paragraphs, which he found it necessary to 
 introduce, from the traditional tales, or from the 
 resources of his own genius. I subjoin a few ex- 
 amples of stanzas, in which I conceive the metre to 
 be injured, from some of these causes. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 280 
 
 Cath-Loda, Buan i. v. 132:—* 
 
 Bha Torcul-torno, labhair an oigh, 
 Aig Lula nan sruth mor a' tamh ; 
 Bha thuinneas aig Lula nan seod — 
 Tha 'n t-slige corr an diugh na laimh. 
 
 The word seod in the third line, throws this stanza 
 into confusion : it will neither answer as a rhyme 
 to oigh, in the first, nor accord with any word in 
 the fourth, as it ought to do: it must therefore be 
 regarded as corrupt. It is here translated heroum ; 
 but the only meaning of seod which I find in Llwyd's 
 Dictionary, is a Jewel, or a seal. The word intended 
 by the Bard is seadh, an antiquated term, implying 
 strong or brave. This would restore the whole 
 stanza. Oigh, in the first, rhymes with seadh in 
 the third, and forms a concord with mor in the 
 second : tamh, in the second, rhymes with laimh, 
 in the fourth ; and seadh makes a perfect concord 
 with daigh. 
 
 I am pretty confident this correction is right, as 
 I observe the same word, seod, occasions the like 
 confusion in other places. Thus, Carricthura, v. 39, 
 the four lines of a stanza end with form — sheol — 
 form — seod. The last word cannot rhyme with 
 sheol, because d and / pertain to different classes ; 
 but restore seadh, and the rhyme and sense will be 
 
 * V. i. p. 13. Translation :— 
 
 Erat Torcultorno, locuta est virgo, 
 Ad Lulam fluminum magnorum quiescens ; 
 Erat ejus habitatio ad Lulam heroum ; 
 Est concha eximia hodie in ejus manu. 
 
281 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 correct. Again ; Carthon, v. 7, seod is confronted 
 with torr, which is incorrect — instead of seod, read 
 its synonym sonn, and the alliteration is restored. 
 Cath-Loda, Duan iii. v. 1 8, has this tetrastich :— * 
 
 Le d' thri guthaibh thig gun stad, 
 Soillsicheadh gu grad na dh'f halbh ; 
 Tog samhla nan laoch, nach robhlag, 
 Air chiar am, a chaidh fada thall. 
 
 Here stad accords with grad, and rhymes with 
 lag, d and g being hard — lag accords withyac?-a; 
 but thall will not rhyme with J halbh, 11 being robust, 
 and / and bh light. I find, however, that instead 
 of thall we have authority for thai, with a single /, 
 and that is the orthography which this stanza re-* 
 quires, to render it perfect. 
 
 The next stanza: — f 
 
 A Thoirne nan stoirm 's nan cruach, 
 Chi mi shuas mo dhream ri d' thaobh ; 
 Fionnghal ag aomadh fo ghruaim 
 Thar uaigh Mhic Roinne nach b'f haoin. 
 
 This has, evidently, been altered, without due 
 attention to the metre. Cruach will neither accord 
 with dhream, nor rhyme with ghruaim, ch being 
 
 * V. i. p. 53. Translation : 
 Cum tuis ternis vocibus veni sine (mora) stando, 
 Illuminans ocyus eos qui abierunt ; 
 Tolle simulacrum bellatorum, qui non fuerunt ignavi, 
 Super fuscum tempus, quod ivit longe ultra. 
 
 f Translation: — 
 O Thorna procellarum et praecipitiorum, 
 Cerno ego supra meum agmen ad tuum latus ; 
 Fingalern se-inclinantem sub tetricitate, 
 Super sepulchrum filii Ronae, qui non fuit languidui. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 282 
 
 rough and m robust — transpose cruach and stoirm> 
 in the first line, and the rhyme is complete through- 
 out. Still, however, dhream will not accord with 
 stoirm, ea being small and oi broad. Instead of 
 dhream read dhraim, and the stanza will be as per- 
 fect as any verse in Virgil. 
 Carricthura, v. 35 : — * 
 
 'S taitneach leam aoibhneas a bhroin, 
 Mar dhruchd mothar earraich chaoin 
 Fo 'n lub geug dharaig nan torr, 
 'S an duilleach og ag eirigh maoth. 
 
 An Irish grammarian could not prove this tetras- 
 tich, as it now stands ; but transpose earraich and 
 chaoin in the second line, and instead of torr read 
 tor, with a single r, as we are warranted to do, and 
 the verse will be complete in all its parts. Bhroin 
 will accord with chaoin, and rhyme with tor: 
 earraich will rhyme with maoth, ch and th being 
 rough, and tor will accord with og in the fourth line. 
 
 The same poem, v. 77 : — f 
 
 Fada Bhinnbheil, fada thall, 
 Tha m'astar gu blar le Fionnghal. 
 Cha 'n 'eil mo choin fein ri m'thaobh, 
 No mo cheum air fraoch nan gleann. 
 
 * V. i. p. 99. Translation:— 
 Est jucundum mihi gaudium luctus, 
 Sicut ros moderatus veris blandi, 
 Sub quo flectitur ramus quercus tumulorum, 
 Foliis novis surgentibus tenere. 
 
 t Translation: — 
 Procul, Vinvela, procul ex adverso, 
 Est meum iter ad prcelium cum Fingale. 
 Non sunt mei canes ipsius juxta meum latuf, 
 Nee mens gmdu» super ericl, valUum, 
 
283 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 Here are several obvious corruptions. Instead 
 of thall we should read thai: instead of fraoch, 
 heath, raon, a plain or heath — an Ossianic word. 
 My principal inducement, however, to notice this 
 tetrastich, is the occurrence of the name Fionnghal, 
 which the Scots claim for themselves, whilst they 
 acknowledge that Fionn is the hero's Irish name. 
 But were Fionn Coptic or Chinese, this stanza 
 demands it, to rhyme with gleanu. Fionnghal 
 must have been substituted by some person, either 
 strongly impelled by a patriotic motive, or else 
 absolutely ignorant of the laws of the metre. With 
 the proposed corrections, thai accords with Mar 
 and rhymes with thaobh — Fionn rhymes with gleann, 
 and thaobh accords with raon, as the reader may 
 clearly perceive, by casting his eye over the classes 
 of the Irish letters. Such examples may be abun- 
 dantly multiplied, but I only beg leave to add one 
 more, from the same poem, v. 96 : — * 
 
 Ma thuiteas mi sa' mhagh, a Bhinnbheil, 
 Togsa dileas gu h-ard m' uaigh, 
 Clacha glas, as meall da 'n uir, 
 'N an comhara do d' run, a Bhinnbheil. 
 
 Here the form of the tetrastich cannot be imme- 
 diately recognized ; but if we transpose the two 
 
 * Translation :— 
 
 Si cadam ego in acie, O Vinvela, 
 
 Tolle tu amice, in altum, ineuni sepulehrum, 
 
 Saxa glauca, et molem telluris, 
 
 Ut signa tui amoris, Vinvela. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 284 
 
 last lines, and instead of meall write meal, the 
 rhymes and concords will be perfect. 
 
 Many of the properties of these stanzas may have 
 escaped my notice, as my knowledge of the language 
 is imperfect. I have, however, ascertained one 
 important fact — that the author of these poems 
 certainly understood, and scrupulously attended to, 
 the system of orthography now established in the 
 Irish language, as well as the artificial arrangement 
 to which the letters of that language have been sub- 
 jected. By thus lightly meddling with the strains 
 of the immortal Ossian, 1 may, perhaps, incur the 
 momentary indignation of Galic scholars. But men 
 of learning and candour will reflect as well as feel. 
 I may, therefore, in time, look for an acknowledg- 
 ment, that, in these minute remarks, I have produced 
 stronger proof than any which has hitherto been 
 offered to the public, that many of these identical 
 stanzas, had passed through more hands than one, 
 before they were delivered to the editors of the 
 present work. For Macpherson does not appear 
 to have studied the prosody of Erin ; and I must 
 again repeat it, as the fact is strong and decisive, 
 the preceding examples, to which several hundreds, 
 equally conclusive, might be added, have proved, 
 that the author of these verses was intimately 
 acquainted with the singular and arbitrary classifi- 
 cation of letters, laid down by the Irish grammarians 
 of the seventeenth century, and originally devised 
 by the Irish Bards of the fourteenth and fifteenth. 
 
285 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 This evidence of his peculiar learning, may detract 
 something from the supposed Ossians claim to 
 remote antiquity; but it does him credit in another 
 way ; it fully demonstrates, that he was no illiterate 
 barbarian. 
 
 As it is by no means clear, that all these poems, 
 or all the parts of any one of them, are the work of 
 the same man, there may be many of the tetrastichs, 
 in which the principles of Irish prosody were not 
 accurately observed, by the original composer : but 
 those passages in which we may trace the same 
 tetrastich form, and a certain degree of attention 
 to these rules, make up, at least, two thirds of the 
 body of the collection, and are to be found in every 
 one of the poems. Amongst these are interspersed, 
 at irregular intervals, one, two, or three, rhyming 
 couplets, such as we find in the Galic translation of 
 Popes Messiah: at other times, we may remark 
 from one to ten or a dozen arbitrary lines, which, I 
 believe, defy all the known laws of prosody, and can 
 be regarded as nothing more than a kind of measured 
 prose, like Macpherson's English Ossian. I offer an 
 example of rhyming couplets, from Cath-Loda, 
 Duan i. v. 11.* 
 
 Mi coimhead air Lochlin nan sonn, 
 Ciar uisge Uthorno nan tonn ; 
 
 * V. i. p. 3. Translation :■— 
 
 Me intuente Lochlinem bellatorum, 
 Fuscam aquam Uthornae, undarum ; 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN* 286 
 
 O'n iai -cliuain a tearnadh mo righ ; 
 *S muir bheucach fo ghaoith a* stri ; 
 
 *S neo-lionar glan oigridh nam beann 
 Tir chbigrich a* togaii fo *n ceann. 
 
 It may be conjectured that such couplets as these, 
 together with the lawless lines which, in almost every 
 page, intrude upon our notice, contain the matter 
 which Macpherson borrowed from the tales, or prose 
 romances, in order to connect his poetic fragments, 
 and mould them into regular compositions. 
 
 As to the assistance which the memory may have 
 derived from the structure of Ossian's verse, it may 
 have been considerable, in the rhyming tetrastichs* 
 Those which are wholly formed upon the Irish classes, 
 could have presented but few facilities, excepting 
 to persons who had accurately studied the fanciful 
 system, upon which they are constructed. And the 
 abrupt intrusion of couplets and arbitrary lines, at 
 irregular intervals, and in uncertain numbers, must 
 have had a direct tendency to confound the strongest 
 memory. But I am greatlyjdeceived, if the memory 
 was long exercised by any of these stanzas, in the 
 form which they now exhibit. I have shewn above, 
 that these poems, generally speaking, are composed 
 according to certain rules of Irish prosody: I 
 would therefore recommend it to the grammarians 
 
 Ab occidentali oceano descendentem meum regem ; 
 Et mare mugiens sub vento certans ; 
 
 Est haud numerosa pura juventus montium 
 Terram peregrinorum tollens sub ejus caput. 
 
 N N 
 
287 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 of Erin, to try whether many of those tetrastichs 
 which are now defective, may not be restored to 
 their integrity, by merely declining the nouns and 
 verbs after the Irish manner, and rectifying the or- 
 thography. Should this experiment succeed, it will 
 furnish an absolute demonstration, that the poet not 
 only imitated the Bards, but even employed the 
 language of the Western Island. My knowledge 
 of that language is not sufficient to enable me to 
 pursue the enquiry : yet I can perceive a consider- 
 able number of minute characteristics, which strongly 
 excite a suspicion of the fact I have suggested. I 
 submit the following examples. 
 Carthon, v. 84 :— * 
 
 <S dubh-dorcha do smaointe, ard laoich, 
 A' d' aonar mu Lora nam fuaim : 
 Cluinnear mu d' og-bhron nach faoin, 
 Air a cheo a chuir d' aois fo ghruaim. 
 
 Here laoich will not rhyme with faoin, because 
 ch is rough, and n, light ; but an Irish scholar would 
 have written this vocative case, laoigh, and then the 
 rhyme would be perfect : for gh and n pertain to the 
 same class. Again Lora will not accord with laoich, 
 nor yet with laoigh ; but the Irish Bards write this 
 name Laoghaire (see Miss Brooke's Magnus) and 
 laoghy or air would accord with laoigh; gh and r 
 being of the same class. 
 
 * V. i. p. 153. Translation : — 
 Sunt atro-fuscae tuae cogitationes, O ardue bellator, 
 In tu& solitudine circa Loram sonituum : 
 (Audiamus) audiatur de tuo juvenili-dolore baud vano, 
 De vapore qui misit tuam senectutem sub tetricitatem. 
 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 288 
 
 In the poem of Oinamorul, v 126, we have a 
 stanza rendered equally defective, for want of 
 varying the termination ch, after the Irish manner: 
 
 Co as an triath, is e thuairt an oigh 
 Tha coimhead air gorm-cheo a chuain ? 
 Co th' anmach triath a chuil mhoir 
 Dubh mar sgeith f hithich nan cruach ?* 
 
 Fhithich in the fourth line, will not accord with 
 mhoir in the third, nor will cruach rhyme with 
 chuain in the second : but a raven, in Irish, \sjiach, 
 in the genitive case Jiaigh, and cruach makes cruaigh 
 in the genitive — these corrections restore the allite- 
 ration. 
 
 Fingal, b. i. v. 9 : — 
 
 Eirich, a Chuchullin, eirich ! 
 Rise, Cuchullin, rise ! 
 
 Here eirich will not accord with threun in the 
 next line, nor rhyme with feile in the third : but 
 the true imperative is eirigh, of which we have an 
 example in Llwyd's Dictionary ; and gh agrees with 
 n and /. 
 
 Upon the whole, then, it appears that this edition 
 was prepared for the press, without due attention 
 to the laws of the metre. I may add, that the 
 tetrastich form is kept pretty much out of sight, by 
 the punctuation and the manner in which the poems 
 
 * V. i. p. 185. Translation: — 
 Unde est princeps, est quod dixit virgo, 
 Qui est aspiciens super ccerulam nebulam oceani ? 
 Quis est nisi princeps csesariei magnae 
 Nigrae instar alae corvi praecipitorum ? 
 
289 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 are printed. It follows, that the Galic scholars have 
 hitherto made no great proficiency in the new study 
 of their native language : and if they make these 
 poems their standard, which they seem disposed 
 to do, their progress must be effectually impeded. 
 A language which, for many centuries, has been 
 abandoned to the caprice of the vulgar, without 
 grammar, without books, without a vocabulary, 
 without orthography, is not to be restored to its 
 ancient purity, without due attention to the sister 
 dialects, which have been preserved and cultivated 
 with greater care. 
 
 An unnecessary multiplication of examples would 
 be irksome to the English reader : let those which 
 I have now given suffice to explain my meaning, 
 and to ground an opinion, that the nearer we 
 approach to laws of the Irish grammar — to its 
 orthography — its etymology — its syntax — and its 
 prosody, the better we shall be able to explain the 
 principles of versification in certain parts of these 
 poems. The ensuing section will disclose substan- 
 tial reasons, why this observation should not be 
 extended to every pari of them. 
 
 From what has been here remarked, I would not 
 infer that the poems were composed in Ireland, or 
 by natives of that country. My remark only 
 verifies the testimony of Dr. Shaw, that, even in 
 the Highlands, the Irish was always the written, 
 and the studied language. However this may have 
 been, these poems are not the work of an illiterate 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 290 
 
 Bard : nor could they possibly have been composed 
 in any age, prior to the arrangement of that singular 
 scheme of prosody — that fanciful classification of 
 the letters, which is explained by the Irish gram- 
 marians of the seventeenth century. 
 
 
SECTION VI 
 
 SECOND ADDITIONAL. 
 
 On the Galic text of the poems ascribed to Ossian. 
 
 Galic scholars pronounce the original language of these poems to be in- 
 imitable in modern times, and hence infer the antiquity and integrity of the 
 text.— This argument set aside, by shewing — that the text was altered by 
 Macpherson, previous to his translation— that it has also been altered sub- 
 sequent to the publication of the English Ossian. — Macpherson detected in 
 composing an original of Berrathon. — Recomposition of the Galic poems 
 exemplified in Calthon and Colmal — Malvina's Dream — Address to Oscar — 
 and the Story of Oscar's Death — the language of these poems, therefore, 
 imitable and imitated, in the present age.— Galic scholars incompetent to 
 judge of the antiquity of the language— proved by their quoting an acknow- 
 ledged production of the eighteenth century as the genuine work of Ossian. 
 
 The author having weighed these circumstances and facts — denies the 
 antiquity and historical authenticity of ail these compositions — expects his 
 literary doom from the Scotch critics — makes his humble confession — and 
 retires — leaving the Caledonians in full possession of all the fame arising 
 from the production of these poems, considered as works of modern invention. 
 
1 have reason to apprehend that the conclusion 
 which I have drawn, from a view of Ossian's metre, 
 will not prove agreeable to the defenders of the 
 Caledonian Bard, who appear to assume as a fact, 
 that the Galic text, as it is now published, not only 
 came in a perfect state, into Mr. Macpherson's 
 hands, but had existed in its full integrity, from a 
 remote age. Let us hear the sentiments of Sir 
 John Sinclair, upon this subject. 
 
 " It is ingeniously observed, in the Report of the 
 <e Highland Society, (p. 137), That the publication 
 " of the original Galic will afford an opportunity, to 
 16 those who question its authenticity, to examine 
 ff narrowly the intrinsic evidence, arising from the 
 " nature and construction of the language. This is 
 a a point of the first importance in the dispute : for 
 * l not an instance can be collected, of a fabrication 
 " in a foreign language, or in a language supposed 
 " to be that of an ancient period, where, upon 
 " an accurate examination, internal proofs of the 
 tc forgery have not been discovered, in the very 
 " language alone, in which the forgery was at- 
 " tempted to be conveyed." 
 
293 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 To this confident challenge, our author subjoins 
 the following particulars : — " It is decidedly the 
 " opinion of such Gaelic scholars as have hitherto 
 " had an opportunity of examining the whole, or 
 " any part of the original, that the language in 
 " which Ossian's poems are written, is of great 
 " antiquity, and could not be imitated in modern 
 " times. They assert that it would be as difficult 
 " for any modern scholar, to pass his compositions 
 " in Greek and Latin, for those of Homer or Virgil, 
 " as it would be for Macpherson to have composed 
 " Gaelic poems, which could not, at once, be dis- 
 " tinguished from those of so ancient a date.* It 
 " is hardly possible, for those who are not con- 
 " versant in the Gaelic language, to judge of the 
 " validity of this argument; but the unanimous, or 
 " even the general testimony, of respectable and 
 " intelligent Gaelic scholars, to that fact, must 
 M necessarily have great weight in such a con- 
 " troversy. 
 
 *' There is another mode, however, by which the 
 " publication of the Gaelic will furnish the most 
 i( satisfactory evidence of its own originality; 
 u namely, by comparing it, or a new literal trans- 
 " lation of it, with Macpherson's translation, in 
 " order to ascertain the following particulars : — 
 
 * Not quite so difficult : for we know what the Greek and Latin languages 
 were, in the time of Homer and Virgil ; but we have no undoubted standard 
 of the ancient Galic, to confront with a modern forgery. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 294 
 
 " 1. Whether Macpherson did not, in many in- 
 " stances, misconceive the meaning of the original, 
 " and consequently, give an erroneous translation? 
 " 2. Whether he did a ot frequently add many words 
 " and expressions, not to be found in the original, 
 " which additions have been adduced as plagiarisms 
 " from other authors ; and consequently, as argu- 
 " ments against the authenticity of the poems? 
 " 3. Whether he did not leave out many beautiful 
 " words and passages, to be found in the original? 
 " 4. Whether he did not pass over many words and 
 " phrases, which he found it difficult to translate? 
 " and 5. Whether, on the whole, he did sufficient 
 " justice to the nervous simplicity and genuine 
 " beauties of the Celtic Bard? — All these circum- 
 u stances will appear, beyond question, by a fair 
 " comparison between Macpherson's and a new 
 " translation." 
 
 I have quoted this argumentative passage without 
 abridgment, iu order to shew the opinion of these 
 respectable critics — That the Galic copy now pre- 
 sented to the public, is ancient and authentic — that 
 it is the same which Macpherson had before him, 
 when he translated the poems into English — and 
 consequently, that every deviation of the English 
 version, from the present Galic text, is to be im- 
 puted to the infidelity or incapacity of the translator. 
 
 It is upon these grounds that Sir John Sinclair 
 proceeds against Mr. Macpherson, as if he had 
 
 o o 
 
295 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 been translating the works of Homer, Virgil, or 
 any other classical author, whose text was already 
 fixed, publickly known, and undisputed. He, ac- 
 cordingly, exhibits a new translation of the first 
 book of Fingal, by the Rev. Mr. Moss. This is 
 contrasted, line by line, with Macpherson's trans- 
 lation : and the contrast is followed up by twenty 
 close pages of learned notes, in which it is proved, 
 that the former translator added some lines, omitted 
 others, and made fanciful allusions to passages of 
 Scripture, to Pope's Homer, Thomson's Seasons, &c. 
 without authority from the venerable Ossian : also, 
 that he misconceived the meaning of numerous 
 passages, and always to the disadvantage of the 
 original. In all this I cannot help thinking, that 
 the worthy Baronet and his new translator have 
 dealt rather hardly with poor Macpherson, for 
 whom I must be allowed to retain some degree of 
 respect and gratitude. To him, more than to any 
 other individual, we are indebted for the Galic, as 
 well as for the English Ossian. We learn from 
 Macpherson's own notes, from Dr. Smith, and from 
 the general stream of evidence, that the reputed 
 works of this Bard were collected in a multitude of 
 disjointed fragments, discordant amongst them- 
 selves, and mixed with abundance of heterogeneous 
 matter. Great must have been the labour and 
 industry demanded of him, who undertook to ar- 
 range, connect, digest, and prune such originals a& 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 296 
 
 these.* It may be fairly supposed that Macpher- 
 son, at the time when he executed the task of 
 translating, has only brought his materials to a 
 proper bearing amongst themselves. He may not, 
 at that period, have taken a fair copy of them, or 
 given them their last polish. He may not have 
 intended to bestow any further labour upon them. 
 But when his adversaries, and his friends, both 
 which parties included all the literati of the British 
 Islands, began to call aloud for his originals, he 
 bethought himself of revising his Galic papers, and 
 giving them that finish which might, in time, render 
 them fit to meet the public eye. This was a tedious 
 and embarrassing task. Its accomplishment was 
 promised, and the promise was often repeated : 
 but still, something remained to be done. At last, 
 after a delay of six and forty years, and after the 
 death of the collector, part of the originals make 
 their appearance. And it must be acknowledged 
 that, either Macpherson himself, or some of his 
 coadjutors, had a tolerable knowledge of the lan- 
 guage and the subject, ortherwise the respectable 
 copy now exhibited could never have assumed its 
 present form. If this reasoning be just, we need 
 not charge Macpherson with ignorance, or want 
 of taste, in order to account for the difference 
 
 * That the Galic text does not stand at present as it came into Mr. Mac- 
 pherson's hands, is evident upon the slightest inspection : for we here miss 
 all those passages which this writer avowedly retrenched in his translation, 
 as supposed interpolations of the modern Bards. 
 
297 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 between the English and the Galic text. The 
 latter may be, at present, superior to the old trans- 
 lation : but that superiority it owes to the translator's 
 industry and zeal. 
 
 Not to enter the lists of hypothetical argument 
 with the Caledonian critics, 1 shall bring the ancient, 
 authentic, and inimitable language of Ossian, to 
 the test of a few plain facts which happen to fall 
 within the compass of my own observation. 
 
 That much remained to be done in completing 
 the originals of this Bard, loug after the translation 
 had been published, is a fact that just shews itself, 
 jn the course of Sir John Sinclair's Dissertation. 
 We are there informed that the late Mr. John 
 Mackenzie was accustomed to keep a regular diary 
 of any important occurrence, and on the 22d of 
 July,* there is the following entry in that diary : — 
 " Went at one o'clock to Putney Common, to Mr. 
 " Macpherson ; he said he had been searching in 
 IC an old trunk up stairs, which he had with him in 
 " East Florida, for the original of Eerrathon. That 
 " he feared it was in an imperfect condition, and 
 " that part of it was wanting, as of Carthon : that 
 u he had only put together a few lines of it, and 
 u those not to his own liking : that he had 
 " tired of it, after a short sitting." 
 
 * The date of the year is not added ; but as it was after Mr. Macpherson's 
 return from East Florida, it must have been many years posterior to the 
 publication of the English Ossian. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 298 
 
 This perplexity of choice, this extraordinary 
 fatigue of the animal spirits, must, surely, have 
 implied something more than the mere labour of 
 transcribing two or three hundred short lines, and 
 making a few orthographical corrections. It is 
 evident from the language of this paragraph, that 
 something more is implied. Macpherson possessed 
 part of the original, in an imperfect state, whilst 
 another part was entirely wanting. He had, with 
 great labour and fatigue, been putting together a 
 few lines, and those not to his own liking — that is, 
 he had been recomposing those imperfect passages 
 which he possessed, or endeavouring to supply 
 those which he had not. He had proceeded slowly 
 and laboriously in this arduous task, and having at 
 length, put together a few lines, he read them over 
 with anxious care, and still found them unworthy 
 ofOssian. Here then is an important fact: — the 
 original Galic of this Bard remained to be com- 
 posed or put together, several years after the 
 translation had circulated through Europe: and 
 Macpherson was forced to make toilsome and re- 
 peated efforts, before he could compose, or put 
 together a few lines of it, to his own liking. 
 
 I might here point out several strong circum- 
 stances to prove that the Galic text has certainly 
 been altered subsequent to Macpherson's transla- 
 tion, and that the editors of the present work 
 ought to have been fully aware of this fact. I shall 
 lay one of these circumstances before the reader. 
 
299 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 In the argument prefixed to Calthon and Colmal, 
 Macpherson tells us— " The story of the poem is 
 " handed down by tradition, thus: in the country 
 " of the Britons, between the walls, two chiefs lived 
 " in the days of Fingal, Dunthalmo Lord of Teutha, 
 il supposed to he the Tweed; and Rathmor, who 
 " dwelt at Clutha, well known to be the river Clyde." 
 He adds in a note — u Alteutha, or rather Balteutha, 
 " the town of Tweed — It is observable that all the 
 " names in this poem are derived from the Galic 
 iC language ; which is a proof that it was once the 
 <c universal language of the whole Island." 
 
 The edition now published, under the sanction of 
 the Highland society, retains this note word for word, 
 and thus translates the passage, quoted from the 
 argument — " In terra. Britonum inter muros, tem- 
 " pore Fingalis, duo erant principes ; quorum alter, 
 u Dunthalmo — Teutha (sive Teudce ut creditur) 
 Cl dominus erat ; alter Rathmor — ad Clutham (cui 
 " nunc etiam nomen Cluda est) habitavit." 
 
 Hence it appears that Macpherson grounded his 
 topography of the dominions of these princes upon 
 the knowledge, that Clutha meant the Clyde, and 
 upon the probable conjecture, that Teutha was the 
 Tweed: also that the editors of this work subscribed 
 to his opinion — Teutha, supposed to be the Tweed — 
 Teutha, sive Tueda, ut creditur. They also represent 
 this poem, or traditional story, as of sufficient credit 
 to establish an important historical fact. This ap- 
 pears from the note which Macpherson published, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 300 
 
 and our editors adopted. They ought, therefore, to 
 have regarded the Galic text as authentic and un- 
 corrupted. But when we look into the Galic origi- 
 nal now published, we find nothing of Macpherson's 
 Clutha : the name is Cluai, throughout the poem. 
 Macpherson's Teutha and Alteiiiha indeed occur. 
 But in addition to these, the river Tweed, is discri- 
 minated by its plain modern name, Tuaide or Tuaid 9 
 for it is written both ways: and this is repeated no 
 less than seventeen times. This remarkable cir- 
 cumstance must have been utterly unknown to 
 Macpherson, at the time when he first translated the 
 tale, and even, eleven years afterwards, when he 
 revised his translation and notes. Macpherson was 
 disposed to identify Teutha in the Tweed. Had the 
 name Tuaid, therefore, occurred even once, in any 
 copy known to the translator, he could not have 
 been under the necessity of grounding his topogra- 
 phy, upon the bare supposition that Teutha meant 
 the Tweed. Consequently the present original of 
 thai- ancient poem, which is of sufficient authority to 
 ascertain the universal language of the whole Island, 
 has undoubtedly been composed, or put together, 
 since the year 1773. 
 
 Surely these gentlemen who could confront such 
 an original with Mr. Macpherson's argument, and 
 notes, without a single word of apology, must trifle 
 strangely, not only with the public, but with their 
 own literary reputation. 
 
301 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 The Bard of Selma has been extremely cautious 
 of exposing his person in an undress. Notwith- 
 standing this excess of delicacy, we shall be able to 
 catch a glimpse or two of him unawares, and contem- 
 plate the figure he makes, unadorned with the new 
 robe, provided by his Caledonian friends. 
 
 In the year 1778, five years after the translation 
 of Ossian had been finally revised, Dr. Shaw pub- 
 lished his Analysis of the Galic language. In the 
 157th page of this work, the Doctor, who was at that 
 time a zealous partizan of Ossian, gives fifty-seven 
 lines of the original, from the beginning of Croma, 
 together with a literal translation which, in every 
 material point, agrees with Macpherson's. This 
 original must, therefore, have corresponded, in the 
 main, with that which Macpherson had used. When 
 the Galic Ossian came out, 1 was eager to compare 
 these lines published by Dr. Shaw, with the same 
 passage, in the original of Croma. Dr. Smith's 
 Dissertation and notes had already given me some 
 suspicions ; but I must acknowledge I was not a 
 little surprised at the result of this experiment. 
 It was not in favour of the antiquity, authenticity, 
 and inimitahility of Ossian's language. I shall 
 take the liberty to confront these originals, in op- 
 posite pages, in the appendix.* For this I need 
 net apologize to the judicious reader, who must be 
 convinced, that one solid fact, such as is involved 
 
 * No. ii. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 302 
 
 in this compendious view, is worth a whole volume 
 
 of circumstantial reasoning. He has here, before 
 
 his eyes, two copies of one identical passage, in those 
 
 poems which are ascribed to Ossian, and each of 
 
 those copies from respectable authority. However 
 
 uncouth the lines may appear to him, my insertion 
 
 of them cannot help gratifying his curiosity, and 
 
 more than this, flattering his pride, by making him 
 
 a competent judge of the decisive historical fact 
 
 which they disclose, and the clear light which they 
 
 reflect upon a literary question, which, for the last 
 
 five and forty years, has engaged the attention, and 
 
 divided the opinion of the learned world. Will he 
 
 not, after a deliberate comparison of these originals, 
 
 resolve with me, that two persons, one residing in 
 
 London, and the other at York, might take up an 
 
 Eclogue of Virgil, at the same instant, and render 
 
 them into English verse, with less diversity of phrase, 
 
 than what we remark between the Ossian of 1778, 
 
 and the Ossian of 1807 ? I think he must: for the 
 
 difference, in this case, is not like that which critics 
 
 remark, in comparing different copies of an ancient 
 
 author. Instead of two, three, or, at most, half a 
 
 dozen various readings, we have here, in the space 
 
 of fifty-seven, or fifty-eight, short lines, more than 
 
 two hundred, without reckoning the variations of 
 
 orthography. There is but one line which the two 
 
 copies express in the same words: and the lines, in 
 
 general, are so very different, in their phrase and 
 
 structure, that the copies must be ranked as distinct 
 
 p p 
 
303 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 versifications of one and the same passage, in a 
 popular story. If one of these copies be ancient 
 and genuine, the other must be modern and spurious : 
 for it were folly to suppose, that they could have 
 both descended together, from the remote age, to 
 which they equally pretend. And if one be spurious, 
 where are the distinguished credentials of the other ? 
 Critics of Caledonia ! Here are two Ossians ! which 
 of them is the modern impostor ; and which is the 
 ancient, authentic, and inimitable Bard of Selma ? 
 It will be said that oral reciters may commit great 
 mistakes — they may transpose paragraphs of the 
 same poem, or erroneously introduce incidents from 
 other poems. For such corruptions due allowance 
 would be made. But the fact which we now con- 
 template is of a nature totally different from this. 
 Here are not the marks of corruption but of re- 
 composition : for the same thoughts, in both copies, 
 follow one another in the very same order, only they 
 are expressed throughout in different language. 
 Here must, therefore, be manifest and wilful forgery, 
 on one side, or on both ; as it is impossible to con- 
 ceive that Ossian's first rude sketches, and his finished 
 pieces survived alike, in the mouths of the people, 
 through fifty successive generations. 
 
 The collation of these originals reminds me of a 
 passage in Dr. Smith's letter to Henry Mackenzie, 
 Esq. dated 21st. June, 1802, and cited by Dr. 
 M'Arthur, Galic Ossian, v. iii. p. 339. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 304 
 
 " That, at least, the stamina, the bones, sinews, 
 u and strength, of a great part of the poems ascri- 
 " bed to him (Ossian) are ancient, may, 1 think, be 
 " maintained on many good grounds. But that 
 " some things modem may have been superinduced, 
 Si will, if not allowed, be at least, believed, on grounds 
 " of much probability ; and to separate the one from 
 " the other is more than the translator himself, were 
 " he alive, could now do, if he had not begun to do 
 " so from the beginning." We have ocular demon- 
 stration, that the language and verse of these poems 
 do not come under the description of stamina, 
 bones, &c. What then remains to the Bard ? Only 
 the general subject matter — the mere tales. But if 
 the unanimous opinion of Galic scholars, relative to 
 these tales, is to be received, these bones of Ossian 
 are scarcely more ancient than his tenderest muscles, 
 or even the paring of his nails. 
 
 The writer of the letter cited above, was more in 
 the secret of Ossian, than any other individual, 
 excepting Macpherson himself, to whom we now 
 revert. If this gentleman had not furnished the 
 copy for the Analysis, he must, at least, have been 
 well acquainted with it: for that work appeared 
 more than twenty years before his death. Some 
 time before his death he must also have possessed 
 the copy published in 1807: for he transcribed it 
 into the poem of Croma, which he was preparing 
 for the press. So that, having his choice of these 
 two originals, he manifestly preferred the latter. 
 
305 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 But in his translation of 1762, and in his revisal of 
 that translation in 1773, he followed the copy which 
 was afterwards published by Dr. Shaw, or a copy 
 to that effect. He could not, therefore, at either of 
 these periods, have had the preferable copy of 1807 
 in his possession. Where was it then? It is not 
 pretended that Macpherson collected any Galic 
 originals, after the year 1762; and had the genuine 
 copy fallen accidentally into his hands, between 
 that time and 1773, he would surely have taken 
 some notice of it in his revised edition of that year. 
 This he has not done. He had not therefore ob- 
 tained these inimitable lines of Ossian, from Scottish 
 tradition, either by industry, or by accident. 
 
 The conclusion from all this is plain and obvious ; 
 namely, that, many years after the appearance of 
 the English Ossian, either Macpherson himself, or 
 some person acting in concert with him, was at the 
 pains to recompose the poetical effusions of the 
 Highlanders, and give them a national dress, which 
 should be deemed worthy of their immortal Bard. 
 Hence, beyond all doubt, arose that labour and 
 fatigue of spirits, to which the translator alludes, 
 when speaking of the original of Berrathon : — " He 
 " had only put together a few lines of it, and those 
 " not to his own liking ; he had tired of it after a 
 " short sitting" I am heartily sorry his animal 
 vigour was not more equal to the task : for, in con- 
 sequence of its failure, this fine ancient poem still 
 wants an original. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 306 
 
 From the nature of the improvements which 
 Macpherson made in the copy of Croma, it may be 
 further collected, that, when he seriously turned 
 his thoughts to the production of an original Ossian, 
 he disregarded the credit of having been accurate 
 and precise, in his own translation. This " he 
 resigned for ever to its fate." To his new and 
 arduous enterprize, he bent the whole force of his 
 matured genius, and, like a staunch patriot, resolved 
 that no private consideration should interfere with 
 the honour of the Caledonian Bard. 
 
 Lest I should be thought to have laid too great 
 stress upon this single proof, however decisive it 
 may appear, I shall endeavour to provide it with 
 one or two collateral supporters. In the mean 
 time, I request the reader to compare Macpherson's 
 English of the old copy — at least, thirty years old — 
 with the Latin version of the new, which I have sub- 
 joined in the appendix, to their respective originals, 
 in order to evince the fact, that the recomposition 
 of the Galic lines is sufficient to account for most 
 of the defects imputed to the first translator. The 
 particular phrases in which the Latin version varies 
 from the other are warranted by the Galic copy 
 of 1807, which affords abundant proof, that this 
 was not the copy from which the English transla- 
 tion was made. 
 
 Let us now prove the integrity of the original 
 Ossian, by the evidence of a gentleman who, next 
 
307 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 to Macpherson himself, was best qualified to deliver 
 an opinion upon this subject. 
 
 Dr. Smith's Galic Antiquities were published in 
 the year 1780. In p. 300 of that work, the author 
 points out a passage in the poem of Cuthon, — 
 c< Alluding to the death of Oscar, and the grief of 
 C6 Bran (his dog) on that occasion ; a scene, continues 
 " the Doctor, so affecting, that few passages of 
 " Ossian are oftener repeated than that which de- 
 " scribes it in these beautifully lender lines, which 
 " I may be pardoned for giving in the original, as 
 " the translation is already so well known." 
 Here follow two Galic passages of eight lines each, 
 from " Temora, b. 1." And again, p. 316, of the 
 same volume, our author thus refers to the above 
 quotation : — " In the passage cited in the note, 
 " p. 300, concerning the death of Oscar, there are, in 
 " almost all the editions I have met with of that piece, 
 " two lines (there marked in Italics) which intimate 
 " that their women were then present." Hence it 
 appears that these very passages were amongst the 
 best known in the poems ascribed to Ossian — that 
 they were supposed to have been the identical 
 originals, from which Macpherson's translation of 
 this part of Temora was produced ; and that Dr^ 
 Smith, regarding them as genuine and authentic, 
 quotes their authority for an ancient historical fact. 
 Would it be imagined, after this, that not one of 
 these sixteen celebrated and well-known lines is to 
 be found in that copy of the original of Temora, 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 308 
 
 which was prepared for the press, by Macpherson 
 himself? Such, however, is the case. Some of the 
 same thoughts, indeed, are selected, and cast into 
 verse ; but the language and phraseology are totally 
 different. The first passage runs thus, in Ossian 
 of 1780:— 
 
 Chruinnich iad uime na sluaigh, 
 ? S gachaon neach ri buirich thouagh, 
 Cha chaoineadh athair a mhac fein, 
 ? S cha ghuileadh a bhrathair e. 
 Cha chaoineadh piuthar a brathair, 
 'S cha chaoineadh mathair a mac; 
 Ach iad uile anns a phlosgail, 
 A geur-chaoine' mo chaomh Oscair. 
 
 Compare with these lines the correspondent pas- 
 sage in OssiAN r of 1807 : — 
 
 Cha robh bron air athair m'a mhac, 
 Thuit an comhstri an tlachd oige, 
 Ghluais iadsa gun deoir fo sgaile, 
 'Nuair shinnte air lar ceann ant-sluaigh. 
 
 Macpherson *s translation : — 
 
 And they did weep, O Fingal ! Dear was the hero to their souls. He 
 went out to the battle, and the foes vanished. He returned in peace amidst 
 their joy. No father mourned his son slain in youth : no brother his brother 
 of love. They fell without tears, for the chief of the people is low. 
 
 Latin translation of 1807; — 
 
 Hand fuit dolor patri circa suum filium, 
 
 Qui ceciderat in conflictu, in decore suae juventutis. 
 
 Abierunt illi sine lacrymis sub umbram, 
 
 Cum extenderetur super humum caput populi. 
 
 Macpherson's literal translation does not appear 
 to come very close to either of these originals. He 
 might have had a copy before him, materially dif- 
 ferent from both of them; as it is not improbable 
 that every reciting Bard furnished his own version 
 
309 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 of select passages, of the traditional tales. How- 
 ever that may have been, the original of 1807, 
 widely differs from those celebrated strains of the 
 Caledonian muse — those beautifully tender lines, 
 which were oftenest repeated, .and consequently, 
 best known, and recognized by Dr. Smith and his 
 countrymen, as the genuine work of Ossian. Let 
 us consider the second passage. 
 Ossian of 1780:— 
 
 Donnalaich nan con rem thaobh, 
 Agus buirich nan sean laoch, 
 Gul a phannail so co snitheach, 
 Sud is mo a chraidh mo chroidhe. 
 Cha d'f hidir duine roimhe riabh 
 Gur croidhe feola bh' ann chliabh ; 
 Ach croidhe do chuibhne cuir, 
 Air a cho'dacha le stailin. 
 
 Ossian of 1807 :— 
 
 Osna nan triath arda fo h-aois, 
 
 Caoine nan con, is am fonn 
 
 A briseadh trom o bheul nam bard ; 
 
 Leagh sud m'anam fein fo bhron 
 
 M'anam nach do leaghadh riamh 
 
 An comhstri nan sgiath no 'n comhrag ; 
 
 Bha e cos'lach ri cruaidh mo lainn. 
 
 Macpher son's translation : — 
 
 The groans of aged chiefs : the howling of my dogs : the sudden bursts of 
 the song of grief, have melted Oscar's soul. My soul, that never melted 
 before. It \\ like the steel of my sword. 
 
 Latin translation of 1807 : — 
 
 Suspiria procerum excelsorum sub senectute, 
 Ejulatus canum, et neniae 
 Erumpentes graves ab ore bardorum ; 
 Solverunt ilia ineum animum ipsius sub dolore, 
 Meum animum qui haud solutus est unquam 
 In conflictu clypeorum, nee in certamine ; 
 Erat ille siniilis durae (chalybi) mei gladii. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 310 
 
 Whatever may be said as to Macpherson's fidelity, 
 in translating either of these copies, one fact must 
 be clear to the slightest inspection of the reader ; 
 namely, that the verses which, in 1780, were accre- 
 dited by Dr. Smith, as the genuine productions of 
 Ossian, and the copy of the same identical passage, 
 published in 1807, under the sanction of the High- 
 land society, are not the same. They differ entirely 
 from each other, in their structure and phraseology. 
 How can we reason justly upon this fact, and at the 
 same time, preserve due respect to those Galic 
 scholars, who maintain the genuineness of Ossian's 
 poems ? Had I asserted in 1804, when 1 drew up 
 the former part of this Essay, that the verses pro- 
 duced by Dr. Smith are modem and spurious, I 
 should, undoubtedly, have incurred the general 
 imputation of ignorance, prejudice, and the grossest 
 illiberality, in questioning the veracity of a whole 
 nation. Were T, at this moment, to deny the au- 
 thenticity of the new copy, I should expose myself 
 to the like censure. And yet, surely, 1 have a 
 right to believe my own eyes, and to declare the 
 conviction of my understanding, that these copies 
 cannot possibly be deemed one and the same com- 
 position ; consequently, one or both of uiem must 
 be spurious. Why, then, should the dread of a few 
 hard epithets, which have already been liberally 
 bestowed upon my betters, restrain me from avowing 
 my honest opinion, that, at the time when Macpher- 
 son was preparing his Galic text, he did not believe 
 
 Q Q 
 
311 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the language and the verse of Ossian to be either 
 ancient or inimitable : that, therefore, whenever he 
 found it convenient, he utterly disregarded the 
 language and idiom, even of those fragments which 
 were best known, and most generally recited in the 
 country, and made the Bard of Selma utter the words 
 which he chose to put into his mouth. Conse- 
 quently, he must have judged rightly, in keeping 
 back his originals, till the oral reciters had gone out 
 of his way. If this opinion be not admitted, as a 
 solution of the whole mystery, I know of but one 
 other, which can pertinently be brought forward ; 
 namely, what I have suggested already — that the 
 utterly discordant copies, of the same passage, are 
 to be regarded as versifications of the same incident, 
 in a popular tale, made by several Bards, uncon- 
 nected with each other. 1 am disposed to admit both 
 these schemes, in their proper places : for the pre- 
 sent Galic copy, has, evidently, much matter, which 
 Macpherson had not before him, at the time when 
 he translated ; therefore he has partly composed his 
 originals since that time : and we learn from Dr. 
 Smith, and from other abundant evidence, that, 
 independent of Macpherson, there was great discre- 
 pancy, as to language and verse, in the several oral 
 recitals of the same paragraphs ; therefore several 
 Bards must have exercised their talents in versifying 
 the same incidents of the traditional tales. But how 
 will the authenticity of Ossian stand affected by this 
 view of the subject ? The tales are allowed to be 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 312 
 
 the pure invention of the Bards within the last four 
 or five hundred years. They are therefore modern, 
 and unfounded in historical fact. But the poems 
 are founded upon the tales. Does it therefore follow 
 that they must be ancient and authentic? Again: 
 it appears evident that the poems have been pro- 
 duced by several unconnected composers; and are 
 we hence to conclude that they are all the work 
 of one and the same man, and that this man was 
 Ossian! I cannot make it out. The facts upon 
 which I reason are before the reader — let him make 
 the best he can of them. 
 
 I beg leave to refer to my appendix* for an ad- 
 ditional proof of modern composition, in which we 
 may dispense with the interposition of Dr. Shaw, 
 Dr. Smith, or any third person whatsoever. Mac- 
 pherson stands opposed to himself, and gives us a 
 fair criterion of h\$ fidelity, in preserving the genuine 
 text of Ossian. In his translation of the third book 
 of Fingal, he had introduced the hero of that name, 
 giving his grandson Oscar some military precepts, 
 which he exemplifies and enforces, by the episode 
 of Fainavolis. In preparing the text of the Galic 
 Ossian, he preserved the substance of these pre- 
 cepts, but judging the episode to be out of place, 
 he wholly rejected it. Here we perceive that he 
 was, at this time, more anxious to render the 
 original Ossian perfect, than to preserve the credit 
 
 * No. Hi. 
 
313 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 of his own translation. A copy of the episode, 
 however, with the speech prefixed to it, was suf- 
 fered to remain amongst his papers, and the editors 
 of the Galic Ossian published it, in their third 
 volume. We have thus two copies of the same 
 identical passage, in the principal poem, ascribed 
 to the Caledonian Homer. And it appears, upon 
 examination, that the one is diffused through thirty- 
 eight lines, expressed in the trivial style of an old 
 ballad ; whilst the other is compressed into twenty 
 lines, displaying all the dignity of the epic muse. 
 If it be said that the latter consists of the most 
 beautiful thoughts, selected out of the former ; still 
 I must insist upon it, that the selection has been 
 made by some modern, who not only abridged, 
 but also composed, in the name of Ossian : for I 
 remark a difference in the language and structure 
 of every one of the lines. The mass of matter is 
 indeed the same ; but it has undergone a repeated 
 fusion, and been hammered out into a different 
 form. This is not the work of the file, but of the 
 forge. I am at a loss to conjecture how such 
 examples as these are to be reconciled to the asser- 
 tion of those Galic scholars, who contend, that 
 the language of these poems is of great antiquity, 
 and could not be imitated in modem times. 
 
 To these assertions I have opposed plain facts. 
 I have compared various copies of four distinct 
 passages in these poems, amounting altogether, to 
 about a hundred lines in each copy : and in that 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 314 
 
 whole number, 1 find but one line expressed in the 
 same words by any two copies, which chance has 
 thrown in my way. A discrepancy like this could 
 not have descended from the genuine labours of 
 one ancient author, through the oral tradition of 
 fifteen centuries. It follows, that certain copies, 
 of all these passages, must be modern fabrications. 
 And if modern genius was competent to perform 
 so much, for the venerable Ossian, why are we to 
 suppose that it has not performed the whole ? For 
 my own part, I must freely confess that, instead of 
 finding in these originals a convincing argument, 
 that the genuine works of Ossian have come down 
 through so many ages, by oral tradition ; I dis- 
 cover undeniable proofs that Ossian, even when 
 committed to writing in the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, and entrusted to the hands of Mr. Mac- 
 pherson, the best friend he ever had in the world, 
 has not been able to preserve his own identity, for 
 the short period of forty years — within that space, 
 we perceive the chrysalis converted into a butterfly. 
 But how this conversion was effected ; whether Mr. 
 Macpherson fabricated one of these copies from 
 the other, or produced them both, in succession, 
 from a traditional tale of the Highland peasants, 
 must now remain a secret, as we receive the whole 
 through the medium of his handwriting. I only 
 contend that there is fabrication in the case, and 
 that the date of it cannot be remote. 
 
315 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 The facts which I have stated in these sections;, 
 and a multitude of similar facts, which/ at present, 
 I have not leisure to investigate, must, surely, have 
 been known to those learned and ingenious writers, 
 who have undertaken the defence of Ossian. But 
 unfortunately, these gentlemen have not hitherto 
 permitted themselves to doubt: they have not 
 therefore weighed the evidence on both sides, or 
 qualified themselves for the province of impartial 
 critics. Had Ossian preferred his claims in a court 
 of justice, his advocates, in the long robe, might 
 do right, in studiously bringing forward, amplifying, 
 and enforcing every shadow of evidence in his 
 favour, dissembling and keeping in the dark every 
 thing that would make against him, and pleading, 
 not for the truth, but for the cause. But very dif- 
 ferent from this is the candour of scholars, before 
 the bar of the public. It should be their first 
 care, to guard themselves against the illusions of 
 prepossession. Of the strong influence of this 
 affection, I shall select one remarkable instance. 
 
 In the third volume of this edition of Ossian, 
 published under the sanction of the Highland 
 Society, a distinguished Galic scholar has under- 
 taken to ascertain the topography of Fingal's 
 Palace at Selma, or Taura, and with this view 
 quotes the following paragraph, from The Fall of 
 Taura, published by Dr. Smith, as a poem of the 
 celebrated Caledonian Bard : — 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 316 
 
 Thaineas o Arda le buaidh, 
 Gu h uallach air steuda nan coigreach, 
 *S ar gean mar ghathaibh na greine 
 'S i luidhe siar air sleibhte Thaura. 
 Chiteadh am fe na fairge 
 Coillte le 'n carraigibh eighinn, 
 'S clann ag amharc le ioghnadh 
 Air smuidean Thaura f huidhe. 
 Mar bhogh na fraois air sleibhte, 
 Bha oighean aoibhin nar coail 
 A' seinn caithream nan ceud clar, 
 Le manran binn an orain. 
 
 Which lines are thus translated: — 
 
 " We came from Arda with victory, 
 
 " Lofty on the steeds of the strangers, 
 
 " And our joy was like the beams of the sun, 
 
 " On the hills of Taura, when setting in the west. 
 
 " There were seen in the calm face of the sea 
 
 u Woods with their ivy-covered rocks, 
 
 *' And children looking with wonder 
 
 " At the smoke of Taura below. 
 
 " Like the rainbow on the hills, 
 
 " Our joyful virgins came forth to meet us, 
 
 " Singing triumph with a hundred harps, 
 
 " Accompanied by the sweet voice of the song." 
 
 As Dr. Smith had candidly acknowledged that 
 several paragraphs in the poems which he published, 
 as Ossian's, were composed by himself from the 
 recent tales, it is scarcely to be conceived that this 
 gentleman should have quoted, and translated the 
 passage before us, as an historical document, without 
 having, first of all, just looked at the translation 
 given by the original editor, in his Galic Antiquities, 
 p. 315. And if this natural precaution was taken, 
 it is scarcely possible but that the eye must have 
 glanced upon the note, at the bottom of the page, 
 
317 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 to which we are directed by an asterisk. Here we 
 are told in plain terms, that et The most of this 
 " paragraph, with some others that follow, par- 
 " ticularly before and after the song of the old 
 <( Bard, have been supplied from the tales, as the 
 " versification is broken and defective," 
 
 Here, then, in the avowed composition of Dr. 
 Smith, who wrote in the year 1780, we have 
 Ossianic verse, and Ossianic language, extracted 
 from the TJr-sgeuls, which the Doctor himself re- 
 gards as u later tales," and ascribes to the pure 
 invention of modern times. And this whole para- 
 graph, not merely suspicious, but avowedly spurious, 
 is adduced as the genuine work of Ossian, by a 
 distinguished Galic scholar, and published under 
 the sanction of the Highland Society, as an au- 
 thentic document of ancient history, because the 
 prepossession of these gentlemen will not allow 
 them to doubt the credit of any thing which appears 
 in their language, worthy of Ossian, and marked 
 by his name. Let this instance remind them, that 
 when they pronounce the language of Ossian to be 
 of great antiquity, and such as could not be imi- 
 tated in modern times, they may be mistaken. 
 
 To the above passage, which introduces the 
 virgins with their hundred harps and song of 
 victory, Dr. Smith immediately annexes the song 
 itself, which they chaunted upon the occasion. It 
 is therefore highly probable, that this also is in- 
 cluded in the paragraphs which he composed out 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 318 
 
 of the later tales : at least, the sweeping clause in 
 his note — some others that follow — gives it a most 
 suspicious character. Our author, however, intro- 
 duces thirty-two lines of this song, with the following 
 preface: — " That the Romans were the enemies 
 u whom the Fingalians completely defeated and 
 " dispersed at Arda, appears evident, from part 
 " of the same poem being the song of triumph, 
 " which the maids of Morven sung, when they 
 " came forth to congratulate their heroes on their 
 " return." 
 
 Thus a known composition of the latter part of the 
 eighteenth century — a composition from materials 
 confessedly modern and fabulous — is ostentatiously 
 brought forward, as a document of sufficient credit 
 and authority, singly, to establish an important fact 
 in ancient history. So little care have these gentle- 
 men taken to examine the grounds of the opinion 
 which they publish to the world ; or else, so studious 
 have they been to veil, even from their own reflec- 
 tion, every circumstance that might tend to invalidate 
 the claims of these poems, to remote antiquity and 
 historical credit. 
 
 Notwithstanding these operations of prepossession, 
 I have succeeded in producing a series of direct 
 proofs, that Macpherson, or his friends, did recom- 
 pose several, even of those fragments of verse which 
 the Highlanders recited, and did utterly transform, 
 or new model, their language and structure, before 
 they were transcribed for the press, as the original 
 
 R R 
 
319 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 works of Ossian. And the conductors of this 
 splendid edition have not enabled me to point out 
 a single passage, which has not undergone the same 
 operation. 
 
 Had the partizans of the Celtic Bard allowed 
 themselves to hesitate and reflect, they would have 
 found all the facts which I -adduce, open to their 
 own investigation. I cite only Galic authorities, 
 and the friends of the Galic cause. My evidence 
 results wholly from the cross examination of their 
 own witnesses, of whose integrity and discretion 
 they ought to have been well assured, before they 
 produced them, at the bar of the public, with such 
 undaunted confidence, such proud anticipation of 
 victory, such prospective triumph. 
 
 To the friends of Ossian it can be no secret that, 
 when Macpherson persisted in promising, yet, for 
 the space of forty years, persisted in withholding, 
 his Galic copy, he was strongly suspected of being 
 employed in composing his originals. It now ap- 
 pears that, either by his own exertions, or through 
 the medium of his friends, he did much in that 
 way ; and let me ask our editors what proof have 
 they given, that he did not do all? I would not be 
 understood to insinuate, that he invented the stories 
 of the several poems: these he found in the tradi- 
 tional tales which he has pretty fully characterized, 
 and in fragments of traditional verse, which, for the 
 most part, he deemed unworthy of Ossian, as ap- 
 pears from a detection of the care he took, to 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 320 
 
 exhibit great part of his originals, in new language 
 and new verse. 1 am restrained from the inference, 
 that this is the case with the whole of these originals, 
 not by the evidence nor the arguments of our editors, 
 but by the remarks 1 have made, that several pas- 
 sages exhibit greater attention, in the composer, 
 to the rules of Irish prosody, than Macpherson and 
 his friends seem to have paid. Here is a presump- 
 tive proof, that certain parts of these very originals 
 are as old as the seventeenth century ; but where 
 shall we look for another proof? The Galic text 
 of the poems here published amounts to nearly 
 ten thousand lines. It is given entirely from copies 
 in Macpherson's own handwriting, or copies which 
 he caused to be written. We are told much of old 
 manuscripts, and transcripts, taken at various times, 
 from oral recitations. Can the friends of Ossian, 
 as men of honour, produce twenty connected verses, 
 from any attested copy, not less that sixty years 
 old, that shall correspond, 1 do not say in ortho- 
 graphy, but, in language and phraseology with 
 any one passage in these ten thousand lines ? The 
 anxiety which they have manifested to defend the 
 credit of their Bard induces me to believe, that 
 they would have done this, had it been in their 
 power ; but they have not favoured us with a single 
 line. Till this be done, and, considering the pre- 
 sent complexion of the case, something more 
 than this, I apprehend the public will henceforth 
 acquiesce in the opinion, that not a paragraph in 
 
321 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 these poems can be relied upon, as the genuine 
 production of Ossian, as an authentic document 
 of history, as a real specimen of the Highland 
 language, such as it was three hundred years ago, 
 or, at any earlier period. 
 
 It is now time to bring this discussion to a con- 
 clusion. I hope that, in the course of my Essay, I 
 have not dropped a single expression personally 
 offensive to the writers whom I oppose, or nation- 
 ally injurious to the brave Caledonians. Should 
 the reader remark a sentence that can bear such a 
 construction, I hereby publickly apologize for the 
 inadvertency of which I may have been guilty, 
 solemnly declaring, that I entertain the most cordial 
 respect both for the individuals and the people. 
 As the adversary of Ossian, I am aware that I may 
 have incurred some displeasure. All who have 
 taken the side of the question on which I happen 
 to stand, from Johnson down to the writer of a 
 paragraph in a magazine, have been arraigned and 
 condemned of ignorance and prejudice, both of 
 them capital crimes at the critical bar of Scotland, 
 and crimes to which no mercy has hitherto been 
 extended. I submit to my fate : but before I am 
 led forth to literary execution, I beg leave to make 
 a short and candid confession. 
 
 About five and thirty years ago, I was, like 
 many other young men, forcibly struck with the 
 beauties and novelty of Macpherson's publication. 
 Whitaker's Manchester strengthened my predilec- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 322 
 
 tion in favour of the Galic Bard, and gave me a 
 high notion of the historical credit that was due to 
 him. When Dr. Smith's Galic Antiquities ap- 
 peared, I procured the book with eagerness, and 
 was transported with the promise of his Sean Dana, 
 or Originals, of the poems he had published in 
 English. Ossian was now my favourite companion. 
 I had versified several books of the Temora ; with 
 the help of Llwyd I began to translate Smith's 
 Galic specimens, and formed a resolution to learn 
 the language, that I might be ready to receive the 
 venerable Bard, when his name should be an- 
 nounced to the public. However ignorant I may 
 have been at this period, I trust the Ossianists will 
 readily acquit me of the charge of prejudice against 
 their favourite cause. 
 
 But a close examination of Dr. Smith's Disserta- 
 tions and Notes, began to set the subject in a new 
 point of light. These were compared with Mac- 
 pherson's Preface, Dissertations, Arguments, and 
 Notes, with an occasional glance at the poems 
 themselves ; and 1 seemed, gradually, to perceive, 
 that I had been too incautious an admirer of Ossian. 
 If it be prejudice to give up a favourite notion, 
 reluctantly, and inch by inch, as it was extorted 
 from me, by the strong hand of conviction — hence 
 arose my prejudice. 
 
 Ossian was now laid aside, till the year 1804, 
 when a design I had formed, of examining some 
 remains of our old Welsh Bards, reminded me of 
 
323 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 the renowned prince of Selma. I began to re- 
 consider my sentiments upon this subject, and the 
 observations I then made were thrown together 
 into a short Essay, which, from that time to the 
 present, has either been in the hands of a few 
 select friends, or reposed very innocently in my 
 desk. As the last means of conquering my igno- 
 rance and prejudice, 1 procured a copy of the Galic 
 originals, which were published in 1807 : the result 
 is now before the reader. 
 
 I trust even Ossian himself could not lay to my 
 charge, that I am an ungenerous foe. In forming 
 and declaring my opinion, I have not dwelt upon 
 the objections of his avowed adversaries. Taking 
 up the arguments of his friends, with a strong 
 original bias in their favour, I found, upon calm 
 examination, that many of them were highly absurd, 
 and all of them fallacious and inconclusive. I 
 also considered the internal evidence of the Galic 
 poems, and these discover evident marks of recent 
 composition. They exhibit the principles of a 
 prosody which cannot be deemed ancient; and, in 
 every instance where I have had an opportunity of 
 comparing the present text with other copies, it 
 appears that they have been so much altered, since 
 the middle of the eighteenth century, as scarcely 
 to have retained their identity for the last fifty 
 years. For these reasons, and others which have 
 been stated, I feel myself impressed with the con- 
 viction, that not a single page of the work before 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 324 
 
 us, has existed three hundred years, in its present 
 language and form. Certain rude tales, indeed, 
 relative to Fionn Mac Coul and his connections, 
 may have been known in the country, something 
 earlier. But Fionn himself has undergone great 
 changes. In the high day of romance, he was a 
 gigantic demon, that troubled all the air with his 
 frowns; and made the world schog when he danced. 
 In more recent times, he humanized his manners, 
 contracted his stature, lengthened his name, and 
 was transformed into a princely hero, one of the 
 most amiable and noble that has ever been de- 
 lineated by the epic muse. If I am wrong in this 
 opinion, I must transfer the blame, not to the 
 avowed adversaries of Ossian, but to Mr. Mac- 
 pherson, Dr. Biair, Dr. Smith, Sir John Sinclair, 
 and the Galic Bard himself. 
 
 Upon the whole, I think Macpherson was un- 
 fortunate, in making his first stand upon untenable 
 ground, the precarious defence of which has embar- 
 rassed both himself and his ingenious countrymen, 
 for nearly fifty years. He taught the public to 
 expect the genuine works of Ossian, a Caledonian 
 JBard of the third century . Hence arose the mis- 
 chief. It would have been well if, instead of this, 
 he had stated something to the following effect : — 
 That the order of Bards which remained in Scotland, 
 down to the eighteenth century, left behind them 
 many heroic tales, relative to Fionn and his con- 
 nections — that various parts of these tales had been 
 
325 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 versified, in the name of Ossian, the son of Fionn— 
 that, from the Bards, several of the people had 
 learned these tales and fragments of verse, which 
 they still repeated, as the works of Ossian — that 
 many of these fragments were composed in a 
 superior style, and in good taste ; and that, by a 
 due arrangement and connection, which the tales 
 themselves would suggest, the same fragments of 
 verse, carefully selected, and occasionally improved 
 in their language, might be modelled into poems, 
 which, even in the present day, would be entitled 
 to considerable respect. 
 
 This, I believe, is very near the truth ; and if it 
 had been simply told at first, it would have pre- 
 vented all the serious debates, which have occurred 
 upon the subject of Ossian's poems. To the proof 
 of this statement, the Galic scholars would have 
 been fully competent. They have proved it in 
 every point ; but, with all their efforts, their inge- 
 nuity, and their zeal, they have not been able to 
 make good their ground, a single step beyond this. 
 
 And what would the brave Caledonians lose by 
 the candid avowal, were it now to be made? It 
 might compel them to abate something of their 
 new pretensions to early refinement, and to the 
 possession of an ancient, uncorrupted language : 
 on the other hand, it would remove their temptation 
 to violate all history of their own country, and of 
 the Celtic nations in general. The merit of these 
 interesting compositions, would still be their own : 
 
THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 326 
 
 for the slender aid which their Bards have derived 
 from Ireland, coidd hardly be deemed a drawback 
 upon their fame. What critic detracts an atom 
 from the fame of Virgil, because Homer composed 
 in hexameter verse, and sung the tale of Troy, some 
 ages before the Roman Poet was born? Instead 
 of vaunting of one solitary poetic genius, whose 
 very existence is not recognized by history, the 
 proud Caledonian nation might justly boast of 
 many : instead of recording, that the harp had 
 sounded amongst their mountains in an age with 
 which we have very little to do at present, they 
 might declare to the world, that the muse still loves 
 to haunt their romantic glens, the banks of their 
 wizard streams, and the recesses of their echoing 
 rocks. Would the reputation of living genius do 
 less credit to their country, than the bare recol- 
 lection of a Bard, of whom^. according to their 
 computation, it could only be said, in the last 
 fifteen centuries — Ossian has been! 
 
 But, at whatsoever period, and by whomsoever 
 these poems were composed, I am by no means 
 disposed to detract from their intrinsic merit. 
 They do credit to Caledonia. The Galic originals 
 constitute a splendid monument of its language. 
 The Fingal and Temora, upon subjects so inter- 
 woven with the feelings of the people, set this 
 corner of the island far above poetic competition, 
 not only with any Celtic tribe, but, we may almost 
 say, with any nation in Europe. 
 
 s s 
 
327 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 What people, now existing, can boast of epic 
 poems, so interesting, so original, so replete with 
 generous sentiment, and, at the same time, so 
 nationally appropriate? The man who believes 
 himself descended from Fingal, from either of his 
 heroes, or even from the nation which produced 
 such characters, must be a degenerate wretch 
 indeed, if he can do otherwise than think nobly, 
 and act honourably. 
 
AB>IPIBSTIBaS< 
 
 >I©1@H 
 
 No. I. 
 
 Some passages of an old Irish poem (published in the Transactions 
 of the Royal Irish Academy for the year 1788), converted into 
 Welsh, by a mere change of the orthography. 
 
 Welsh :— 
 
 Suile sior shluaghach 
 Dealbha dea ghmomhach 
 Feardha fior bhuadhach 
 Maiseac mor f huighleach 
 Goll borb beimionnach 
 Curadh cruadh reannach 
 Dogbhuibh eireannach 
 Colg loin luath bhuilleach 
 Flaith na bf hoghl creach 
 Cliath na Cconnasach 
 En f hear iomarcach 
 Tren f hear trom f holtach 
 Sgiath na sgeimhioltach. 
 
11. APPENDIX. 
 
 The same, in Welsh orthography ;— 
 
 Gwylydd hir-luawg 
 Delwydd da gniviawg 
 Gwrdde gwir-vuddiawg 
 Moesawg mawr chwedlawg 
 Coll bur bu-mynawg 
 Gwr-aidd gwrdd rannawg. 
 Dyg-vudd Werddonawg 
 Col loin lwth-bwyllawg. 
 Lliiydd llith-breiddiawg 
 Clwyd y Connasawg 
 Yn wr hyvarchawg 
 Trinwr trwmwalltawg 
 Ysgwydd ysgyvliawg. 
 
 The following extract, from the beginning of the poem, contains 
 the longest interruption in the rhyme; but as this also is in old 
 Irish, it becomes Welsh, by a mere change of the orthography :— 
 
 Goll mear mileata 
 Ceap na crodhachta 
 Laimh f hial arrachta 
 Mian na mordhasa 
 Mm* leim lanteiune 
 Fraoch nach bhfuarthear 
 Laoch go Ian ndealbhnaigh 
 Reim an richuraibh 
 Leomhan luatharmach 
 A leonadh biodhbhaidh 
 Ton ag tream tuarguin 
 Goll na ngnath iorguil 
 Nar thraoch a threin tachar 
 Agh gan fuarachuaigh 
 Mhal aig meadachuaigh 
 Laoch ghacha lamhach 
 Leomhan lonn ghniomhach 
 Beodha binn dhuanach 
 Creasach comhdhalach 
 Euchteach iolbhuadhach. 
 
APPENDIX. 111. 
 
 The same, in Welsh orthography :-— 
 
 Coll, mur mileddau 
 Cyf y creuddogau 
 Llaw hael arachau 
 Myn y mordasau 
 Mur-llam llawntandde 
 Grugiawg vuarthawr 
 Lluch llawn dyvinaidd 
 Rhwyv y rhiwraidd 
 Llew-vin llwth arvawg 
 A ellynoedd buddvaidd 
 Ton a thrln terwyn 
 Coll, y gnawd orchwyl 
 Nid trech yn trin tachar 
 Ag anhwyredig 
 Maelawg mwyedig 
 Lluch a gwychlawiawg 
 Llew-vin llawngniviawg 
 Byvviawg, bendannawg 
 Cresawg, cyvdalavrg 
 Eigiawg hollvuddiawg. 
 
IT. APPENDIX. 
 
 No. IL 
 
 Two copies of Malvzna's Dream, in the beginning of Croma y 
 compared line by line. 
 Ossian of 1778, published in Shaw's Analysis, p. 157 : — 
 
 ? S e guth anaim mo ruin a tha 'nn, 
 O ! 's ainmach gu aislin Mhalmin* thu, 
 Fosgluibh-se talla nan speur, 
 Aithra Oscair nan cruaidh-bheum ; (1. Thoscair} 
 Fosgluibh-se doirsa nan nial, 
 Tha ceumma Mhalmhine go dian. 
 Chualani guth a' m* aislin fein, 
 Tha sathrum nio chleibh go ard. 
 C'uime thanic an ossag a* m' dheigh 
 O dhubh-shiubhal na linne od thall ? 
 Bha do sgiath f huimmach ann gallan an aonaich, 
 Shiubhall aislin Mhalmhine go dian, 
 Ach chunic is a run ag aomadh 
 'S a cheo-earradh ag aomadh m' a chliabh ; 
 Bha dearsa na greine air thaobh ris, 
 Co boisgal ri or nan diamh. 
 *S e guth anaim mo ruin a tha 'nn, 
 O ! 's ainmach gu m' aislin fein thu. 
 'S comhnuidh dhuit anam Mhalmhine, 
 Mhic Ossain is treine lamh. 
 Dh' eirich m' osna marri dearsa o near, 
 • Thaom mo dheoir measg shioladh na hoiche. 
 Bu ghallan Aluin a' tfhianuis mi Oscair, 
 Le m' uile gheuga uaine ma m' thimchiol ? 
 Ach thanic do bhas-sa mar ossaig 
 O 'n f hasach, us dhaom mi sios. 
 Thanic earrach le sioladh nan speur, 
 Cho d' eirich duill' uaine dhamh fein ; 
 Chunic oigha me samhach 's an talla, 
 Agus bhuail iad clairsach nan fonn. 
 Bha deoir ag taomadh le gruaidhan Mhalmhine ; 
 Chunic oigh 's mo thuiradh gu trom. 
 C uime am bheil thu co tuirsach a' m' f hanuis 
 Chaomh Ainnir-og Luath-ath nan sruth. 
 An ro e sgiamhach mar dhearsa na greine ? 
 Am bu cho tlachdor a shiubhal 's a chruth ? 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Ossian of 1807, published by the Highland Society, v. i. p. 211, 
 From Macpherson's papers : — 
 
 'S e guth ciuin mo ruin a f* ann ! 
 
 Neo-mhinic gann gu m' aisling fein thu, 
 
 Fosglaibh sibhs' bhur talla thall, 
 
 Shinns're Thoscair nan aid speur ; 
 
 Fosglaibh sibhse dorsa nan neul, 
 
 Tha Malmhina gu dian fo dheur. 
 
 Chualam guth measg m' aisling fein ; 
 
 Tha forum mo chleibhe gu h-ard. 
 
 C uim' a thainig an osag' na dheigh, 
 
 O dhubh-shiubhal na linne thall ? 
 
 Do sgiath f huaimear an gallana 'n aoinaich 
 
 Threig aisling Malmhina air sliabh. 
 
 Chunnaic is' a run ag aomadh 
 
 Ceo-earradh a' taomadh mu 'n triath. 
 
 Dearrsa na greine mar thaobh ris 
 
 'S e boilsgeadh mar or nan daimh. 
 
 'S e guth ciuin mo ruin a t' ann ; 
 
 Neo-mhinic gann do m' aisling fein thu. 
 
 '8 e do chomhnuidhse m' anam f hein, 
 
 A siol Oisein, a 's treine lamb. ; 
 
 Eiridh m' osna am maduinn gan f heum, 
 
 Mo dheoir mar shileadh speura ard 
 
 A tuiteam mall o ghruaidh na h-oiche. 
 
 Bu chrann aillidh mi, threin nan seod, 
 
 Oscair chorr, le geugaibh cubhaidh, 
 
 'Nuair thainig bas, mar ghaoth nan torr ; 
 
 Fo sgeith thuit mo cheann fo smur. 
 
 Thainig earrach caoin fo bhraon ; 
 
 Cha d' eirich duilleag fhaoin dhomh fein. 
 
 Chunnaic oigh mi 7 's mi fo shamh chair thall ; 
 
 Bhuail clarsaiche mall nan teud. 
 
 Chunnaic oigh mi, 's mi cumhadh fo ghradh, 
 
 C* uime cho truagh tha lamh-gheul nam beus? 
 
 Cheud ainnir o Lotha nan sian, 
 
 An robh Oscar gu trian do luaidh 
 
 Anns a mhacluinn mar dhearrsa o ghrein, 
 
VI. APPENDIX. 
 
 Ossian of 1778 :— 
 
 *S taitnach tfhonn an cluais Ossain, 
 
 Nighain Luath-ath nan sruth dian. 
 
 Thainic guth nam bard nach beo, 
 
 Am measg t aislin air aomadh nan sliabh, 
 
 Nuair thuit codal air do shuilan soirbh, 
 
 Aig cuan mor-sliruth nan ioma fuaim, 
 
 Nuair phil thu flathal o'nt seilg, 
 
 'S grian la thu ag sgaolta na bein. 
 
 Chual thu guth nam bard nach beo : 
 
 'S glan faital do cliiuil fein. 
 
 ? S caoin faital nam fonn, o Mhalmhine ! 
 
 Ach claonidh iad anam gu dcoir ; 
 
 Tha solas ann Tuiradh le sioth, 
 
 Nuair dh' aomas cliabh tuirse gu bron : 
 
 Ach claoidhih fad thuirse siol dorthuin, 
 
 Fhlath nighain Oscair nan cruaidh-bheum. 
 
 'S ainmach an la gan nial 
 
 Thuitas iad, mar chuisag, fo 'n ghrian, 
 
 Nuair sheallas i sios 'n a soilse, 
 
 Andeigh do 'n dubh cheathach siubhal do *n bheinn 
 
 'S a throm-chean fo shioladh na h oiche. 
 
 Mr. Macpher son's translation : — 
 
 It was the voice of my love! 
 
 Seldom art thou in the dreams of Malvina £ 
 
 Open your airy halls, 
 
 fathers of Toscar of shields ! 
 Unfold the gates of your clouds : 
 The steps of Malvina are near. 
 
 1 have heard a voice in my dream. 
 I feel the fluttering of my soul. 
 Why didst thou come, O blast ! 
 
 From the dark-rolling face of the lake ? 
 
 Thy rustling wing was in the tree ; 
 
 The dream of Malvina fled. 
 
 But she beheld her love, 
 
 When his robe of mist flew on the wind. 
 
 A sun-beam was on his skirts : 
 
 They glittered like the gold of the stranger. 
 
APPENDIX. VII. 
 
 Ossian of 1807: — 
 
 Lan aille do mhiann fo chruaidh? 
 
 Caoin am fonn na mo chluais fein, 
 
 A nighean Lotha nan sruth fiar, 
 
 An cual' thn guth nach 'eil beo sa'bheinn, 
 
 An aisling, ann do chadal ciar, 
 
 'Nuair thuit clos air do shuilibh mall, 
 
 Air bruachan Morshruth nan toirm beura? 
 
 'Nuair thearnadh leat o sheilg nan earn, 
 
 An latha ciuin aid ghrian sna speura ? 
 
 Chuala tu barda nam fonn. 
 
 'S taitneach, acb troni do gbuth, 
 
 'S taitneach, a Mbalmbina, nan sonn : 
 
 Leagbaidh bron am bochd anam, tha dubh. 
 
 Tha aoibhneas ann am bron le sith, 
 
 'Nuair shuidhicbeas aid stri a bhroin ; 
 
 Caithidh cumha na tursaich gun bhrigh, 
 
 Gann an lai an tir nan seod, 
 
 A nighean Thoscair, a 's aillidh' snuagh. 
 
 Tuitidh iad mar dhithein sios 
 
 Air an caoimhid gtian neartor na soillse, 
 
 'Nuair luidheas an dealt air a' chliabh, 
 
 'S a throm cheann fo shian na h-oidhche. 
 
 Translation of 1807 .— 
 
 Est vox lenis mei amantis qure adest ! 
 
 Infrequens rara ad meum ipsius somnium tu venis. 
 
 Aperite vos vestrum domicilUnn ultra (nubes) 
 
 Proavi Toscaris ardnarum sphseraium ; 
 
 Aperite vos portas nubiiim. 
 
 Est Malvina vehementer sub lacrymis. 
 
 Audivi ego vocem inter mea ipsius insomnia ; 
 
 Est strepitus mei pectoris altisona. 
 
 Quare venit flamen post earn (scilicet vocem) 
 
 Ab atro cursu gurgitis adversi? 
 
 Ad ejus alam sonorem in arbore jugi 
 
 Reliquit somnium Malvinam in clivo. 
 
 Vidit ilia amantem se declinantem, 
 
 Vaporosa veste efTusa circa prlncipem, 
 
 Radiatione solis, instar lateris ei, 
 
 Conuscante ut auruin advenarum. 
 
 T T 
 
Vlll. APPENDIX, 
 
 It was the voice of my love ! 
 
 Seldom comes he to my dreams ! 
 
 But thou dwellest in the soul of Malvina, 
 
 Son of the mighty Ossian ! 
 
 My sighs arise with the beam of the east ; 
 
 My tears descend with the drops of night. 
 
 I was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, 
 
 With all my branches around me ; 
 
 But thy death came, like a blast from the desart, 
 
 And laid my green head low. 
 
 The spring returned with its showers ; 
 
 No leaf of mine arose. 
 
 The virgins saw me silent in the hall ; 
 
 They touched the harp of joy. 
 
 The tear was on the cheek of Malvina : 
 
 The virgins beheld me in my grief. 
 
 Why art thou sad, they said, 
 
 Thou fairest of the maids of Lutha ! 
 
 Was he lovely as the beam of the morning, 
 
 And stately in thy sight ? 
 
 Pleasant is thy song to Ossian's ear, 
 . Daughter of streamy Lutha ! 
 Thou hast heard the music of departed bards, 
 
 In the dream of thy rest, 
 
 When sleep fell on thine eyes, 
 
 At the murmur of Moruth. 
 
 When thou didst return from the chase, 
 
 In the day of the sun, 
 
 Thou hast heard the music of bards, 
 
 And thy song is lovely ! 
 
 It is lovely, O Malvina ; 
 
 But it melts the soul. 
 
 There is a joy in grief, 
 
 When peace dwells in the breast of the sad : 
 
 But sorrow wastes the mournful, 
 
 O daughter of Toscar, 
 
 And their days are few. 
 
 They fall away like the flower 
 
 On which the sun has looked in his strength, 
 
 After the mildew has past over it, 
 
 When its head is heavy with the drops of night. 
 
APPENDIX. IX, 
 
 Est vox lenis mei amantis quae adest ! 
 
 Infrequens rara ad meum ipsius somnium tu venis. 
 
 Est tuum domicilium animus meus, 
 
 O semen Ossiani, cujus strenuissima manus ; 
 
 Surgunt mea suspiria in matutino tempore (inutiliter) sine usu, 
 
 Et meae lacrym8e instar guttarum cccli ardui 
 
 Cadentium lente e gena noctis. % 
 
 Fui arbor pulchra ego, strenuissime heroum, 
 
 Oscar eximie, cum meis ramis fragrantibus, 
 
 Quando venit mors, sicut ventus tumulorum ; 
 
 Sub ejus ala cecidit meum caeruleum caput sub pulverem. 
 
 Venit ver blandum sub imbre ; 
 
 Non ortum est folium tenerum mihi ipsi. 
 
 Conspexerunt virgines me sub silentio ex adverso ; 
 
 Percusserunt citharas lentas chordarum. 
 
 Conspexerunt virgines me lugentem sub amore. 
 
 Quare tarn tristis est manus Candida leporum (charitatum)? 
 
 Prima virgo Lothae (nimbosae) nimborum, 
 
 An fuit Oscar perpetuo tuae laudis (thema) 
 
 In matutino tempore sicut radiatio solis, 
 
 Plenus pulchritudinis, tuae deliciae, sub dur& armatura ? 
 
 Blandum est tuum carmen meae ipsius auri, 
 
 Nympha Lothae torrentium flexuosorum, 
 
 An audivisti tu vocem, quae non est viva in monte, 
 
 In somnio, in tuo sopore obscuro, 
 
 Quando cecidit quies super oculos lentos 
 
 In praecipitiis Moruthi murmurarum placidarum : 
 
 Quando descendebatur a te a venatu molium-saxearum, 
 
 In die tranquillo ardui solis ccelorum? » 
 
 Audivisti tu bardos (canoros) modorum. 
 
 Est jucunda, at est (mcesta) gravis, tua vox, 
 
 Jucunda est, Malvina, filia heroum, 
 
 (Solvit) Liquefacit luctus miseram animam, quae est (tristis) atra. 
 
 Est gaudium in luctu cum pace, 
 
 Quando subsidit arduum certamen (luctuosum) luctus ; 
 
 Consumit dolor lugubres sine fructu (inutiliter) ; 
 
 Angusti sunt eorum dies in terra, fortium, 
 
 O filia Toscaris, cujus venustissima est forma. 
 
 Cadunt illi ut flores deorsum 
 
 In conspectu solis validi lucis, 
 
 Quando jacet ros super ejus comas, 
 
 Ejus gravi capite existente sub nimbo noctis. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 Fingal's address to his grandson, Oscar, introductory to the 
 original episode of Fainasolis, from Mr. Macpherson's papers, 
 published by the Highland Society, v. iii. p. 4S6 :-— 
 
 Mhic mo mhic; 'se thuairt an Righ, 
 
 Oscair, a Righ nan og flath ! 
 
 Chunnaic mi dearsa do lainn 
 
 Mar dealan bhearm san stoirm. 
 
 Thuit an namh fo <F laimh san iomairt 
 
 Mar dhuilleach fo osaig gheamhrai. 
 
 Lean gu din ri cliu do shinnsir, 
 
 A 's na dibir bhi mar iad san 
 
 'Nuair bu bheo Treunmpr nan rath, 
 
 As Trathal athair nan treun laoch, 
 
 Chuir iad gach cath le buaidh, 
 
 As bhuannaich iad cliu gach teughmhuil. 
 
 Mairi marsin an iomra san dan, 
 
 Sbithidh luaidh orr'aig baird nan deigh. 
 
 Oscair ! claoidhsa lamh threun a choraig; 
 
 Ach caomhuinn an conui 'n ti 's laige. 
 
 Bi mar bhuinn'-shruth rethoirt geamhrai, 
 
 Cas ri namhuid trom na Feinne ; 
 
 Ach mar aile tla an t samhrai 
 
 Dhoibhsan ata fann nan eigin. 
 
 San marsin bha Treunnior riamh, 
 
 'S bha Trathal gach ial mar sin : 
 
 Ghluais Cumhal na 'n ceumaibh corr, 
 
 'S bhu Fhionn un conui leis an lag. 
 
 'Nan aobhar shinean mo lamh, 
 
 'S le failte rachain nan coinneamh, 
 
 A's gheibheadh iad fagsa, a's caird, 
 
 Fo sgail dhrillinich mo lainne. 
 
 Tair cha d' rinneas air aon neadi ' 
 
 Air laigid a neart anns an stri. 
 
 Fuil mo namh cha d' iaras riamh 
 
 Na 'm bu mhiann lsis triull an sith. 
 
 Ach cuim' an cuireadh righ nam fasach 
 
 IJaill a cruas a lamh o shean 
 
APPENDIX. XI. 
 
 A' ni tha lathair glas fo aois 
 Feuchaibh e nach bf haoin mi 'n sin. — 
 
 Na iarr gu brath corag chruaidh j 
 Ach na hob i nuair a thig.* 
 
 The same speech from the poem of Fingal, Book iii. v. 426, 
 published by the same: — 
 
 Mhic mo mhic, thuairt an Ri, 
 
 Oscair na stri na d' oige, 
 
 Chunnam do chlaidheamh nach min ; 
 
 Bha m' ardan mu m' shinns're mor. 
 
 Leansa cliu na dh' aom a chaoidh ; 
 
 Mar d' aithreacha bi-se fein, 
 
 Mar Threunmor, ceud cheannard nan saoi, 
 
 Mar Trathal, sar athair nan treua. 
 
 'Nan oige bhuail iad am blar ; 
 
 An duana nam bard tha 'n cliu. 
 
 Bi-se mar shruth ris na sair ; 
 
 Ri laigse nann lann cho ciuin 
 
 Ri aiteal gaoth air raon an fheir. 
 
 Mar sin bha Treunmor nan sgiath, 
 
 Is Trathal ceannard nan triath ; 
 
 Mar sin bha mo ghniomh san t-sliabh. 
 
 Bha 'm feurnach riamh ri mo laimh, 
 
 '8 dh' f has an lag dana fo m' chruaidh. 
 
 Na iarrsa carraid nan sgiath ; 
 
 'S na diult i air sliabh nan cruach. 
 
 Literal translation of the first copy, by Alexander Stewart, A. M, : 
 
 Son of my son; thus said the king; 
 
 Oscar, chief of our noble youth! 
 
 I beheld the gleaming of thy sword 
 
 Like the lightning of the mountains in th.e storm. 
 
 The enemy fell beneath thy hand in the battle, 
 
 Like withered leaves by the blast of winter. 
 
 Adhere close to the fame of thy fathers, 
 
 And cease not to be as they have been. 
 
 When the victorious Trenmor lived, 
 
 And Trathal, the father of mighty heroes, 
 
 * These two lines are added after the episode. 
 
3U1. APPENDIX. 
 
 They fought all their battles with success, 
 
 And obtained the praise of every contest. 
 
 Thus their renown shall remaiu in song, 
 
 And they shall be celebrated by bards to come. 
 
 Oscar do thou subdue the strong arm of battle ; 
 
 But always spare the feeble hand. 
 
 Be as a rapid spring-tide stream in winter 
 
 To resist the powerful enemies of the Feinni ; 
 
 But be like the gentle breeze of summer 
 
 To those that are weak and in distress. 
 
 Such did Trenmor always live, 
 
 And such has Trathal ever been, 
 
 In their fair steps Comhal trod, 
 
 And Fingal always supported the weak. 
 
 In their cause would I stretch my hand, 
 
 "With cheerfulness would I go to raise them, 
 
 And they should find shelter and friendship, 
 
 Under the blade of my glittering sword. 
 
 No man did I ever despise, 
 
 However weak his strength might be. 
 
 The blood of my foe I never sought, 
 
 If he chose to depart in peace. 
 
 But why should the king of the desart 
 
 Boast of the strength of his arm in former days ? 
 
 This which remains, gray with age, 
 
 Shews I was not weak in my youth. — 
 
 Never search thou for hard battle ; 
 
 But shun it not when it comes. 
 
 Translation of the second copy, as it stands in Fingal, B. iii. : — 
 
 Nate meo nato, fuit id quod dixit Rex, 
 
 Oscar certaminis in tua juventute, 
 
 Yidi tuum gladium haud mollem ; 
 
 Fuit mea superbia circa meam propaginem magnam. 
 
 Sectare tu gloriam eorum qui se inclinaverunt (occiderunt)j 
 
 Sicut tui proavi sis tu ipse, 
 
 Ut Trenmor, primus princeps heroum, 
 
 Ut Trathal, egregius pater strenuorum. 
 
 In sua juventute (commiserunt) purcusserunt illi prselium ; 
 
 In carminibus bardorum est eorum laus. 
 
 Esto tu ut flumen contra eximios j 
 
APPENDIX. Xlll. 
 
 Versus debilitatem telorum aeque mitis 
 
 Ac aura ventorum super agello herbarum. 
 
 Talis fuit Trenmor scutorum, 
 
 Et Trathal ductor principum j 
 
 Talia fuere mea facta in clivo. 
 
 Fuit inops semper juxta meam manum, 
 
 Et factus est infirmus audax sub mea dura\-chalybe» 
 
 Ne qusere tu conflictum scutorum ; 
 
 Et ne recusa eum in clivo praecipitiorum. 
 
 Mr MacphersorC s translation : — 
 
 Son of my son, began the king, O Oscar, pride of youth ! I saw the 
 shining of thy sword. I gloried in my race. Pursue the fame of our fathers ; 
 be thou what they have been, when Trenmor lived, the first of men, and 
 Trathal, the father of heroes! They fought the battle in their youth. They 
 are the song of bards. O Oscar ! bend the strong in arm : but spare the 
 feeble hand. Be thou a stream of many tides against the foes of thy 
 people ; but like the gale, that moves the grass, to those who ask thine aid. 
 So Trenmor lived ; such Trathal was ; and such has Fingal been. My arm 
 was the support of the injured ; the weak rested behind the lightning of my 
 shield. Never search thou for battle ; nor shun it when it comes." 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 H. Griffith, Letter-press and Copper-plate Printer, Swansea. 
 
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