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 ON THE AUTHENTICITY 
 
 OF 
 
 OSSIAN'S POEMS
 
 NOTES 
 
 ON 
 
 THE AUTHENTICITY 
 
 OF 
 
 OSSI AN'S POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES 
 
 OF SCOTLAND 
 
 l??^HeJl(, FfrchiUicL. 
 
 " I've stood upon Achilles' tomb 
 And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rome." 
 
 — Byron. 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR 
 1 8 6 8
 
 7T)32>
 
 NOTES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 AUTHENTICITY OF OSSIAN'S POEMS. 
 
 The publication of the Dean of Lisniore's book lias 
 thrown additional light on the Ossianic controversy, 
 and added fresh proofs of the authenticity of these 
 poems. This manuscript, which is in the form of a 
 quarto volume of some 311 pages, was written in the 
 Gaelic language by the Dean of Lismore and his bro- 
 ther, betwixt 1512 and 1529, and contains upwards of 
 11,000 lines of Gaelic poetry, composed at different 
 periods, 2500 of which are Ossianic. The latter are 
 contained in 28 poems, 9 of which are directly attri- 
 buted to Ossian, the others to different bards of the 
 Feine. It forms one of the 65 Gaelic MSS. now col- 
 lected in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates at 
 Edinburgh, through the instrumentality of Mr Skene. 
 
 The contents of this volume, though alluded to in 
 Eeport of the Highland Society's Committee, were un- 
 known to the public, and would have probably remained 
 so, had it not been for the perseverance and industry of 
 
 A
 
 2 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 the Eev. Dr Maclachlan in deciphering, transcribing, 
 and translating it. He has thus not only made acces- 
 sible to the public many additional pieces of that class 
 of poetry of which James Macpherson was the most 
 successful collector, but afforded additional proof of 
 the accuracy with which the Ossianic poems have been 
 orally transmitted for generations; for many of the 
 pieces collected by the Dean of Lismore from recitation 
 in 1512, were also so collected by Mr Duncan Kennedy, 
 w T ith very little variation, nearly three centuries after- 
 wards, as appears from the MS. collection made by that 
 gentleman betwixt the years 1774 and 1783, which was 
 purchased by the Highland Society of Scotland, and is 
 now in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh. 
 
 Before entering into further detail as to the contents 
 of the Dean of Lismore's volume, and their bearing on 
 the Ossianic controversy, it may be necessary to trace 
 shortly the circumstances under which James Macpher- 
 son was induced to undertake the collection of the re- 
 mains of Gaelic poetry, and the manner in which it was 
 accomplished. 
 
 James Macpherson was born at Ituthven, in the 
 county of Inverness, in the year 1738. He was de- 
 scended from one of the oldest families in the north of 
 Scotland, being nearly related to the chief of the clan 
 Macpherson. He received the rudiments of his educa- 
 tion at Inverness Grammar School ; from thence he 
 was removed to King's College, Aberdeen, and eventu- 
 ally to Edinburgh University, where he completed his 
 studies."" 
 
 * Sec Highland Soc. Report (cited in the notes that followas H. S. R.) p. 27.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 3 
 
 In 1759, while tutor to Mr Graham of Balgowan 
 (afterwards Lord Lynedoch), he met at Moffat with Mr 
 John Home (the author of ' Douglas '), who had previ- 
 ously been told by Professor Adam Ferguson, a native 
 of Athole, and acquainted with Gaelic, that there ex- 
 isted in the Highlands some remains of ancient Gaelic 
 poetry. Mr Home mentioned the circumstance to 
 James Macpherson, and was told by him that he had 
 some pieces of ancient Gaelic poetry in his possession. 
 After some difficulty, Mr Home obtained translations 
 of two of these from Macpherson, took them to Edin- 
 burgh, and showed them to Drs Blair, Ferguson, and 
 Bobertson, by whom they were much admired. Mac- 
 pherson was requested to translate all he had, being 
 fifteen in number; and the translations furnished by 
 him were published by Dr Blair, with a preface, in 
 June 1760, in a little volume, under the title of ' Frag- 
 ments of Ancient Poetry, collected in the Highlands of 
 Scotland.' Soon after this publication, a subscription 
 was set on foot to defray the expense of collecting the 
 remains of ancient Gaelic poetry, and a dinner-party 
 was got up, to which Macpherson was invited, with the 
 view of inducing him to undertake a journey to the 
 Highlands for that purpose.""" At this dinner-party, 
 among others, there were present Drs Blair, Robertson, 
 and Ferguson, Mr John Home, Mr Robert Chalmers, 
 and Patrick, Lord Elibank. Macpherson agreed to 
 undertake the collection, but not without considerable 
 reluctance, as he feared that the search might prove un- 
 successful to an extent that might disappoint his friends. 
 
 * See Blair's Letter, H. S. R, p. 5G.
 
 4 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 ■ 
 
 He soon afterwards set out on his journey, and was 
 accompanied during a great portion of it by two 
 countrymen of his own, Mr Lachlan Macpherson of 
 Strathmashie, a native of Badenoch, and Ewan Mac- 
 pherson, formerly a schoolmaster in Badenoch, both of 
 whom were much better Gaelic scholars than himself. 
 He was afterwards joined and assisted by another Gaelic 
 scholar, Captain Alexander Morison. 
 
 In this tour a number of MSS. were collected, and 
 much Gaelic poetry was taken down from recitation, as 
 we shall presently show. 
 
 On his return, Macpherson proceeded to Badenoch, 
 which was his own native place, as well as that of 
 Lachlan Macpherson, and there remained till January 
 1761,""" engaged, with the assistance of Lachlan Mac- 
 pherson and the Bev. Mr Gallie, then a missionary in 
 Badenoch, in preparing the materials for the next pub- 
 lication of the remains of Ossianic poetry. He then 
 proceeded to Edinburgh, from whence he writes to the 
 Bev. James M'Lagan a letter dated 16th January 1761. t 
 
 His task, so far as the arrangements of the Gaelic 
 originals was concerned, had, it appears, been then 
 accomplished ; and, during his stay in Edinburgh, he 
 seems to have been engaged in translating and in pre- 
 paring the English version for the press.J So soon as 
 this was completed he went to London, and, early in 
 1762, he there published a quarto volume, containing 
 the epic of 'Fingal' in six books, and fifteen minor 
 poems — viz., ' Comala/ ' The War of Caros,' ' The War 
 
 * See Gallie's Letter, II. S. R, p. 31. 
 t See App. H. S. K., p. 157. X See Blair's Letter, Id., p. b'J.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 5 
 
 of Innis-Thona,' 'The Battle of Lora/ 'Conlatli and 
 Cuthona/ ' Carthon/ ' The Death of Cuthullen/ ' Dar- 
 thula/ ' Carricthura,' ' The Songs of Selma/ ' Calthon 
 and Commal,' ' Lathmon/ ' Oithona,' ' Croma/ and 
 ' Berathon/ In the following year he published an- 
 other quarto, containing another epic in eight books, 
 called ' Temora/ and five minor poems. This volume 
 contained also what was called a specimen of the origi- 
 nal of ' Temora/ being a Gaelic version of the seventh 
 book of that poem, and the only Gaelic bearing to be 
 the original of any of the poems which appeared. The 
 minor poems were, ' Cuthlin of Clutha/ ' Sulmala of 
 Lummon,' ' Cath-Loda/ ' Oina-Morul,' ' Colna-Dona.' 
 
 The favourable reception given to these works is 
 well known. It is sufficient here to observe that they 
 were, in the first year after their publication, trans- 
 lated into almost all the languages of Europe. 
 
 Macpherson was soon assailed by scejtticism as to 
 the Gaelic origin of the poetry he professed to have 
 translated ; and though he declined to appeal to those 
 who had aided him in the collection and translation of 
 the poems, yet he furnished Dr Blair" 7 ' with their names, 
 and consented to his applying to them. He also placed 
 the original MSS. in the hands of Mr Becket, the Lon- 
 don bookseller, and notified to the public by advertise- 
 ment that he had done so. 
 
 In 1764 Macpherson accompanied Governor John- 
 stone to Pensacola, and after holding the official ap- 
 pointment of President of Council at West Florida, 
 he returned to England in 1766. 
 
 * See Blair's Letter, App. H. S. R., p. 60.
 
 6 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 In 1769 he was, on the resignation of Sir John 
 Macpherson, appointed agent to the Nawab of Arcot, in 
 which situation he amassed a large fortune. Through 
 Sir John's interest he was returned to Parliament for 
 the burgh of Camelford, which he continued to represent 
 for some years. Towards the close of his life he removed 
 to Belleville, a seat he had bought in his native county, 
 where he died in 1796, and was, in accordance with his 
 own request, buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 By his settlement he left John Mackenzie, Esq., of the 
 Temple, one of his executors, and bequeathed L.1000'" 
 for the purpose of defraying the expense of preparing for 
 the press and publishing in the original Gaelic the Ossi- 
 anic poems he had collected, a portion of which he had 
 previously handed to Mr Mackenzie. The manuscripts 
 written in Gaelic which came into the possession of Mr 
 Mackenzie were not ancient manuscripts ; they were in 
 the handwriting of Macpherson himself, or of others 
 whom he had employed to take down the poetry from re- 
 citation, or to copy it from the MSS. with which he had 
 been furnished during his tour. Of the old manuscripts 
 collected by him none were found in his repositories, 
 with the exception of one small duodecimo manuscript 
 belonging to Clanronald, written by one of the M'Vu- 
 richs, and which was returned. 
 
 That Macpherson obtained many Gaelic manuscripts 
 during his search in the Highlands in 1760 there can be 
 no doubt. This appears distinctly from the evidence 
 of those who assisted in their collection and translation, 
 
 * See Diss, by Sir John Sinclair, prefixed to Highland Society's Edi- 
 tion of Ossian, p. 92.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 7 
 
 and was fully elicited by Dr Blair and by a Committee 
 of the Highland Society appointed for the purpose. 
 In 1763 Dr Blair addressed letters to many of those 
 gentlemen requesting specific information on the sub- 
 ject, and also directing that they should each provide 
 themselves with a copy of Macpherson's translations, 
 and having summoned to their presence such parties in 
 their neighbourhood as could recite the poems of Ossian, 
 they should compare these recitations carefully with 
 the translation. 
 
 Mr Lachlan Macplierson, writing to Dr Blair from 
 Strathmashie on the 22d October 1763, says : * 
 
 " In the year 1760 I had the pleasure of accompany- 
 ing my friend Mr Macplierson during some part of his 
 journey in search of the poems of Ossian through the 
 Highlands. I assisted him in collecting them, and 
 took down from oral tradition and transcribed from 
 old manuscripts by far the greatest part of those pieces 
 he hasp> u blished. I have carefully compared the trans- 
 lation with the copies of the originals in my hands, and 
 find it amazingly literal. Some of the hereditary bards 
 retained by the chiefs committed very early to writing 
 some of the works of Ossian. One manuscript in par- 
 ticular ivas written as far back as the year lA10,ivhich 
 I saiv in Mr Macplierson s ^>ossession." 
 
 Mr Angus McNeill, minister of Howmore, in South 
 Uist, in a letter to Dr Blair, dated 22d December 1763, 
 says : t 
 
 " Neil McMurrich, a native of this country, who with 
 his predecessors for nineteen generations back have been 
 
 * H. S. K, p. 8. t Id., App., p. 18.
 
 8 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 the bards and historians of the family of Clanranald, 
 repeated before me the whole of the poem of 'Darthula 
 or Clan-usneach/ with few variations from the transla- 
 tion, which he deponed he saw and read, together with 
 many more, in a manuscript which underwent the same 
 fate with the manuscript already made mention of. 
 Declared also that he is of opinion the last poem in the 
 collection, ' Berrathon,' is contained in a manuscript 
 which I myself saw him deliver, with three or four more, 
 to Mr Macpherson when he was in this country, and 
 for which Mr Macpherson gave him a missive obliging 
 himself to restore them." 
 
 Captain A. Morison, in answer to the queries of the 
 Highland Society Committee, writing from Greenock, 
 7th February 1801, says : * 
 
 " That Mr James Macpherson, on his tour through 
 the Highlands and Isles, was a night in his house in 
 Skinnader, Sky. He was then collecting the ancient 
 poems, but when in his house had only a few of them ; 
 that he gave him some, which he afterwards translated 
 and published, together with other Fingalian or old 
 heroic poems not published in his translations, one of 
 them 'DanK).' 
 
 " That he afterwards in London had access to Mr 
 Macpherson's papers, — saw many 3ISS. in the old 
 Gaelic character ivith Mr Macpherson, contanincj some 
 of the poems translated, which MSS. they found difficult 
 to read. That he heard of such being in the country. 
 How old the MSS. were cannot say, but from the 
 character and spelling seemed very ancient." 
 
 * H. S. R., App., p. 170.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 9 
 
 Ewan Macpherson, late schoolmaster at Badenoch, 
 declares before Mr Norman Macdonald, J.P. at Knock, 
 Sleat, Sky, on lltk September 1800,'" 
 
 " That having come to this country from the oppo- 
 site coast of Knoydart to pay a visit to the Rev. Dr 
 John Macpherson, then minister of the parish of Sleat, 
 he happened to meet his old acquaintance Mr James 
 Macpherson, who was then employed in collecting the 
 poems of Ossian ; and being well acquainted with the 
 Gaelic orthography and character, was urged by James 
 Macpherson to accompany him to the Long Island, 
 which he eventually did. 
 
 " That on that occasion they were one or two nights 
 at the house of the elder Clanranald at Ormiglade, and 
 about a week at the house of the younger at Benbicula, 
 and at Mr McNeill's, minister in South Uist, where he 
 became acquainted with MacMhurich, the representative 
 of the celebrated bards of that name, but was not him- 
 self a man of any note. From this man the declarant 
 got for Mr James Macpherson a book of the size of a 
 Testament, and of the nature of a Common-Place Book, 
 which contained some accounts of the families of the 
 Macdonalds and the exploits of the great Montrose, 
 together with some of the poems of Ossian. And Mr 
 Macpherson obtained at the same time an order from 
 Clanranald, sen., on Lieut. Donald Macdonald of Edin- 
 burgh, for a Gaelic folio manuscript belonging to the 
 family, which was called the ' Leabhar Derg/ and con- 
 tained, as he heard Clanranald say, some of the poems 
 of Ossian. " 
 
 * See H. S. R, App., p. 94.
 
 IO THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 These MSS. the late Mr Macdonald of Clanranald 
 was very anxious to recover from Mr Macpherson, and 
 after an ineffectual correspondence, actually gave direc- 
 tions to Mr William Macdonald, formerly secretary and 
 then treasurer to the Highland Society, to bring an 
 action for their recovery : this, on the understanding 
 that they would be returned by Mr Macpherson, was 
 not followed out* 
 
 The Rev. Andrew Gallie, in a letter to Charles Mac- 
 intosh, Esq., W.S., of date 12th March 1799, says: t 
 
 'The translator of Ossian's poems was for some 
 years before he entered on that woi;k my intimate 
 acquaintance and friend. When he returned from his 
 tour through the Western Highlands and Islands, he. 
 came to my house in Brae, Badenoch. I inquired the 
 success of his journey, and he produced several volumes 
 small octavo, or rather large duodecimo, in the Gaelic 
 language and characters, being the poems of Ossian 
 and other ancient bards. 
 
 " I remember perfectly that many of those volumes 
 were at the close said to have been collected by Paul 
 MacMhurich, Bard, Clanraonuil, and about the begin- 
 ning of the fourteenth century. Mr Macpherson and I 
 were of opinion that, though the Bard collected them, 
 yet they must have been writ by an ecclesiastic, for the 
 characters and spelling were most beautiful and correct. 
 Every poem had its first letter of its first word most 
 elegantly flourished and gilded — some red, some yellow, 
 some blue, and some green. The material writ on 
 seemed to be a limber yet coarse and dark vellum. 
 
 * SeeH. S. R., p. 81. t Id., p. 31.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. II 
 
 The volumes were bound in strong parchment. Mr 
 Macpherson had them from Clanronald. 
 
 "At that time I could read the Gaelic characters, 
 though with difficulty, and did often amuse myself 
 with reading here and there in those poems while Mr 
 Macpherson was employed on his translation. At 
 times we differed as to the meaninsf of certain words in 
 the original. 
 
 " With much labour I have recovered some scattered 
 parts of the translation made at my fireside— I should 
 rather say of the original translated there, and I com- 
 municate to you a few stanzas taken from the manu- 
 script : * 
 
 " ' Bha fer re fer, is cruaigh re cruaigh, 
 Sgiatha fuaimneach, daoine air lar, 
 Mar uird nan ceud air mac nan Eill, 
 Dh'eirio-h asais theirin gacli lann. 
 Ghluais Gall mar chrom osaig on aird, 
 Gun ghlan e saoighin as. 
 Bha Suaran mar chaoir fasaich thall 
 Am fraoch fuaimar Gorm-mheall bras. 
 Ach cia mur chuiram sios le fonn, 
 Bas trom na n sleagh bha ann ? 
 Bu scrathoil stri bha san bhlar 
 Bu lassach ard mo lann. 
 Bu scrathoil Osgar mo mhac fein, 
 Thar each bu treubhach maith ! 
 
 * The Gaelic here is not very correctly written, but the present writer 
 has given it without alteration, as printed in the Highland Society's Ee- 
 port.
 
 12 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 Bha solas balbh am bhroilleach shuas, 
 Bhi ghruaigh mar chaoirt san chath.' 
 
 "The literal translation of the above passage is as 
 follows : — 
 
 " ' Man was opposed to man, and steel to steel — 
 Shields sounding, men falling ; 
 Like hammers of hundreds on the son of the embers 
 Swords rose and fell. 
 
 Gaul went on like a blast descending from the height, 
 As he destroyed heroes. 
 Swaran was like a flame of the desert 
 That consumes the sounding heath of Gormal ; 
 But how shall I relate in song 
 The heavy death of spears that was there ? 
 Terrible was the strife of battle. 
 High flamed my sword. 
 Terrible was Oscar my son, 
 Whose deeds of valour exceeded all. 
 Silent joy arose in my breast 
 As his countenance glowed in the battle.' 
 
 " I have not ' Fingal ' by me, nor easy access to it, 
 therefore cannot say how these stanzas run in English, 
 but they are sent you as taken out of the manuscript 
 by a friend, who was at the time with Mr Macpherson 
 and me — a gentleman well known for an uncommon 
 acquaintance with the Gaelic, and a happy facility in 
 writing it in the Eoman characters. That word mark- 
 ed t was one of those about which different opinions 
 were held, but at last we agreed that it was properly
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 13 
 
 spelled, and did express the fire and rage in Oscar's 
 countenance, while his mind sedate and tranquil regu- 
 lated his heroism/' 
 
 Dr Adam Ferguson, Professor of Moral Philosophy 
 in the University of Edinburgh, in answer to the queries 
 of the Highland Society's Committee, says : * 
 
 " The fragments I afterwards saw in Mr Macpherson's 
 hands by no means appeared of recent writing. The 
 paper was stained with smoke and daubed with Scots 
 snuff." 
 
 The Rev. Dr Hugh Blair, Professor of Ehetoric in 
 the University of Edinburgh, says in regard to Mr 
 Macpherson : t 
 
 " Accordingly, he soon after set out on his mission 
 through the Highlands, and during the time he was 
 employed in it he wrote to me and others of his friends 
 informing us what success he met with in collectimx 
 
 o o 
 
 from many different and remote parts all the remains 
 he could find of ancient Gaelic poetry, either in writing 
 or by oral tradition. When he returned to Edinburgh 
 in winter, laden with his poetical treasures, he took 
 lodgings in a house immediately below where I then 
 lived, at the head of Blackfriars' Wynd, and busied 
 himself in translating from the Gaelic into English. I 
 saw him very frequently. He gave me accounts from 
 time to time how he proceeded, and used frequently at 
 dinner to read or repeat to me parts of what he had 
 that day translated. Being myself entirely ignorant 
 of the Gaelic language, I never examined or looked into 
 his papers." 
 
 * H. S. E., App., p. G3. t Id., p. 59.
 
 14 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 Macpherson himself, writing from Ruthven on 27th 
 October 1760, to the Rev. James M'Lagan, then minis- 
 ter of Amalrie, says : "" 
 
 "You perhaps have heard that I am employed to 
 make a collection of the ancient poetry in the Gaelic. 
 I have already traversed most of the isles and gathered 
 all worth notice in that quarter. I intend a journey to 
 Mull and the coast of Argyll to enlarge my collection. 
 
 " By letters from Edinburgh, as well as gentlemen of 
 your acquaintance, I am informed that you have a good 
 collection of poems of the kind I want. It would be 
 therefore very obliging you should transmit me them as 
 soon as convenient, that my book might be rendered 
 more complete and more for the honour of our old 
 poetry. 
 
 " Traditions are uncertain : poetry delivered down 
 from memory must lose considerably, and it is a matter 
 of surprise to me how we have now any of the beauties 
 of our ancient Gaelic poetry remaining. 
 
 " Your collection, I am informed, is pure, as you have 
 taken pains to restore the style. I shall not make any 
 apology for this trouble, as it will be for the honour of 
 our ancestors how many of their pieces of genius will 
 be brought to light. / have met with a number of old 
 manuscripts in my travels: the poetical part of them I 
 have endeavoured to secure. 
 
 " If any of that kind falls within your hearing, I beg 
 it of you to have them in sight. 
 
 " Inform me if you can of the tradition of the 
 poems." 
 
 * H. S. R., App., p. 153.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 15 
 
 Again, writing to Mr M'Lagan from Edinburgh, 14 th 
 January 1761, Macpherson says :* 
 
 " I was favoured with your letter enclosing the Gaelic 
 poems, for which I hold myself extremely obliged to 
 you. Duan a Ghairbh is less poetical and more obscure 
 than Tiontach mor na Feine. The last is far from 
 being a bad poem were it complete, and is particularly 
 valuable for the ancient manners it contains. I shall 
 reckon myself much obliged to you for any other pieces 
 you can send me. It is true I have the most of them 
 from other hands, but the misfortune is that I find none 
 expert in the Irish orthography, so that an obscure poem 
 is rendered doubly so by their uncouth way of spelling. 
 
 " I have been lucky enough to lay my hands on a 
 pretty complete poem, and truly epic, concerning Fin- 
 gal. The antiquity of it is easily ascertained, and it 
 is not only superior to anything in that language, but 
 reckoned not inferior to the more polite performances 
 of other nations in that way. I have some thoughts of 
 publishing the original if it will not clog the work too 
 much." 
 
 Writing again to Mr M'Lagan from Edinburgh, on 
 8th February 1761, he says : t 
 
 " I am favoured with your last letter, enclosing four 
 poems, for which I am much obliged to you. I beg you 
 send me what more you can conveniently." 
 
 From this evidence it is plain that Macpherson was 
 not only diligent in his search, but that he also re- 
 covered in his tour and from friends many Gaelic 
 manuscripts containing Ossianic poetry, and some at 
 
 * H. S. R., App., p. 154. f Id., p. 156.
 
 16 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 least of an old date ; and that up to 1761 there is no 
 appearance of his having contemplated, and no ground 
 for supposing that he contemplated, any fraud on the 
 public. The evidence is all opposed to such a supposition. 
 
 But these manuscripts contained only a portion of 
 the old Gaelic poetry collected by Macpherson. A 
 great part was acquired from oral recitation. This 
 appears from the evidence of many who were applied 
 to by Dr Blair soon after the publication, and some of 
 whom had accompanied Macpherson on his tour ; and 
 also from the subsequent investigation by the Commit- 
 tee of the Highland Society. The time at which Mac- 
 pherson made his collection was fortunate, for the re- 
 citers of these poems were then passing away ; and at 
 the present day there are few, if any, to be found who 
 can recite the old heroic poetry, which has given place 
 to more modern compositions. Even forty years after 
 Macpherson's tour, when the Committee of the High- 
 land Society commenced their investigation, the reciters 
 were much reduced in numbers, although even then 
 enough were found to verify the authenticity of a large 
 portion of what is comprehended in Macpherson's trans- 
 lations. 
 
 Mr Lachlan Macpherson of Stralhmashie, already 
 quoted, writing to Dr Blair in 1763, says,'' "/ took 
 down from oral tradition, and transcribed from old 
 manuscripts, by far the greatest part of those pieces he 
 has published." 
 
 Ewan Macpherson, already mentioned, who accom- 
 panied Mr Macpherson to Uist, says, thatt " On that 
 
 * II. S. R, App., p. 8. t Id., p. 94.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 17 
 
 occasion he was with Mr Macpherson for three or four 
 weeks, in course of which the declarant took down 
 poems of Ossian from the recitations of severed indi- 
 viduals, at different places, which he gave to Mr Mac- 
 pherson, who was seldom present when they were taken 
 down, That they were generally persons advanced in 
 life." 
 
 Captain Alexander Morison, who also assisted Mr 
 Macpherson in collecting and transcribing, says,* 
 
 " That he does not now remember all the persons 
 who recited or sent them, because he could have no 
 doubt regarding the poems he was accustomed to hear 
 from his infancy. Is certain that Mr Macpherson got 
 some of them from the MacMhurichs in Uist, and some 
 from Mull, and likely from the Fletchers of Glenforsa, 
 famous for a long time for the recitation and history of 
 such poems." 
 
 Dr John Macpherson, minister of Sleat, of date 27th 
 November 1763, writing to Dr Blair, says :t 
 
 " I have, in obedience to your request, made inquiry 
 for all persons around me who were able to rehearse 
 from memory any parts of the poems published by Mr 
 Macpherson, and have made them to rehearse in my 
 hearing the several fragments or detached pieces of 
 these poems which they were able to repeat. This 
 done, I compared with great care the pieces rehearsed 
 by them with Mr Macpherson's translation. These 
 pieces, or fragments, are as follows : 
 
 " The description of Cuchullin's chariot — 'Fingal,' 
 Book I., page 11. 
 
 * H. S. R., App., p. 176. t Id, p. !). 
 
 B
 
 l8 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 " The rehearsers are John Macdonald of Breackish, 
 in Strath, Isle of Skye, gentleman ; Martin Macgilvray, 
 tenant in Sleat ; and Allan Macaskle, farmer in Glenelg. 
 
 "The episode relating to Faineasolis — ' Fingal,' 
 Book III., page 45. 
 
 " The rehearsers are, among others, John Macdonald 
 of Breackish, in Strath ; Alexander Macdonald, mer- 
 chant in Sleat ; John Down, cowherd there ; and John 
 Maclean, carpenter in the parish of Strath. 
 
 " The actions of Ossian at the Lake of Lego, and his 
 courtship of Everallin — 'Fingal,' Book YV., page 50. 
 
 " The rehearsers are Alexander Macdonald, mer- 
 chant in Sleat ; Nicol Mackenzie, in the parish of 
 Strath, gentleman ; and Ewan Macpherson, school- 
 master in Glenelg. 
 
 " Fingal 's combat with the King of Lochlin — 'Fin- 
 gal,' Book V., page 62. 
 
 " The rehearsers, Alexander Macdonald, merchant in 
 Sleat ; Donald Robertson, tenant there ; and Nicol 
 Mackenzie, just mentioned, together with many more. 
 
 " The Battle of Lora, page 111. 
 
 " The rehearsers are Alexander Macdonald, merchant 
 in Sleat ; John Maclean, carpenter in Strath ; and Neil 
 Mackinnon, farmer there. 
 
 " Darthula, page 155. 
 
 " The rehearsers are Alexander Morison, in the parish 
 of Durnish, gentleman ; Ewen Macpherson, school- 
 master in Glenelg ; and John Down, cowherd in Sleat. 
 
 " The combat between Oscar and Ullin, in the Frag- 
 ments. 
 
 " The rehearsers are John Macdonald of Breackish,
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 19 
 
 Alexander Morison, and John Down — all three above 
 mentioned. 
 
 " The Lamentation of Dargo — sung by thousands in 
 the Isles. 
 
 1 These are all the pieces of Ossian's poems, as pub- 
 lished by Mr Macpherson, known to the rehearsers whom 
 I have had occasion to consult. Had it been in my 
 power to have travelled farther than through my parish 
 and that next to it, I have reason to believe that I 
 would easily have found many more such on record in 
 the memories of others who have a taste for our old 
 Gaelic compositions. The rehearsers whom I had occa- 
 sion to consult have repeated in my hearing several 
 other poems which have much of the spirit and charac- 
 ter of Ossian." 
 
 The Rev. Mr M'Neill, minister of Hovemore, in Uist, 
 writing in answer to Dr Blair, of date 23d December 
 1763, says : * 
 
 " Mr Macdonald of Demisdale, a parishioner of mine, 
 rehearsed from memory before me some passages which 
 agreed exactly with the translation, viz. : 
 
 " The terms of peace proposed by Morla in Siuarans 
 name to Cuchullin — ' Fingal/ Book II., page 26. 
 
 " Likewise Fino-al's orders for raisins; his standards, 
 his orders to his chiefs before the battle, the chiefs' 
 resolutions thereupon of fighting each of them a Loch- 
 lin chief, contained in pages 57 and 58 of 'Fingal,' 
 Book IV. 
 
 " Also the single combat between Fingal and Swaran, 
 which in the original is expressed in the strongest lan- 
 
 * H. S. R., App., p. 18.
 
 20 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 guage, and perfectly agreed with the translation, which 
 is very just here and in all other places I had occasion 
 to compare. The passage alluded to is ' Fingal/ Book 
 V., page 62." 
 
 " Archibald M'Lellan, likewise a parishioner of mine, 
 who repeated before me in Gaelic Ossian's account of 
 his own courtship of Everallin at the Lake of Lego, 
 without any material variation from the translation — 
 'Fingal/ Book IV., pages 40, 50, and 51. 
 
 "Neil M 'Munch, a native of this county, repeated 
 before me the whole of the poem of Darthula, or Clan- 
 usnoch, with few variations from the translation." 
 
 Lieutenant Duncan MacNicol, late of the 88th 
 Begiment, writes to the Bev. Alexander Macaulay, 
 January 1764 : """ 
 
 " I was from home when yours of the 17th ult. came 
 to this place (Sock-rock, in Glenorchy), but since my 
 return I have been at some pains to examine severals 
 in this country about Ossian's poems, and have found 
 out as follows : 
 
 " ' Fingal/ Book III., page 45, 'Oscar, I was young 
 like thee when lovely Faineasollis,' &c, to the end of 
 the Third Book. 
 
 " 'Fingal/ Book IV., page 50, 'Eight ivere the heroes 
 of Ossian,' Sec, mostly word for word to page 58, or the 
 end of the Fourth Book. 
 
 " The story of Orla in the beginning of the Fifth 
 Book to page 71. 
 
 " ' Then Gaul and Ossian sat on the green bank of 
 Luhar.' 
 
 * H. S. tt., App., \>. 23.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 21 
 
 " The Battle of Lora, nearly. 
 
 " Darthula, page 155, pretty well to the end of page 
 171. 
 
 " Temora, much the same, page 172 to the end of 
 page 190. 
 
 " Carric-Thura, page 207, e Who can reach the source 
 of thy race, O'Connal/ &c, till yon come to the passage 
 that begins thus — ' Dire was the clang of their steel.' 
 
 " Those that know most about the history of Ossian 
 and his poems in this country are now no more : for- 
 merly I might, I daresay, make out a great deal more 
 among them. At this very day there are many in this 
 country, who can neither read nor write, that can re- 
 peat poems composed by Ossian, at least pretty much 
 in the same strain, which would make a larger volume 
 if they were all gathered together than that which Mr 
 Macpherson has given to the public." 
 
 The Rev. Donald Macleod, minister of Glenelg, writ- 
 ing to Dr Blair, of date 26th March 1764, says : * 
 
 " It was in my house that Mr Macpherson got the 
 description of Cuchullin's horses and car in ' Fingal/ 
 Book I., page 11, from Allan MacCaskle, schoolmaster, 
 and Rory Macleod, both of this glen. He has not taken 
 in the whole of the description, and his translation of 
 it, spirited as far as it goes, falls so far short of the 
 original in the picture it exhibits of Cuchullin's horses 
 and car, their harness, trappings, &c, that in none of 
 his translations is the inequality of Macpherson's genius 
 to that of Ossian so very conspicuous. 
 
 " The Battle of Lena in ' Fingal/ Book II., is still 
 
 * H S. R., App., p. 28.
 
 22 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 preserved by tradition in this country ; but with this 
 variation, that the proposal of giving up his wife and 
 dog in page 26, as the only condition on which peace 
 would be granted, was made by Magnus, King of Loch- 
 lin, to Fingal, and not by Swaran to Cuchullin. 
 
 " I have heard the poem in Book III., relating Fin- 
 gal's voyage to Lochlin, the snares laid for him by 
 Starno, death of Agandecca, how for his cruelty and 
 perfidiousness he took immediate revenge on Starno, 
 when, page 38, he eyed his valiant chiefs — 'his valiant 
 chiefs took arms.' 
 
 " The poem in Book IV. is handed down pretty 
 entire in this country, in which each of Fingal's chiefs 
 singles out the chief among the enemy he was to fight, 
 leaving to Fingal the honour of engaging the King of 
 Lochlin. 
 
 " The description of the sunbeam, Fingal's standard, 
 does not come up to the beauty and spirit of the ori- 
 ginal. Along with that of the sunbeam, there is in the 
 original a particular description of the standards of 
 the seven principal chiefs of Fingal, which are so inim- 
 itably beautiful that I cannot imagine how Macpherson 
 has omitted them in his translation. 
 
 " We have the poem containing the battle of Loch- 
 lego, and a good part of that relating to the war of Inis- 
 thona in page 104. 
 
 " It would take up too much room, and I think it 
 is not necessary that I go through all the poems in the 
 collection of which we have pieces joined to other 
 poems, and sometimes parts of two or three poems 
 thrown together into one.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 23 
 
 " Mr Macpherson, in his journey through the High- 
 lands, put it upon me to look out for the poem called 
 Cath, or the Battle of Benedin. I have since got it, 
 but not till after the book was published. The battle 
 is the most memorable of Fingal's exploits, and I hum- 
 bly think the poem is the most finished of Ossian's 
 works. 
 
 " One thing I am sorry for, his having omitted the 
 description which Ossian gives of Fingal's ships, their 
 sails, masts, and rigging, their extraordinary feats in 
 sailing, the skill and dexterity of his men in working 
 them, and their intrepidity in the greatest storms, of 
 which he gives the most striking description. I can 
 account for it in no other way than his having been 
 born in Badenoch, one of the most inland parts of this 
 kingdom, where, not having access to, he was unac- 
 quainted with that kind of imagery ; he did not, there- 
 fore, perhaps understand the original poems." 
 
 Dr Adam Ferguson, writing from Hallyards, near 
 Peebles, 26th March 1798, says :* 
 
 " In answer to the first query, the Committee will 
 please to know that about the year 1740 I heard John 
 Fleming, a taylor, who, in the manner of the country, 
 worked with journeymen at my father's house, repeat, 
 in a kind of chiming: measure, heroic strains relating to 
 an arrival or landing of an host, and a subsequent battle, 
 with a single combat of two chiefs. This I took down 
 in writing and kept for some time, but was not in 
 possession of when Mr Macpherson's publications ap- 
 peared. I had no doubt, however, in recognising the 
 
 * H. S. R., App., p. 63.
 
 24 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 same passage in the arrival of Swarran and the single 
 combat with Cuthnllin in Macpherson's translation of 
 'Fingal.' 
 
 " The few words I can recall are, first, in relation to 
 the hosts engaged — 
 
 " ' Iomma colan, iomma skia, 
 Iomma tria is lurigh gharibh;' 
 
 and in relation to the chiefs who grappled, and in 
 whose struggle — 
 
 " ' Bha cloffhin agus talamh trom 
 Moscle fo bhonn an cos. 5 
 
 " I have at different times heard other scraps or frag- 
 ments repeated, but the principal use I made of them 
 was to tell my friend and companion at college, Mr 
 John Home, that there were such relics of ancient 
 poetry in the Highlands, and which led him to the 
 inquiries which produced Mr Macpherson's commu- 
 nications" 
 
 The Rev. Mr M'Diarmid of "Weem, in his letter to 
 Mr Mackenzie, of date 9th April 1801, enclosing copy 
 of Ossian's Address to the Sun, says : * 
 
 " As I have not a copy of Mr Macpherson's transla- 
 tion by me I could not compare it with the original, 
 nor point out wherein he has departed from it. Mr 
 Mackenzie will easily see that by comparing his transla- 
 tion with mine. I got the copy of these poems about 
 thirty years ago from an old man in Glenlyon. I took 
 it and several fragments, now, I fear, irrecoverably lost, 
 
 * H. S. R,p. 71.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 25 
 
 from the man's mouth ; he had learnt them in his 
 youth from people in the same glen, which must have 
 been long before Mr Macpherson was born." 
 
 Sir John Macpherson, writing from Laurieston to Dr 
 Blair, of date 4th February 1763, when sending some 
 Ossianic poems in Gaelic verse, says : * 
 
 " I do myself the pleasure of presenting you with a 
 few specimens of Ossian in his native dress. I could 
 have drawn out many other pieces of greater length, 
 and of more merit, but the enclosed may satisfy Mr 
 Percy's curiosity; and it is unnecessary to trouble you 
 with more of the original at present, as you can at any 
 time command all my collection. 
 
 " Those poems that I have selected had each a par- 
 ticular title to regard. 
 
 " Ossian's courtship of Everallin is a short and entire 
 story. It is a monument of the simplicity and dignity 
 with which the courtships of princes were carried on in 
 the poet's days. 
 
 " The Address to the Evening Star claimed attention 
 on account of its inimitable beauty and harmonious 
 versification. The original of this piece suffered even 
 in the hands of Mr Macpherson, though he has shown 
 himself inferior to no translator. The copy or edition 
 which he had of this poem is very different from mine ; 
 I imagine it will in that respect be agreeable to Mr 
 Percy. The gentlemen who gave it to me copied it 
 from an old MS. which Mr Macpherson had no access 
 to peruse before his ' Fingal ' came abroad. 
 
 * H. S. R., App., p. 1.
 
 26 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 " Ullins war-song will, I hope, give satisfaction, as 
 it is a singular species of poetry, and refers to a very 
 ancient custom. The gentleman who gave me this 
 valuable piece of antiquity told me that he had formerly 
 given Mr Macpherson a copy of it at full length. 
 
 " All that can be said of my translation of these 
 pieces is, that it is extremely literal, and that it was 
 not attempted to imitate the conciseness and strength 
 of the original. 
 
 " I can likewise assure you, upon my honour, that 
 I never received any of these originals from Mr Mac- 
 pherson, nor took the least assistance from his transla- 
 tion. This was so far from being the case, that after 
 I had done my translation and compared it with his, I 
 was obliged to reject several proper phrases only because 
 he had used them. 
 
 " If you forward these specimens to Mr Percy, he 
 certainly will make the requisite allowances for the 
 difference of copies. Others to whom he will, perhaps, 
 show them, and who are less known to the manner in 
 which our ancient poetry was preserved, shall not be 
 equally candid. But after you have convinced men of 
 the nicest taste in Europe, it would be a mistake in 
 any one to endeavour to convince those ivho have not 
 the power of believing, or the good taste to discover 
 the genuineness and antiquity of any work from the 
 turn of its composition" 
 
 It should be borne in mind that these recitations of 
 the originals of Ossian were in Gaelic verse, and by 
 persons many of whom were quite illiterate ; and also 
 that they were made upwards of forty years before the
 
 THE POEMS OF OSS1AN. 2/ 
 
 originals collected by Mr Macpherson were given to the 
 public by his executors. 
 
 It is plain from the above how much Mr Mac- 
 pherson was indebted to oral recitation for the collec- 
 tion of Ossianic poetry made by him. 
 
 Having shown the mode in which Mr Macpherson 
 made his collection, let us now advert to confirmation 
 derived from other sources as to the authenticity of 
 what he has given to the public. 
 
 That Mr Macpherson was the largest collector of 
 Gaelic poetry is not to be wondered at, for he travelled 
 over a great portion of the Highlands, and bestowed 
 considerable labour and research in recovering the 
 remains of ancient Gaelic poetry, not only personally, 
 but also through his friends ; whereas other collectors 
 generally confined themselves to the neighbourhood of 
 their own localities, and were content to note only what 
 came incidentally to their notice. 
 
 One of the earliest of these independent collections 
 was that of the Dean of Lismore, recently brought to 
 notice. It was written between 1512 and 1529, and 
 is found to contain several of the poems translated by 
 Macpherson ; but these poems having been obtained 
 from oral recitation, they vary somewhat in expression 
 from the versions obtained by Macpherson, though the 
 incidents are the same. Among these we may mention 
 ' The Death of Oscar,' at the battle of Gaura, of which 
 there are two editions, one at page 35 and the other 
 at page 49 of Dr M'Lauchlan's translation, similar to 
 'The Death of Oscar' as given by Macpherson at the
 
 28 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 same battle in the beginning of ' Temora.' We quote 
 from page 49 : 
 
 " It would be hard to tell, 
 'T would be a heavy task, 
 To number all that fell 
 Slain by the arms of Oscar. 
 No swifter is a cataract, 
 Or hawk in sweeping stoop, 
 Or rapids rushing fast, 
 Than in that fioht was Oscar. 
 You saw him last of all, 
 Like leaves in windy weather, 
 Or like a noble aspen 
 When hewers strike its stem. 
 When Erin's king he saw 
 Still living 'midst the fight, 
 Oscar swift approached him 
 As waves break on the strand. 
 When Cairbar this observed 
 He shook his hungry spear 
 And through him drove its point, 
 Chiefest of all our griefs ! 
 Yet Oscar did not quail 
 But made for Erin's king, 
 With force he aimed a blow 
 And smote him with his sword. 
 Then Art Mac Cairbar fell, 
 Struck with the second blow. 
 So it was that Oscar perished 
 With glory as a king.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 29 
 
 Pages 38, 39. 
 " His shattered shield beside him ; 
 "While his hand still grasped his sword 
 His precious blood on every side 
 Flowed swiftly through his harness. 
 
 Page 41. 
 " Sad it is, my brave Oscar, 
 Thou good son of my son : 
 After thee I'm but feeble. 
 And after Erin's brave Feinn 
 The heavy curse of Art Aenir 
 Is on us to our great grief ; 
 From the East it me pursued, 
 Folio wino- me along; the field. 
 Farewell to battle and to fame, 
 
 " His own son did no man mourn, 
 Nor did mourn his brother ; 
 As they saw how lay my son, 
 All did mourn for Oscar. 
 
 " When Oscar had heard Finn's wail, 
 Convulsive pangs did him seize ; 
 Both of his hands he stretched forth, 
 And his soft fair eyelid fell. 
 From us then Finn turned away 
 And shed many bitter tears, 
 But for Oscar and for Bran 
 Never did he shed a tear.
 
 30 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 " Then raised we the noble Oscar 
 Aloft on the shafts of our spears ; 
 To a fair green knoll we bore him 
 That we his dress mio;ht remove : 
 Of his body one hand's breadth 
 Was not whole down from his hair 
 Till you reached the sole of his foot." 
 
 There is also the poem of Fainesolis or 'The Sun- 
 beam/ given at page 20 of the Dean of Lismore's col- 
 lection, which is introduced by way of episode by 
 Macpherson under the name of ' The Maid of Craca,' 
 in the 4th book of ' Fino-al/ 
 
 Also the poem of Conloch at page 50, which is the 
 ' Carihon ' of Macpherson. 
 
 From the intercourse between the west coast of Scot- 
 land and Ireland, which might be considered one coun- 
 try, having a community of manners and language, as 
 well as the closest political connection, the scenes de- 
 scribed in some of these poems were of common interest 
 to both nations. That they were known in both coun- 
 tries, appears from various sources. In the collection 
 published by Miss Brooke, entitled 'Eeliques of Irish 
 Poetry,' in 1789, the first is a description of the Battle 
 of Gaura, under the title of Magnus the Great ; the 
 second, Fainesolis, under the title of Moira Borb ; and 
 the third bears the same name of Conloch as that above 
 mentioned. But in the poem of Magnus there is no 
 mention of the death of Oscar. 
 
 The tragical story of Darthula and of three sons of 
 Usnerch— Naos, Ainle, and Arden — is contained in the
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 3 1 
 
 Glenmasen MS. in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, 
 but differs somewhat from that published by Mr Mac- 
 pherson. The MS. is dated 1238. The following is 
 the lament of Darthula over Alban taken from that 
 manuscript, and not given by Mr Macpherson. The 
 scenery is in Argyllshire. Literal translation : 
 
 " Beloved land, that Eastern land, 
 Alba with its wonders, 
 
 that I might not depart from it, 
 But that I go with Naise. 
 
 " Beloved is Dunfidhgha and Dun Finn, 
 Beloved the Dun above them, 
 Beloved is Innisdraighende, 
 And beloved Suibhne. 
 
 " Coillchuan ! Coillchuan ! 
 Where Ainnle would, alas ! resort ; 
 Too short I deem was then my stay, 
 With Ainnle in Oirir Alban. 
 
 " Glenlaidhe ! Glenlaidhe ! 
 
 1 use to sleep by its soothing murmur ; 
 Fish and flesh of wild boar and badger 
 Was my repast in Glenlaidhe. 
 
 " Glenmassan ! O Glenmassan ! 
 High its herbs, fair its boughs, 
 Solitary was the place of our repose 
 On grassy Invermassan.
 
 32 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 " Gleneitche ! Gleneitche ! 
 There was raised my earliest home ; 
 Beautiful its woods ou rising 
 When the sun struck on Gleneitche. 
 
 " Glen Urchain ! Glen Urchain ! 
 It was the straight glen of smooth ridges ; 
 Not more joyful was a man of his age, 
 Than Naoise in Glen Urchain. 
 
 " Glenduruadh ! Glenduruadh ! 
 My love each man of its inheritance ; 
 Sweet the voice of the cuckoo on bending bough 
 On the hill above Glenduruadh. 
 
 " Beloved is Draighen and its sounding shore, 
 Beloved the water o'er pure sand ; 
 that I might not depart from the east 
 But that I go with my beloved/' 
 
 Mr Jerome Stone, a schoolmaster at Dunkeld, in 
 Perthshire, commenced a collection of ancient Gaelic 
 poetry, and published a translation of one of the poems, 
 Bos Fhraoich, in the 'Scots Magazine' in 1756, under 
 the name of ' Albin and the Daughter of Mcy ;' but hav- 
 ing died at an early age, his collection was not completed. 
 'I'll is poem is also in the Dean of Lismore's collection. 
 
 The next collection of importance is that of Mr Dun- 
 can Kennedy, a schoolmaster at Craignish, in Argyll- 
 shire, which was begun in 1774 and completed in 1785. 
 It consists of upwards of twenty pieces, the reciters of
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. $$ 
 
 which are named by him, and contains a number 
 of the poems given by the Dean of Lismore, several 
 of those given by Miss Brooke, also the Battle of 
 Lora given by Macpherson, and the poem of Conloch, 
 where Conal is represented as sending for Cuchullin to 
 oppose the victorious stranger, whose progress to the 
 combat is described with the same sublime and terrible 
 imagery which is given in Macpherson's translation of 
 The Death of Cuchullin. The subject of this passage 
 is remarkable, as the ' Spirit of Loda ' has been a cause 
 of dispute among the inquirers into the authenticity 
 of the poems of Ossian. It is much admired in the 
 original, and is therefore inserted here, with a transla- 
 tion : 
 
 " Ruidh e fiar le tartar uamhan, 
 'S fuaimneach arm mar spiorad Lodda, 
 Sgaoile goiraig is crith chatha 
 Fea an rathaid gu grad ehorag. 
 Mar mhile tonn a beacaich 
 In stoirm eitidh re slios carraige, 
 B'amhail fuaim arm 'f a luirich, 
 'S ar a ghnuis bha dulachd catha. 
 Bha claidheamh liobhaidh a dealra 
 Tout' anaird in laimh a churaidh, 
 Is na gaotha frannor ag gluasad 
 A chiabh ar snua frotha buinne. 
 Na cnuic ar gach taobh dhe chrithich, — 
 Chlisg ant slilighe fu a chosan, 
 Las a shuilean, dhat a chridhe, 
 B'anfheilidh a chith is a choltas." 
 
 c
 
 34 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 " He rushed west with terror in his tread, 
 In the sound of his arms like the spirit of Loda 
 When he scatters dismay and panic fear 
 In the path of sudden conflict. 
 As a thousand waves which roar 
 In the wrath of the storm against a rock, 
 Such was the sound of his arms and mail 
 While the gloom of battle spread over his counte- 
 nance ; 
 His polished sword gleamed uplifted 
 In the hand of the champion ; 
 While the rustling winds tossed his locks 
 Like the foam of a rapid stream. 
 The little hills quaked around him, 
 The path shook under his steps, 
 His eyes flamed, his heart swelled — 
 Awful was the storm of his face." 
 
 About the year 1780, Mr John Clark, land-surveyor 
 in Badenoch, published translations of ancient Gaelic 
 poetry. The next collector of importance was the Rev. 
 Dr John Smith, minister of Kilbrandon, in Argyllshire, 
 who in 1780 published the translations of fourteen 
 Gaelic poems collected by him, all of them of great 
 merit, and some as beautiful as any published by Mac- 
 pherson. The originals were published in 1787, and 
 extend to about 4000 lines. In these poems are to be 
 found, not only the same strain of high and impassioned 
 poetry, but also the same delicacy and refinement of 
 sentiment which form so remarkable a feature in 
 the poems translated by Macpherson. In particular
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 35 
 
 we would mention Tiomna Ghuill or ' The Death of 
 Gaul.' The opening of the poem is in that spirit of 
 melancholy which Ossian indulges when he recalls 
 the deeds of the heroes of his race. 
 
 " Is not the silence of night mournful, 
 While she spreads her dark clouds over the vales ? 
 Sleep has descended on the youth of the chase, 
 Upon the heath, his dog resting against his knee. 
 The children of the mountains he pursues 
 In his dream, while his sleep is forsaking him. 
 Sleep, ye children of fatigue, 
 While each star but ascends the height. 
 Sleep, swift dog of the course, 
 Ossian will not interrupt your slumbers. 
 I am watching alone : 
 Soothing to me is the gloom of night, 
 While I travel from dell to dell, 
 Without hope of morning or dawn. 
 Spare thy light, Sun ! 
 And do not consume so fast thy torches : 
 Like the King of the Fingalians, generous is thy 
 
 soul, 
 But thy liberality will hereafter fail — 
 Spare the torches of thousand flames 
 In thy blue hall, when thou goest 
 Under the dusky gates to sleep 
 Beneath the darkened skirt of the western sky — 
 Spare them, before they leave thee alone, 
 As I am, without a person to share my fondness — 
 Spare them, since there is not a hero to view
 
 36 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 The blue flame of the beautiful torches. 
 
 Caothan of the joyful lights, 
 
 Thy torches are now darkened ; 
 
 Like an oak which has quickly faded, 
 
 Thy dwellings and their people have failed. 
 
 East or west, on the face of thy mountain, 
 
 There is not found of one of them but the ruin 
 
 In Seallama* in Taura or TigK-mo-ri ;* 
 
 There is no shell, nor song, nor harp ; 
 
 Thev are all become green mounds, 
 
 And their stones in their own meadows. 
 
 The stranger will not perceive from the desert 
 
 Any of them showing its head through the cloud. 
 
 " And thou, Seallama, house of my delight ! 
 Is this heap thine old ruin ? 
 "Where now grows the thistle, the heath, and the rank 
 
 grass. 
 Mourning under the drops of night ? 
 Around my grey locks 
 The solitary owl flutters, 
 And the roe starts from her bed 
 Without fearing the mournful Ossian. 
 
 " Eoe of the hollow cairns, 
 Where dwelt Oscar and Fion, 
 I will not do thee anv hurt : 
 Never shalt thou be wounded by my dart. 
 To the top of Seallama I stretch my hand — 
 The dwelling has no cover but sky. 
 I search for the broad shield below. 
 The top of my spear has struck its boss — 
 
 * The Selma and Temora of Macpherson.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 37 
 
 Sounding boss of battles ! 
 Gladdening to me is thy sound ; 
 It awakes the days that have passed, 
 And, in spite of age, my soul bounds/' 
 
 The only other collector we shall notice was the 
 Rev. Alexander Irvine of Little Dunkeld, who, when a 
 missionary in Eannoch (a very remote part of the 
 country), made a collection of Ossianic poems, many of 
 which are the same as those published by Macpherson, 
 but varied in expression by the different reciters. These 
 poems were collected between the years 1801 and 
 1805, and the name of each reciter, and the date of 
 the recitation, is particularly mentioned. This collec- 
 tion is in the possession of the Irvine family, in the 
 handwriting of the collector, and has never been pub- 
 lished. 
 
 The various collections now enumerated were made 
 from the oral recitations of uneducated persons, who 
 recited in Gaelic verse, and at a period long previous to 
 1807, the date when the extant portion of the Gaelic 
 versions that were in the possession of Macpherson 
 was published by the Highland Society. They could 
 not therefore have been derived from the latter source. 
 Yet we find that many of the poems contained in these 
 several independent collections are not only substan- 
 tially the same, but likewise closely resemble poems 
 contained in the portion that has been recovered and 
 published of the Gaelic poems collected by Macpher- 
 son, and embodied by him in the English Ossian which 
 he published in the form of an epic. Among these
 
 38 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 are the following, which are about the most beautiful 
 parts of Ossian, and on that account have probably- 
 been longest cherished in recitation : 
 
 1. The description of Cuchullin's chariot — 'Fingal/ 
 Book I. 
 
 2. The Battle of Lena—' Fingal/ Book II. 
 
 3. The episode of Fainesolis — ' Fingal,' Book 
 
 III. 
 
 4. Fingal's voyage to Loclilin. The snares laid for 
 
 him by Starno, and the death of Agandecca — 
 < Fingal/ Book III. 
 
 5. The actions of Ossian at the Lake of Lego, and 
 
 his courtship of Everallin — ' Fingal/ Book 
 IV. 
 
 6. The description of the opening of the battle. The 
 
 raising of the standards. The orders to the 
 chiefs. Their resolutions of fighting each a 
 chief ; and so to the end of Book IV. 
 
 7. Fingal's combat with Sivaran — 'Fingal/ Book 
 
 V. 
 
 8. The episode of Orla — Book V. 
 
 9. A portion of the latter part of this book — 
 
 " Then Gaul and Ossian sat with Swaran on 
 the green banks of Lubar " — Book V. 
 
 10. The battle of Lora. 
 
 11. Conlath, or the war of Inisthona. 
 
 12. Carthon, similar to Conloch, and in particular 
 
 the Address to the Sun. 
 
 13. The death of Cuthullin, or the battle of Lochlego. 
 
 14. Darthula.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 39 
 
 15. Address to the sun in Carrie - Tliura, and a 
 
 small portion towards the end of the poem. 
 
 16. Part of Berrathon. 
 
 17. Address to the Evening Star, in the Song of 
 
 Selma. 
 
 18. Part of Temora. 
 
 19. The combat between Oscar and TJllin in the 
 
 ' Fragments.' 
 
 20. Ullins war-song. 
 
 21. The lamentation of Dargos spouse. 
 
 We know not with certainty how many Gaelic poems 
 were collected by Macpherson which are not compre- 
 hended in his collection as published, but it is to be 
 inferred from the number of the manuscripts recovered 
 by him, and the oral recitations collected by him, that 
 he was in possession of a much larger number of 
 poems, and more perfect versions of them, than were 
 collected by those that followed him. 
 
 That the Gaelic poems which he directed to be 
 published were obtained by him in the form in which 
 they now appear, and were neither translations from 
 the English, nor modern compositions of his own or 
 of any one connected with him, is evident from what 
 has been already stated, and is proved by the direct 
 testimony of those who assisted in their collection and 
 translation. We have Mr Lachlan Macpherson of 
 Strathmashie, who says, — " I took down from oral tra- 
 dition, and transcribed from old manuscripts, by far 
 the greatest part of these pieces he has published. I 
 have carefully compared the translation with the copies
 
 40 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 of the originals in my hands, and find it amazingly 
 literal." 
 
 We have also Ewan Macpherson, who was employed 
 with James Macpherson for weeks in taking down 
 these poems from recitation :* " That some time subse- 
 quent to the above excursion, he met Mr Macpherson 
 at Edinburgh, and was presented by him with a copy 
 of ' Fingal ' : That he recollects to have read a part of 
 it, and to have been then of opinion, as far as he could 
 recollect the substance of the original, that this transla- 
 tion was well executed." 
 
 We have also the testimony of Captain Morison, who 
 says,t " That he got the Address to the Sun among 
 Mr Macpherson's original papers, when transcribing 
 fairly for him from these original papers (either col- 
 lected by himself or transmitted by his Highland 
 friends), as it stood in the poem of ' Carthon,' after- 
 wards translated and published. 
 
 " Admits he had much merit in collecting, arranging, 
 and translating ; but that he was no great poet, nor 
 thoroughly conversant in Gaelic literature ; so far from 
 composing such poems as were translated, that he 
 assisted him often in understanding some words, and 
 suggested some improvements ; that he could as well 
 compose the Prophecies of Isaiah, or create the island of 
 Skye, as compose a poem like one of Ossian's ; that there 
 are many other such poems which Macpherson did not 
 collect, and collected some which he did not translate, 
 but made choice with proper taste." 
 
 Next to those who were engaged in assisting Mac- 
 
 * H. S. R, App., p. 98. t Id., p. 177.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 41 
 
 plierson in his collections, stood, in point of knowledge, 
 Dr Blair ; and he, writing to Mr Mackenzie on the 
 20th December 1797, says:"" "Scepticism has indeed 
 been entertained by many how far his work, supposing 
 it to be no imposture on the whole, could be relied 
 upon as an accurate and faithful translation of his 
 Gaelic originals ? That in some of the longer works 
 he may have combined and brought together some 
 pieces which he found scattered and broken ; and that, 
 in comparing the different copies which he frequently 
 found of the same poem, either in manuscript or by 
 rehearsal, he selected from them all such as he thought 
 the best readings, I make no doubt, nor did he himself 
 seek to disown it. I also think it probable that he 
 may have left out some rudenesses and extravagances 
 which he might occasionally find in the old Gaelic 
 songs. But, after all the inquiries I have been at pains 
 to make, I can find no ground to suspect that his devia- 
 tions from the original text were at all considerable, or 
 his interpolations any more than what were simply ne- 
 cessary to connect together pieces of one whole which he 
 found disjointed. That his work, as it stands, exhibits 
 a genuine authentic view of ancient Gaelic poetry, I 
 am as firmly persuaded as I can be of anything." 
 
 The view taken by Dr Blair of the mode of arrange- 
 ment of the pieces collected by Macpherson, is to a 
 certain extent corroborated by Macpherson himself in 
 his letter to Mr M 'Lagan, where he says : "I have met 
 with a number of old manuscripts in my travels ; the 
 poetical part of them I have endeavoured to secure. 
 
 * H. S. R, App., p. 61.
 
 42 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 "Your collection, I am informed, is pure, as you 
 have taken pains to restore the style." 
 
 Again, in the preface to ' Temora,' he says : " By 
 means of my friends I have since collected all the 
 broken fragments of ' Temora ' that I formerly wanted ; 
 and the story of the poem, which was accurately pre- 
 served by many, enabled me to reduce it into that 
 order in which it now appears. The title of epic was 
 imposed on the poem by myself. 
 
 " The reader will find some alterations in the style 
 of this book. These are drawn from more correct 
 copies of the original, which came to my hands since 
 the former publication. As the most part of the poem 
 is delivered down by tradition, the style is sometimes 
 various and interpolated. After comparing the dif- 
 ferent readings, I always made choice of that which 
 agreed best with the spirit of the context." 
 
 This is an accurate account of the collection and 
 publication of the poems of Ossian by Macpherson, and 
 contains nearly all that is known on the subject. 
 
 Let us now see who his assailants were, and what 
 were their arguments. 
 
 The first was the celebrated Dr Samuel Johnson, 
 whose word was at that time law on all literary matters. 
 He at once denounced Macpherson as an impostor, and 
 his work a fiction. In 1773 he undertook a journey 
 to the Highlands with Mr Boswell, but neither of them 
 being acquainted with the Gaelic language, they could 
 hold no communication with those who could recite 
 Ossian's poems. Johnson returned with his opinion 
 unchanged, and soon afterwards published his Tour,
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 43 
 
 in which he spoke of Macpherson and his works in the 
 most offensive manner. He says :* 
 
 "I suppose my opinion of the poems of Ossian is 
 already discovered. / believe they never existed in 
 any other form than that which we have seen. The 
 editor, or author, never could show the original, nor 
 can it be shown by any other. To revenge reasonable 
 incredulity by refusing evidence is a degree of insolence 
 with which the world is not yet acquainted, and stub- 
 born audacity is the last refuge of guilt. It would be 
 easy to show it if he had it ; but whence could it be 
 had? It is too long to be remembered, and the lan- 
 guage formerly had nothing written. He has doubt- 
 less inserted names that circulate in popular stories, 
 and may have translated some wandering ballads, if 
 any can be found ; and the names of some of the images 
 being recollected, make an inaccurate auditor imagine, 
 by the help of Caledonian bigotry, that he has formerly 
 heard the whole. 
 
 " It is said that some men of integrity profess to 
 have heard parts of it, but they all heard them when 
 they were boys, and it teas never said that any of 
 them could recite six lines. 
 
 " The Scots have something to plead for their easy 
 reception of an improbable fiction ; they are seduced by 
 their fondness for their supposed ancestors. A Scotch- 
 man must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love 
 Scotland better than truth ; he will always love it 
 better than inquiry, and, if falsehood flatters his vanity, 
 will not be very diligent to detect it." 
 
 * See Boswell's Johnscn, 6th ed., vol. ii., p. 273.
 
 44 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 This rude attack roused Macpherson, and drew him 
 forth from the silence which he had hitherto observed. 
 He wrote to Johnson, and placed his original manu- 
 scripts in Mr Becket the London bookseller's shop, 
 intimating by advertisement in the newspapers that he 
 had done so. He then called upon Johnson to retract 
 his accusations ; and on his refusing to do so, he sent 
 him a message by his friend Mr William Duncan, of 
 Brunswick Square, London, and on Johnson's declining 
 to give satisfaction, threatened to chastise him.""" It is 
 to be regretted that we have not Macpherson's letters 
 to Johnson, but from Johnson's letters, as given by his 
 biographer, Mr Boswell, we have enough to substantiate 
 the accuracy of the above statement. It is further said 
 that Johnson provided himself with a large stick for the 
 purpose of self-defence ; but as he threatened legal pro- 
 ceedings, Macpherson did not carry out his intention. 
 
 That he placed the originals of Ossian in Becket's 
 shop there is abundant evidence. Dr Blair says :t 
 " These doubts his temper led him to disdain, perhaps 
 to disdain too much. So far, however, he endeavoured 
 to give satisfaction to the public, that for some months 
 he left all the originals of his translation in Becket the 
 bookseller's shop, and intimated by advertisement in 
 the newspapers that he had done so." And Sir John 
 Sinclair, who lived a great portion of the year in Lon- 
 don, and was intimate with Macpherson, says, in his 
 dissertation prefixed to the Gaelic Ossian, that he placed 
 in Becket's shop not only all the original manuscripts, 
 
 * See dissertation by Sir John Sinclair, App., p. 220. 
 t H. S. R., App., p. .59.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 45 
 
 but the extracts made from them by himself and his 
 friends. 
 
 Bos well, having heard of the altercation which had 
 taken place betwixt Johnson and Macpherson, writes 
 to Johnson from Edinburgh on the 2d February 
 1775 :* 
 
 "As to Macpherson, I am anxious to have from 
 yourself a full and pointed account of what has passed 
 between you and him. It is confidently told here that 
 before your book came out he sent to you to let you 
 know that he understood you meant to deny the 
 authenticity of Ossian's poems; that the originals were 
 in his possession; that you might have inspection of 
 them, and might take the evidence of people skilled in 
 the Erse language; and that he hoped, after this fair 
 offer, you would not be so uncandid as to assert that 
 he had refused reasonable proof. That you paid no 
 regard to this message, but published your strong 
 attack upon him ; and then he wrote a letter to you in 
 such terms as he thought suited to one who had not 
 acted as a man of veracity. 
 
 "You may believe it gives me pain to hear your 
 conduct represented as unfavourable, while I can only 
 deny what is said on the ground that your character 
 refutes it, without having any information to oppose* 
 Let me, I beg it of you, be furnished with a sufficient 
 answer to any calumny upon this occasion." 
 
 Johnson answers this letter on the 7th February 
 1775 as follows :t 
 
 * See Boswell's Johnson, 6th ed., vol. ii. p. 308. 
 t Boswell, vol. ii. p. 310.
 
 46 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 " I am surprised that, knowing as you do the dis- 
 position of your countrymen to tell lies in favour of 
 each other, you can be at all affected by any reports 
 that circulate among them. Macpherson never in his 
 life offered me a sight of any original, or of any evi- 
 dence of any kind, but thought only of intimidating 
 me by noise and threats, till my last answer — that I 
 would not be deterred from detecting what I thought a 
 cheat by the menaces of a ruffian — put an end to our 
 correspondence. 
 
 " The state of the question is this : He and Dr Blair, 
 whom I consider deceived, say that he copied the 
 poem from old manuscripts. His copies, if he had 
 them, and I believe him to have none, are nothing — 
 where are the manuscripts? They can be shown if 
 they exist, but they were never shown. De non exis- 
 tentibus et non apparentibus, says our law, eadem est 
 ratio. No man has a claim to credit upon his word 
 when better evidence, if he had it, may be easily pro- 
 duced. But, so far as we can find, the Erse language 
 was never written till very lately for the purposes of 
 religion. A nation that cannot write, or a language 
 that was never written, has no manuscripts. 
 
 " But whatever he has, he never offered to show. If 
 old manuscripts should now be mentioned, I should, 
 unless there were more evidence than can be easily 
 had, suppose them another proof of Scotch conspiracy 
 in national falsehood." 
 
 A most uncandid letter, as will be seen by reference 
 to Boswell's letter to Johnson on 27th of the previous 
 month, in which he asked, —
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 47 
 
 " "What does Becket mean by the originals of ' Fin- 
 gal ' and other poems of Ossian, which he advertises to 
 have lain in his shop ?" * 
 
 Now here we have it under Boswell's hand that 
 while Johnson was asserting that Macpherson had no 
 originals, and that he had never offered to show them, 
 he was at that very time aware where they were 
 placed, and had been invited by advertisement to see 
 them. But in the latter part of his letter Johnson 
 betrays his knowledge of the fact, for he says that if 
 old manuscripts should now be mentioned, he should 
 suppose them another proof of Scotch conspiracy in 
 national falsehood. Does this show the great love of 
 " truth " and of " inquiry " which he so ostentatiously 
 professes, and which he wishes the public to believe 
 belongs exclusively to himself ? It is to be regretted 
 that Macpherson's letter to Johnson has not been 
 preserved, for it might have thrown more light on this 
 controversy, but Boswell gives the following, dictated 
 to him by Johnson, as being the purport of the reply 
 he had made : 
 
 " I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any 
 violence offered me I shall do my best to repel, and 
 what I cannot do for myself the law shall do for me. 
 I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I 
 think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian. 
 
 " What would you have me retract ? I thought 
 your book an imposture, and I think it an imposture 
 still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the 
 public, which I dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. 
 
 * Boswell, 6th ed., vol. ii. p. 310.
 
 48 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable, 
 and what I bear of your morals inclines me to pay 
 regard, not to what you shall say, but to what you 
 shall prove. You may print this if you will." 
 
 In these letters there is not only a want of fairness, 
 but also a perversion or utter ignorance of fact. John- 
 son says that Gaelic was never, till lately, a written 
 language. Now, as before stated, although many manu- 
 scripts have no doubt been lost, there are still some to 
 be found in private collections, and there are at this 
 moment no fewer than 65 in the Advocates' Library at 
 Edinburgh, some of which are as old as the eleventh 
 century; and in Ireland they greatly exceed this num- 
 ber. In the next place, he says that no one in the 
 Highlands could repeat six lines of Ossianic poetry. 
 Ample evidence has been produced to refute that state- 
 ment. Yet the great authority quoted to this day 
 against the authenticity of Ossian's poems is Dr John- 
 son, which tends to prove how few have studied the 
 matter for themselves. Not only is the idea that a 
 whole nation could be capable of contributing to the 
 forgery of these manuscripts an extravagant absur- 
 dity, but the resort to such a rabid calumny as a 
 reason for not listening to evidence indicates a state 
 of moral blindness incompatible with dispassionate 
 j udgment. 
 
 The next assailant of Macpherson was Mr Malcolm 
 Laing, an Edinburgh barrister, and an Orkney pro- 
 prietor, who entered on his task with all the dogma- 
 tism of Johnson and the anti-Celtic antipathy of his 
 countrymen. In 1805 he republished Macpherson's
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 49 
 
 translation with numerous notes, in which he ran- 
 sacked all the authors, ancient and modern, for parallel 
 passages to those in Macpherson's Ossian. This species 
 of criticism has long been looked upon with distrust ; for 
 as similes are for the most part taken from natural 
 objects, there must to a certain extent be a correspon- 
 dence between different authors, though without any 
 plagiarism. How far Mr Laing's analogies are fair 
 and just will be seen presently. But, in the first place, 
 let us see how far his deductions are authorised by his 
 premises. The animus with which Mr Laing set about 
 his task may be gathered from the following : "" " His 
 private character may well be spared ; and it is sufficient 
 to observe that his morals were not such as to refute 
 the charge which I have made, that, with a genius truly 
 poetical, he was one of the first literary impostors in 
 modern times." This is truly Johnsonian, and rather 
 a begging of the question. 
 
 Mr Laing says that the words given by Dr Ferguson 
 of the single combat of Swaran and Cuthullin is not 
 in Ossian, but is to be found in the Irish ballad of Fin- 
 gal and Magnus. On what authority does he make 
 this statement ? Miss Brooke publishes the ballad of 
 Magnus, but it is not there. 
 
 Mr Laing founds on the similarity of the description 
 of Fingal's Standard by Macpherson, and that in the 
 poem of Magnus, as a proof of Macpherson's imposture, 
 while, in fact, it is evidence of the authenticity of the 
 Ossianic poems, and of Laing's own ignorance of mate- 
 rial facts. For Macpherson was never in Ireland, and 
 
 * See addition to sketch of Macpherson's life in Laing's preface. 
 
 1)
 
 50 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 could not have seen the original of the poem of Magnus 
 till published by Miss Brooke with a translation in 
 1789, whereas Macpherson's translation appeared in 
 1761. The Battle of Gaura, which is the subject of the 
 poems of Fingal and of Magnus, was fought in Ulster 
 by the forces of Cuthullin and Fingal against Swaran ; 
 and their similarity only proves that these poems, though 
 differing in version, were common to the traditions of 
 both countries. 
 
 In regard to the fragments given to Mr Home by 
 Macpherson, at Moffat in 1759, MrLaing says : "In a 
 day or two he produced the fragment on the death of 
 Oscar, which of all others is the most demonstratively 
 a forgery, and which Macpherson himself was obliged 
 afterwards to appropriate to another Oscar, the son of 
 Caruth. When the very first poem produced by Mac- 
 pherson is an almost avowed fabrication, it is evident 
 that, on finding the genuine Erse ballads unfit for 
 translation, he could not resist the temptation to vin- 
 dicate that neglected merit of which he was conscious 
 by submitting his own 'poetry, which the public had 
 hitherto overlooked, to a distinguished judge as a relic 
 of antiquity." 
 
 This is a fair specimen of Mr Laing's species of criti- 
 cism. It will be remembered that when Macpherson 
 met Mr Home at Moffat accidentally in 1759, he was 
 only twenty-one years of age. Mr Home having heard 
 from Dr A. Ferguson, himself a Highlander, that there 
 were remains of ancient Gaelic poetry in the Highlands, 
 approached Macpherson on the subject; and on learning 
 that he had some fragments in his possession which he
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 5 1 
 
 had taken down from recitation, he requested him to 
 translate two of them, which Macpherson did, after 
 some reluctance, fearing that a prose translation would 
 not do justice to the original; but eventually he did 
 translate them into English prose, and gave them to 
 Mr Home, who showed them to Drs Blair and Ferguson, 
 by whom they were much admired. It turned out that 
 one of these fragments, 'The Death of Oscar;' was ap- 
 plicable to another Oscar than the son of Ossian, but 
 on what ground does Mr Laing pronounce it a forgery ? 
 Does he mean to say that Macpherson never heard 
 these poems recited in Gaelic as he took them down ? 
 if so, what is his authority ? — what object could Mac- 
 pherson have in deceiving Mr Home 1 Mr Laing says, 
 " That he could not resist the temptation to vindicate 
 that neglected merit of which he was conscious by sub- 
 mitting his own i^oetnj, which the public had hitherto 
 overlooked, to a distinguished judge as a relic of 
 antiquity/' But as the translation was in prose and 
 not in poetry, the whole of Mr Laing's visionary theory 
 of fabrication falls to the ground. In the very next 
 paragraph Mr Laing says, on the authority of a Mi- 
 Laurie, who pretends to have letters from Mr Macpher- 
 son, which are not produced, " that his Highland pride 
 was alarmed at appearing only as a translator to the 
 world." Where, then, was "the temptation," which, 
 according to Mr Laing:, "he could not resist" — the 
 temptation to represent " his own poetry as a relic of 
 antiquity " ? 
 
 Dr Blair obtained from Macpherson a translation of 
 all the fragments he had, being; fifteen in number, and
 
 52 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 published them in 1760, with a preface by himself, in 
 which lie states, " They may depend on the following 
 fragments as genuine remains of ancient Scottish 
 poetry.'' On this Mr Laing remarks, " Without once 
 reflecting that the pretended translator was himself a 
 poet." Thereby implying that these translations were 
 forgeries of Macpherson's, and that the originals never 
 existed. On what grounds Mr Laing comes to this 
 conclusion he does not explain. He knew nothing of 
 the lower class of Highlanders ; he was ignorant of their 
 language, and had no means personally of ascertaining 
 whether these fragments were recited 1 >y them or not ; 
 and if he could have learned from others that such was 
 the case, he was incapable of appreciating their beauty 
 or the accuracy of the translation. But, unfortunately 
 for Mr Laing's theory, the Highland Society's Com- 
 mittee have recovered ample evidence of some of these 
 fragments being recited in Gaelic both before and after 
 the translation of them was published, and previous to 
 the publication of them in Gaelic. We have before us 
 the small octavo volume printed in 1760 which con- 
 tains those 15 pieces, all of them very short. We have 
 compared them with the English Ossian, and find 
 most of them there reproduced ; Nos. 1, 2, 4, and 5 form 
 parts of Carric-thura ; 10, 11, and 12 form part of the 
 Songs of Selma, and 13, 14, and 1.3 part of Fingal ; 
 Nos. 3, 6, 7, 8, and 9 are not there reproduced, being 
 supposed to be more modern, yet one of them, Xo. 6, 
 Dargo, is shown by the already-quoted evidence to have 
 been recited in the Highlands, though the Gaelic origi- 
 nal of it has never been given to the public. So much
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 53 
 
 for this allegation of forgery. Mr Laing, however, on 
 the baseless assumption of the forgery, proceeds : 
 
 " From the first forgery of the death of Oscar, Mac- 
 pherson was conducted, step by step, to other fabrica- 
 tions, by their (Home and Blair) importunity and zeal."' 
 Having thus asserted, without any grounds whatever, 
 that the death of Oscar, and, in fact, all the fragments, 
 were forgeries, and having assumed these false premises, 
 Mr Laing goes on to reason out his own conclusions — 
 with what candour we shall presently see. 
 
 But let us look for a moment at what Dr Carlyle, 
 who was from the first conversant with all Macpherson's 
 doings, says in regard to the fragments : 
 
 "As before this accidental meeting with Mr Home 
 Mr Macpherson had no idea of collecting and translat- 
 ing the works of Ossian, the fact remained on my mind 
 as a strong groundwork for the evidence of the authen- 
 ticity of Ossian, when both the internal and external 
 evidence was so ably scrutinised by Dr Blair. Upon 
 this ground I remain fullv convinced that Macpherson 
 did tint and could not, with all his ability, which was 
 great, fabricate the poems ; though I am ready to admit 
 that, after collecting all the scattered fragments he tied 
 them together in form of heroic poems, as Homer is 
 said to have done when he collected the songs of the 
 Bards of Greece. 
 
 " Macpherson, however, had laid himself too much 
 open to the critics by attempting in his 'Dissertations 
 on Fingal ' to unite two things that must remain sepa- 
 rate — viz., poetical fiction and historical truth — which, 
 I observe, has opened a late violent attack on him by a
 
 54 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 writer of history, which, I have little doubt, will prove 
 as ineffectual to overthrow the authenticity of Ossian 
 as any of the former attacks." We need scarcely say 
 the writer of history here referred to is Mr Laing. 
 
 But Mr Laing goes further, and calls in Macpherson 
 himself to his aid, who, he says, " did not conceal the 
 fact from those with whom he was particularly inti- 
 mate that the poems were entirely his own composition." 
 This he states on the authority of a note said to have 
 been addressed by the Bishop of Dromore to Dr Robert 
 Anderson of Edinburgh. We have not this note in ex- 
 tenso, nor have we Dr Anderson s letter to Mr Laing, 
 but we quote what is given by Mr Laing of the Bishop's 
 note : "The Bishop of Dromore has allowed Dr Ander- 
 son to declare that he repeatedly received the most 
 positive assurances from Sir John Elliot, the confiden- 
 tial friend of Macpherson, that all the poems published 
 by him as translations of Ossian were entirely of his 
 own composition." We should have liked that this 
 note or letter, which is said to have been dated April 
 16th 1805, had been given by Mr Laing at full length 
 — as he particularly requested the Highland Society's 
 Committee to do in their report of the letters which 
 they received — for there is some ambiguity in the 
 phraseology. It does not appear (though the inference 
 is suggested) that Sir John Elliot had ever been told by 
 Macpherson that he was the author, though Sir John 
 appears to have been of opinion that he was the author, 
 and to have said so to the Bishop ; nor is there, apart 
 from this letter, any evidence of Sir John's intimacy 
 with Macpherson, though we are aware of the intimacy
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 55 
 
 of both Bishop Percy and Dr Anderson with Dr John- 
 son, and of the obligations they were under to him, the 
 one in the collection of the 'Beliques/ and the other 
 in his edition of the Poets. It will also be observed 
 that in this note the Bishop gives no opinion of his own 
 as to the authorship ; but in his preface to his ' Reliques ' 
 he states the significant fact not noticed by Mr Laing, 
 that he had caused persons who had never any access 
 to see the translation to give the meaning of those 
 pieces which they repeated, and found the interpretation 
 which he got extempore correspond with the English 
 translation. But, after all, the opinion of Sir John 
 Elliot is not to be put for a moment in competition with 
 the direct evidence of Strathmashie or Captain Morison, 
 of Dr Blair or Dr Carlyle. On this point Dr Carlyle 
 says :* 
 
 "During my intimacy with Macpherson for two 
 winters in London in 1769 and 1770, when I saw him 
 daily, and lived in intimacy with him for four months 
 in each of those seasons, I never was able to discover 
 in his unguarded moments that he was any other than 
 the collector and translator of the works of Ossian, or 
 assumed any other merit than might be derived from 
 thence; but I have heard him express the greatest con- 
 tempt and disdain for those who thought him the fabri- 
 cator of them." 
 
 That Macpherson either admitted or asserted that his 
 Ossian was entirely composed by himself, and not made 
 up of translations of ancient Gaelic poetry, is not only 
 unsupported by any reliable evidence, but is simply 
 
 * See H. S. R., p. 66.
 
 56 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 incredible, 1st, Because lie could have been so easily 
 contradicted and exposed by those who assisted him in 
 the collecting and translating ; and, 2dly, Because, if he 
 had harboured any desire to be so regarded, he would 
 not have preserved any of the Gaelic versions from 
 which he had translated, and would not have in- 
 structed his executor to publish them, nor have left 
 £1 000 to defray the expense of the publication. Equally 
 strained and futile is Mr Laing's attempt to draw from 
 Macpherson's desire to be buried in Westminster Abbey 
 the extraordinary inference that he thereby virtually 
 admitted himself to have been guilty of the imposture 
 imputed to him. Nor is the reference to certain pas- 
 sages in one of Macpherson's prefaces for the same 
 purpose more successful. The passages apparently most 
 relied on are the following, which occur in the last pre- 
 face to his works in 1773 : 
 
 " Without increasing his genius, the author may have 
 improved his language in the eleven years that the 
 following poems have been in the hands of the public. 
 Errors in diction might have been committed at twenty- 
 four which the experience of a riper age may remove ; 
 and some exuberances in imagery may be restrained 
 with advantage by a degree of judgment acquired in the 
 progress of time. Impressed with this opinion, he ran 
 over the whole with attention and accuracy ; and he 
 hopes he has brought the work to a state of correctness 
 which will preclude all future improvements." This 
 clearly applies to Macpherson's own work, the English 
 translation, which was thought rather flowery, and not 
 to the Gaelic original.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 57 
 
 In the other paragraph which follows he says : "When 
 a composition cannot bear the test of a literal version, it 
 is a counterfeit which ought not to pass current. The 
 operation must, however, be performed with skilful 
 hands : a translator who cannot equal his original is 
 incapable of expressing its beauties." This is perfectly 
 true, and is only meant to illustrate the proposition, 
 that unless a translation is done by such skilful hands 
 as to come up to the original, it is incapable of express- 
 ing its beauties ; and when coupled with another para- 
 graph in the same preface, shows distinctly that Mac- 
 pherson never meant to give out to the public that he 
 was the author of the Gaelic Ossian. Alluding to his 
 persecution by the English critics, he says : " When 
 rivers define the limits of abilities as well as the bound- 
 aries of countries, a writer may measure his success by 
 the latitude under which he was born. It was to avoid 
 a part of this inconvenience that the author is said, by 
 some who speak without any authority, to have ascribed 
 his own productions to another name. If this was the 
 case, he was but young in the art of deception. When 
 he placed the poet in antiquity, the translator should 
 have been born on this side of the Tweed." 
 
 Mr Laing deals with Dr Blair's investigation thus : 
 " In consequence of Mr David Hume's letters, Blair 
 wrote to the Highlands to procure attestations, and an 
 incoherent mass of evidence was added to the Disser- 
 tation in an appendix, which Macpherson afterwards 
 suppressed." 
 
 Mr Laing has no objection to the loosest hear- 
 say evidence when it suits his purpose ; but when
 
 58 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 distinct and direct evidence of the most undoubted 
 character is obtained which does not suit his views, 
 he passes it over as " an incoherent mass." He 
 admits, however, that there " are preserved in the 
 Highlands, by tradition or writing, about twenty or 
 thirty Irish ballads relative to the Fions, and ascribed 
 to Ossian," but says that they " are nothing superior 
 in point of poetical merit." There is no ground for 
 characterising these poems as Irish ; some of them are 
 common to both Ireland and the Highlands, but some 
 are not, and they are generally less corrupted in Scot- 
 land than in Ireland, where they are interlarded with 
 romance, and some of the finest passages omitted. In 
 fact, these poems have been recited orally in Scotland, 
 where the language is more pure, to a much later period 
 than in Ireland. But Mr Laing says they have no 
 poetical merit. It has already been shown, and is 
 generally acknowledged, that the finest passages in 
 Macpherson's translation have been recovered in the 
 original ; and as every one acquainted with both lan- 
 guages is aware that in the original these passages 
 are much superior to the translation, it would follow, 
 according to Mr Laing, that the translation must 
 be of no merit. Why, then, was it in the first 
 year after its publication translated into all the lan- 
 guages of Europe ; and why did Mr Laing undertake 
 the task of reprinting it, and writing voluminous notes 
 on it 1 But Mr Laing's inconsistencies are endless. 
 
 Mr Laing further says, — " Johnson was informed, 
 about thirty years ago, that Macphersou, having made 
 some Erse translation from his English Ossian, had
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 59 
 
 taught a boy to write them, with injunctions to declare 
 that he had learned them from his grandmother; but 
 the boy when he grew up told the story." Mr Laing 
 gives this story apparently on the authority of Johnson, 
 and we must infer that he believes it, or wishes it to be 
 believed, more especially as he adds that " somewhat 
 of the same evidence is now obtruded upon the public." 
 Laing refers to a letter by Johnson to Boswell, of date 
 25th February 1775, which was, be it observed, im- 
 mediately after Macpherson had threatened to chas- 
 tise Johnson. On turning to the letter referred to, we 
 see the nature of the "information" which Mr Laing 
 regards as evidence of this absurd story. Johnson 
 describes it thus : " Macpherson is said to have made 
 some translations himself, and having taught a boy to 
 write it, ordered him to say that he had learned it of 
 his grandmother. The boy when he grew up told the 
 story. This Mrs Williams heard at Mr Strahan's 
 table." But from whom she heard it, or who the boy 
 was, or where he lived, or to whom he told the story 
 when he grew up, are not disclosed ; nor is it obvious 
 what object Macpherson could hope to accomplish by 
 such a wretched attempt at fraud. But even tea-table 
 gossip, as repeated by some old lady, was apparently 
 soothing to Johnson in his then state of mind ; and, for 
 want of something better, has been seized on by Mr 
 Laing with his usual avidity, and represented by him 
 as a veritable fact. 
 
 Let us now see how Mr Laing endeavours to support 
 his statement that " somewhat of the same evidence is 
 now obtruded upon the public."
 
 60 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 " Sixteen lines" (says Mr Laing) "of Fingal in Erse 
 are produced by Mr Gallie, an old clergyman of eighty, 
 to whom they were furnished by a friend well acquaint- 
 ed with Gaelic, from the manuscript which Macpherson 
 had formerly translated at the old gentleman's fireside. 
 On applying to the latter for the name of his friend, ' so 
 well known for his uncommon acquaintance with Gaelic,' 
 I was informed that it was Mr Lachlan Macpherson of 
 Strathmashie. This gentleman, in his letter to Blair, 
 had attested without hesitation in 1763 that he had 
 accompanied Macpherson in his journey through the 
 Highlands, and assisted in collecting the poems of 
 Ossian ; that he took down from oral tradition, and 
 transcribed from old manuscripts, by far the greatest 
 part of those pieces that were published ; that he had 
 since compared the translations with the copies of the 
 originals still in his hands, and found them so amazingly 
 literal as to preserve even the cadence of the Gaelic 
 versification ; that some of the hereditary bards had 
 committed very early to writing some of the works of 
 Ossian, and that one manuscript in particular, which he 
 saw in Macpherson's possession, was written so far back 
 as 1410. Instead of appearing in person to produce 
 those copies of the originals which remained in his hands, 
 and to attest to the world from what particular manu- 
 scripts, extant or lost, or from whose oral recitation he 
 had transcribed them, this gentleman, the kinsman, 
 friend, and amanuensis of Macpherson, and a brother 
 poet, had furnished Mr Gallie with sixteen lines of 
 the Erse version of Fingal made at his fireside, with- 
 out suspecting that the latter would ever divulge
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 6l 
 
 the secret from whom the lines had been originally 
 procured." 
 
 We are at a loss to perceive any fraud in Mr Gallie 
 applying to Mr L. Macpherson of Strathmashie (who had 
 a number of James Macpherson's manuscripts) for a copy 
 of the translation made at his (Mr Gallie's) fireside by 
 James Macpherson and himself, and also for an extract 
 from the original Gaelic manuscript of the portion so 
 translated ; nor was there anything wrong in Strath- 
 mashie furnishing it, nor any reason for concealment, 
 nor attempt at it ; but if Mr Laing means, as he appears 
 to say, that the Gaelic lines were made at Mr Gallie's 
 fireside, he not merely perverts evidence, but asserts 
 without authority what is in direct opposition to the 
 facts as stated in Mr Gallie's letters quoted above. Mr 
 Laing continues : 
 
 " In a liberal and, to men of letters, an interesting- 
 controversy, which I have happily divested of its former 
 acrimony, it is painful to animadvert upon those dis- 
 ingenuous arts to which anonymous writers are so apt 
 to resort. But when the parole evidence amounts to 
 nothing, the question returns with additional force, — 
 Where are the manuscripts which Macpherson cer- 
 tainly collected in the Highlands ? ' ; It is rather ludi- 
 crous that Mr Laing should thus take credit for having 
 divested the controversy of acrimony when he not only 
 casts doubts on the testimony of every one who has 
 given evidence as to the authenticity of these poems, 
 and ignores the whole parole proof, but indulges in 
 insinuations against the veracity of such gentlemen as 
 Strathmashie and Captain Morison, applies the word
 
 62 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 " impostor" to Macpherson, and sneers at Drs Blair and 
 Ferguson. 
 
 In his dissertation, published in 1800, Mr Laing 
 says, — " If a single poem of Ossian in manuscript, 
 such as translated by Macpherson, of a decent length, 
 and the MS. indisputably of an older date than the 
 present century, be produced and lodged in a public 
 library, I shall return among the first to our na- 
 tional creed." In answer to this challenge, we would 
 refer to the Death of Oscar in " Temora," and the 
 episode of Fainesolis in " Fingal," and the poem of 
 " Carthon," contained in the Dean of Lismore's book, 
 of date 1512, now in the Advocates' Library, and 
 which, though varying somewhat from Macpherson's 
 version, are in fact but different editions of the same 
 poems. 
 
 Mr Laing, in speaking of the twenty or thirty ballads 
 previously alluded to (which he is pleased to call Irish), 
 says : " The date of these poems must be ascribed to the 
 fourteenth or fifteenth century, not only from internal 
 evidence, but because Irish poetry is not once men- 
 tioned in the twelfth century by Giraldus Cambrensis;" 
 and in his dissertation he says, " Rhymes in Welsh 
 poetry were unknown to Giraldus Cambrensis in the 
 twelfth century." 
 
 Unfortunately for Mr Laing's accuracy there occurs a 
 well-known passage in which Giraldus expressly affirms 
 that the Welsh excelled in rhymes : 
 
 " In cantilenis rythmicis et dictamine, tarn subtiles 
 inveniuntur, ut mirse et exquisite inventionis, tarn 
 verborum quam sententiarum proferant exornationis
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 6$ 
 
 uncle et poetas (quos bardos vocant) ad hoc deputatos 
 multos invenias." * That is: "They are found so 
 polished in rhyming ditties and in expression that they 
 produce beauties of words and sentiment of wonderful 
 and exquisite invention ; whence you find poets amongst 
 them (whom they call bards) appointed for the pur- 
 pose." 
 
 The passage is important, not only as affording another 
 proof of the inaccuracy and recklessness of Mr Laing's 
 assertions, but also as showing that, from the nicety (sub- 
 tilis) and perfection to which theWelsh had, in the days of 
 Giraldus, carried the invention of rhyme, its use amongst 
 them must necessarily have been of great antiquity. 
 
 Under the head of " Manners and Customs," Mr 
 Laing in his dissertation urges some strange elements 
 of detection, which it will not be difficult to refute. 
 
 He remarks that the aspen, or trembling poplar, the 
 Crithean of the Celts, so often mentioned in these 
 poems, is a foreign tree, and not a native of Scotland. 
 Here it appears that the learned gentleman chose 
 to occupy ground to which he was a stranger, being a 
 native of Orkney, where neither trees grow nor Gaelic 
 is spoken. It is a point sufficiently established amongst 
 naturalists, that the iiopulus tremula, or aspen, is in- 
 digenous to Scotland. It can be pointed out in the 
 utmost profusion in the Highlands, growing on the 
 margin of lakes and in the crevices of rocks in almost 
 every glen. 
 
 With equal gratuitousness the yew-tree, the Iubhar 
 of the Highlanders, is asserted to be " certainly not 
 
 * Giraldus Carnbrensis Itinerarhun Carnbrise. Edit. London, 4to, p. 197.
 
 64 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 indigenous." But it is certain that the yew-tree has 
 always been, and still is, a native of Scotland. Light- 
 foot, in his 'Flora Scotica,' holds it to be such, and 
 cites the authority of Dr Stuart of Luss, one of the first 
 names in the science of plants of his native Highlands. 
 There are innumerable places in Scotland which still 
 have their denomination from this tree, according to the 
 ordinary use of giving names to places from the species 
 of trees with which they abound — thus, Glen-iu'ir, 
 " the glen of yews ; " Dunure, " the hill of yews," &c. ; 
 and Giraldus Cambrensis informs us that the yew-tree 
 grew in such abundance in Ireland that the scarcity of 
 bees in that country is in part to be ascribed to this 
 cause. 
 
 It would be endless to follow Mr Laing through the 
 vague similarities which he adduces between certain 
 passages of Ossian and the ancient and modern classics. 
 There is throughout a forced assimilation of images and 
 expressions, which either have nothing in common, or 
 of which the resemblances may be easily accounted for. 
 We give one or two specimens. 
 
 In the poem of ' Cath-Loda ' the following description 
 is given of Strina-dona : 
 
 " If on the heath she moved, her breast was whiter 
 than the down of Cana ; if on the sea-beat shore, than 
 the foam of the rolling ocean." 
 
 Did we not know Mr Laing to be serious, it would 
 seem that he intended a burlesque upon criticism when 
 maintaining that the 
 
 " Sen solvit crines, fusis decet esse capillis"
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 65 
 
 of Tibullus — literally, " If she loosens her hair it be- 
 comes her to have flowing locks" — is the original of 
 Ossian's " If on the heath she moved, her breast was 
 whiter than the down of Cana ; " or when he again 
 maintains that Tibullus's 
 
 " Seu compsit, comptis est veneranda comis 
 — Urit seu nivea, urit seu tyria" — 
 
 that is, " If she adorn her hair she is graceful with 
 adorned locks — she inflames whether she is in white or 
 in purple " — is the original of Ossian's " If on the sea- 
 beat shore, than the foam of the rolling ocean." In 
 these alleged imitations nothing common can be de- 
 cerned except the particle seu in the Latin, and if in 
 the English. Again, Ossian's "Her dark hair flowed 
 round it in streaming clouds" is, with Mr Laing, Ti- 
 bullus's 
 
 " Fusis decet esse eapillis." 
 
 Surely the learned gentleman imagined that his 
 readers could not translate Tibullus, or that they would 
 be too indolent to compare the alleged resemblances. 
 
 Let us now view this controversy from the Gaelic 
 side of the question. 
 
 Macpherson's translation had been so eulogised, and 
 had created such a sensation, that the applause of the 
 public was quite exhausted, and when the Gaelic ver- 
 sion appeared forty years afterwards, being of interest 
 to only a limited number, it was little noticed. It has, 
 however, a material bearing on this controversy. 
 
 E
 
 66 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 It is well known that Macpherson, having left the 
 Highlands at an early age, devoted his attention much to 
 classical studies, and was no great Gaelic scholar. He 
 could read and translate the language, and had a just 
 appreciation of its beauties, but in conversation he made 
 great blunders, and was quite unable to write it accu- 
 rately, far less to compose Gaelic poetry. On this point 
 we have ample authority. 
 
 Ewan Macpherson, who accompanied James Mac- 
 pherson on part of his tour, mentions that in Uist they 
 met with MacCodrum the poet, and that Macpherson 
 asked him, " A bheil dad agad air an Flieinn ? " by 
 which he meant to inquire whether or not he knew 
 any of the poems of Ossian relative to the Fingalians. 
 But the terms in which the question was asked strictly 
 imported whether or not the Fingalians owed him 
 anything ; and MacCodrum, being a man of humour, 
 took advantage of the blunder, and answered that 
 really if they had owed him anything the bonds and 
 obligations were lost, and he believed any attempt 
 to recover them at that time of day would be un- 
 availing. This sally of MacCodrum's wit seemed to 
 have hurt Mr Macpherson, who cut short the conver- 
 sation and proceeded towards Benbecula. 
 
 On the authority of Captain Morison, who assisted 
 Macpherson in translating and transcribing from the 
 original manuscripts, the late Bev. Mr Irvine of Little 
 Dunkeld, in a letter to the Bev. Fatrick Graham of A.ber- 
 foyle,""" says : " Mr Morison assures me that Mr Mac- 
 pherson understood the Gaelic language very imper- 
 
 * See Graham's Essay on the Authenticity of Ossian, p. 284.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 67 
 
 fectly ; that lie (Mr Morison) wrote out the Gaelic for 
 him, for the most part, on account of Mr Macpherson's 
 inability to write or spell it properly; that Mr Morison 
 assisted him much in translating ; and that it was their 
 general practice when any passages occurred which they 
 did not well understand, either to pass it over entirely, 
 or to gloss it over with any expressions that might 
 appear to coalesce easily." 
 
 And, in answer to the inquiries of the Highland 
 Society's Committee, Captain Morison says : * " That he 
 was intimately acquainted with his abilities and know- 
 ledge of the Gaelic language ; he admits that he had 
 much merit in collecting; and arranging and translating, 
 
 © © O ©> 
 
 but that, so far from composing such poems as were 
 translated, he assisted him often in understanding some 
 words, and suggested some improvements." 
 
 It is therefore impossible that he could be the author 
 of that highly-finished Gaelic verse which has been 
 communicated to the public. But, further, his want of 
 knowledge of Gaelic words appears even in his trans- 
 lations, of which there is a striking instance in the 
 poem of ' Carricthura.' It occurs in the description of 
 Fingal's celebrated combat with the Spirit of Loda. 
 The spirit having boasted that he dwelt undisturbed in 
 his j)leasant plains in the clouds, Fingal thus replies : 
 
 " Gabhsa comhnuidh na do raoin, 
 Thuirt righ nach b'fhaoin, 's a lamh air beairt, 
 Neo cuimhnich MacChumhail air raon ; 
 ; S lag do thannas ; 's mor mo neart." 
 
 * See H. S. R., App., p. 177.
 
 68 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 This, with the addition of two words in italics, is 
 literally : 
 
 " Take up thy abode in thy plains of air, 
 Said the not vain king with his hand on his weapon, 
 Else remember the son of Comhal on the plain, 
 Feeble is thy shade ; great is my might." 
 
 This whole passage Macpherson translates in these 
 words — " Dwell in thy pleasant fields, said the king ; 
 let Comhal's son be forgot." 
 
 Here it is evident that Macpherson has totally mis- 
 understood the term neo in the third line, and which 
 here signifies, else or otherwise ; translating it as if it 
 were the particle neo, which, compounded with an ad- 
 jective, has in Gaelic the force of the English particle 
 un in " unfaithful," and converts the term to which it 
 is added into an opposite sense. Thus the adjective 
 ciontach, " guilty," with the particle neo prefixed to it 
 (neo-chiontach), signifies " not guilty" or "innocent." 
 In consequence of this egregious mistake, the trans- 
 lator has completely lost the sense of the original, and 
 makes the undaunted Fingal solicit a compromise with 
 the Spirit of Loda altogether unworthy of his char- 
 acter. It is as if he had said, " Let me go, and I shall 
 let thee go." But to make this sense of the passage 
 tolerable, Mr Macpherson finds himself under the 
 necessity of omitting the greatest part of the line im- 
 mediately preceding, and the whole of the line which 
 follows. 
 
 The cruestion then arises, Who composed the Gaelic 
 Ossian ? After a careful examination of these poems,
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 69 
 
 we feel satisfied that, though there are a few inaccurate 
 expressions in them, no one of modern times could 
 have produced them. 
 
 It is generally admitted that the language of the 
 Highlands of Scotland lias not suffered much change 
 since the original settlement of the Celts in these re- 
 gions. Except in their encounters with the Romans, 
 and the temporary incursions of the Danes in a sub- 
 sequent period, they had, for a long series of ages, no 
 intercourse by conquest or by commerce with any other 
 country but Ireland, whose language was the same 
 with their own. 
 
 This appears very distinctly in the songs of the 
 bards, who, from the days of " Iain Lorn" (the bard of 
 Montrose) down to the present day, wrote in precisely 
 the same language as is now spoken in those districts 
 where the dialect is pure ; and this also may be said of 
 some compositions of an earlier date, such as ' Miann 
 a Bhaird Aosda,' or 'The Aged Bard's Wish/ which, 
 for beauty and simplicity of composition, is equal to 
 Wordsworth's best style. We give a few stanzas (not 
 continuous). The scene appears to be laid in the Braes 
 of Lochaber. The dialect is the same as is now spoken 
 there : 
 
 caraibh mi ri taobh nan allt, 
 A shiubhlas mall le ceumaibh ciiiin, 
 Fo sgail a bharraich leag mo cheann, 
 'S bi thus'a ghrian ro-chairdeil rium. 
 
 " Mu'n cuairt do bhruachaibh ard mo ghlinn 
 Biodh liibadh gheug a's orra blath ;
 
 yo THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 'S clann bheag nam preas a' tabhairt seinn 
 Do chreagaibh aosd le 'oran graidh. 
 
 " 0, cenm an t-sealgair ri mo chluais ! 
 Le sranna ghath a's chon feagh sleibk 
 'N sin dearsaidh an 'big air mo gliruaiclh, 
 'N uair dh-eireas toirm air sealg na f keidk. 
 
 " Thio; le cairdeas thar a chimin 
 Osag mliin a ghluais gu mall, 
 Tog mo cheb air sgiath do luathais, 
 'S imicli grad gu Eilean Fklaitkeis, 
 
 " Far'm beil na laoich a dli-f lialbh o sliean, 
 An cadal trom gun dol le ceol, 
 Fosglaibh-sa tlialla Oisein a's Dliaoil, 
 Tliio* an oidliclie's cba bbi'm bard air bkrath. 
 
 Literal Translation. 
 
 " place me near the brooks wkick slowly move 
 with gentle steps. Under the skade of tke branckes 
 lay my kead, and be tkou, Sun, very friendly to me." 
 
 " Around tke lofty brow of my glen let tkere be bend- 
 ing bouolis in full bloom, and the children of the bushes 
 making the aged rocks re-echo their songs of love." 
 
 " let me hear the hunter's step, with the sound of 
 his darts, and the noise of his dogs throughout .the 
 hills ; then youth shall beam on my cheek, when the 
 din of hunting the deer shall arise."
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 71 
 
 " Come with friendsliip over the sea, soft blast 
 that slowly movest ; bear my shade on the wing of thy 
 swiftness, and travel quickly to the Isle of Heroes," 
 
 " Where the brave that went of old are deep in 
 slumber, without music. Open, ye halls of Ossian and 
 Daol. The night shall come and the bard shall not be 
 found." 
 
 From the allusion here to the Isle of Heroes, and other 
 passages in this poem, which is of considerable length, 
 it is plain that it must have been of an early date, and 
 probably many centuries old ; but from the mention of 
 cattle and goats, and the style of the composition, it 
 must have been subsequent to the era of Ossianic poetry. 
 In fact the Ossianic poetry stands alone, quite distinct 
 and separate from all other Gaelic poetry. It is heroic 
 in its character, and differs from all other poetical com- 
 positions which can be traced for some centuries back 
 in style, sentiment, and language. The grandeur of its 
 similes, the vividness of its descriptions, and the sim- 
 plicity and polish of its diction, and, we must add, the 
 number of obsolete words used, stamp the poetry of 
 Ossian as of an earlier date than any other that has 
 reached us. We do not therefore wonder that Captain 
 Morison, who assisted in transcribing and translating 
 these poems, when asked by the Committee of the 
 Highland Society whether Macpherson could have com- 
 posed them, should have answered, " That he could as 
 well compose the Prophecies of Isaiah, or create the 
 island of Skye."
 
 *]2 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 No doubt Macpherson had the assistance of Captain 
 Morison and Strathmashie in translating, transcribing, 
 and arranging. But Captain Morison was no poet; Mac- 
 pherson never wrote a line of Gaelic poetry in his life ; 
 and Strathmashie, judging from the few songs he has 
 written, was a poet of a very secondary class. We 
 therefore concur with Dr Blair that, though these poems 
 were not found in the connected form in which they 
 are now presented to the public, but were collected from 
 different manuscripts, and from oral recitation, as de- 
 scribed by Macpherson himself, yet they exhibit, " as 
 they stand, a genuine, authentic view of ancient Gaelic 
 poetry." 
 
 To the criticisms on the particular form of verse we 
 do not attach much importance. In Gaelic poetry 
 the rhyme, if such it may be called, is peculiar, and is 
 rather a harmony of sound or cadence which pleases 
 the ear. The verse in which Ossian is composed 
 consists of eight feet, and is well suited for heroic 
 poetry ; but Gaelic is a language so well adapted, from 
 its great flexibility, for composition in verse, that we find 
 in Gaelic songs all sorts of measures adopted, and even 
 some in imitation of pipe-music. These are composed 
 from the ear; and though, perhaps, rules might be de- 
 duced for the formation of any kind of verse, yet we 
 cannot go into the complicated theories of Mr Davies 
 and others on the subject, which were never understood 
 by some of the best Gaelic poets of even modern times, 
 many of whom could neither read, write, nor speak 
 English. 
 
 The superiority of the Gaelic version of the Ossianic
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 73 
 
 poems over the English translation is one of the strong- 
 est arguments in favour of their authenticity, but it is 
 one which, though it may be inferred by all, can only 
 be fully felt by those acquainted with both languages, 
 and therefore the supporters of the authenticity of 
 Ossian have had reason to complain that they had 
 suffered more from the ignorance than from the know- 
 ledge of their opponents. 
 
 In order to appreciate with tolerable accuracy the 
 mode in which Macpherson proceeded in the arrange- 
 ment of his materials, we may mention, what is well 
 known to many, that before the Highland reciter delivers 
 his poem he generally prefaces it with a short summary, 
 in a kind of measured prose, of the principal events 
 contained in the verses Avhich he is about to recite. 
 This outline of the poem is called the Sgcirfaclid or tale. 
 Jjj the help of this outline Macpherson seems to have 
 been enabled at least to connect in regular order the 
 several detached pieces which he found in tradition 
 according to the series of events to which they related. 
 "When a poem occurred which could not by this 
 method be made to coalesce with his larger work, he 
 seems to have proceeded by two ways — he either gives 
 the poem in its detached state as he found it, and as 
 the lesser poems now appear in his publication, or he 
 introduces it as an episode, as he has done in the instance 
 of the ' Maid of Craca/ and in that of the expedition of 
 Carthon in the close of the Seventh Book of ' Temora.' 
 Of such episodes, indeed, skilfully introduced, and in 
 general allied to the subject of the work, a great portion 
 of ' Fino-al ' and ' Temora ' consists.
 
 74 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
 
 As to the inference attempted to be rested on Mac- 
 pherson's taciturnity, we may here quote from a pas- 
 sage in Dr Blair's letter to Mr Mackenzie, 20th Decem- 
 ber 1797:"" " For my own part, from my perfect know- 
 ledge of all the circumstances of their discovery and 
 translation, it was impossible for me to entertain any 
 doubts on the subject of their authenticity. Of all men 
 I ever knew Mr Macpherson was the most unlikely and 
 unfit to contrive and carry on such an imposture as some 
 people in England ascribed to him. He had none of the 
 versatility, the art, and dissimulation which such a char- 
 acter and such an undertaking would have required. 
 He was proud, high-spirited, and disdainful ; irritable 
 to a degree when his honour and veracity were im- 
 peached ; not very apt on any occasion to listen to 
 advice ; and when unjust censures were thrown out 
 against him, obstinate in his purpose of disregarding 
 and contemning them, without the least concern of giv- 
 ing any satisfaction to those who opposed or cavilled 
 at him." 
 
 "Were Macpherson even more inclined to be com- 
 municative than he was, we are at a loss to conjecture 
 how he could have satisfied further inquiry as to the 
 originality of these poems ; for it must be kept in mind 
 that they were not found in one continuous whole, but 
 were in detached pieces, as collected by himself or 
 others in the Highlands, or scattered through the pages 
 of old manuscripts, written in a language and in a 
 character intelligible to but few. He had fully stated 
 to the public in his prefaces how they had been ob- 
 
 * H. S. R. App., p. 5G.
 
 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 75 
 
 tained, and in this lie had been corroborated by Dr 
 Blair, who took an active part in their collection, and 
 who published a dissertation on the subject, and while 
 he declined to appeal to the testimony of those who 
 aided him in their collection, he allowed Blair to do so. 
 Yielding, however, to advice, he placed the manuscripts 
 in Becket's shop for public inspection, and advertised 
 that he had done so. Nor is it to be foro-otten that 
 those to whom he had submitted them privately were 
 the persons best qualified to judge of their authen- 
 ticity. 
 
 We have thus shown : 
 
 1. That Macpherson collected manuscripts containing 
 Ossianic poetry, which he was assisted in transcribing 
 and translating by friends who testify to the fact. 
 
 2. That he also collected a number of Ossianic poems 
 from recitation, which were taken down by gentlemen 
 wdio accompanied him in his search and acted as his 
 amanuenses. 
 
 3. That he received several Ossianic poems from 
 friends. 
 
 4. That he was by no means a good Gaelic scholar, 
 and required the assistance of friends to translate for 
 him, and that he often mistook the meaning of the 
 original. 
 
 5. That subsequent to the publication of the Eng- 
 lish Ossian, but many years before that of the Gaelic 
 poems, a large portion of the finest parts of the poems 
 translated by him were recovered in the original, 
 partly from private collections, but principally from the 
 recitation of persons who could neither read nor write.
 
 j6 AUTHENTICITY OF THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 
 
 6. That previous to the publication of these Gaelic 
 poems, a large number of other Ossianic poems not pub- 
 lished by Macpherson were collected and given to the 
 public in the original, many of which are as fine as 
 any of those published by him. 
 
 7. That the original poetry translated by Macpher- 
 son contains a number of obsolete words not to be 
 found in any modern poetry, and that as a composition 
 it is much superior to his translation. 
 
 8. That Macpherson openly avowed that his larger 
 poems were compiled from detached poems arranged 
 by him, which had been collected from old manu- 
 scripts, from recitation, and from ancient poems sent 
 him by friends, and that he himself gave them the 
 name of Epic, 
 
 At what date Ossian lived we do not pretend to 
 determine ; but this, at least, is sufficiently clear, that the 
 Gaelic Ossian was not the production of Macpherson or 
 any author of modern times, but must be referred to a 
 period of remote antiquity. It further appears, from 
 the internal evidence of these poems, that they refer to 
 a period prior to the diffusion of Christianity and the 
 era of clanship in the Highlands. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINEURGII.
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 JAN 4 
 
 mt 
 
 
 
 
 4 197? 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 OCT Z g 
 
 m* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A.
 
 I