authenticity of Ossian's poems, which he strenuously supported; we shall have occasion hereafter to speak more fully concerning this author, and the arguments he so tenaciously urged in the cause. Macpherson found a more respectable colleague, and Ossian a more ponderous advocate for his legitimacy, in the person of John Smith, Minister of Killrandon. In the year 1780, he published a work entitled Gaelic Antiquities, consisting of a history of the Druids, particularly of those of Caledonia; a dissertation on the authenticity of the poems of Ossian, and a collection of ancient poems translated from the Gaelic of Ullin, Ossian, Oran, &c. In addition to the arguments in favour of the authenticity of Ossian, formerly advanced by Lord Kaims, Dr. Blair, and Mr. Macpherson, he gives the explicit declaration of several respectable persons, who had repeatedly heard the songs of Ossian recited, and who bear testimony to have seen the originals of them; but the most convincing proof is, that, which forms the third part of his work. It consists of a collection of no less than fourteen Gaelic poems, translated by him into English, and far superior to those published by Clark, eleven of which are ascribed to Ossian himself, and the other three are said to be the composition of three of the most celebrated bards, coeval with Ossian, and who, united with him, formed, as may be termed, the golden age of the Caledonians. Although all these poems have the same foundation and character of ideas and style, yet • Now of Campbell-town in Argyleshire. † See Note H, at the end of the Dissertation. there is a sufficient diversity, to demonstrate that they are not counterfeited: Facies non omnibus una, Nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum. To imitate Ossian to that degree, one must be another Ossian. It might have been expected, that this new collection would have established, beyond the possibility of doubt, the authenticity of Ossian; but party disputes among learned men are neither less acrimonious, nor less obstinate, than those among politicians. Johnson had given a severe blow to the originality of the poems ascribed to the Scottish bard. William Shaw, his countryman, undertook to overturn the whole from its very foundation, in a little work published in 1781, entitled An Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems ascribed to Ossian. † Conversant in the Gaelic language, of which he published a dictionary, he seemed to be well qualified to decide such a controversy. Johnson had formerly asserted, that there was no possibility of finding a Scotchman, who did not love his country better than truth. Shaw pretends to belie the assertion; for the honour, says he, of his Caledonian vanity, he would have heartily wished Ossian to be a real being; but that the love of truth compelled him to confess, that Ossian is but a phantom. He undertakes to prove it with arguments of fact, and to confute point by point, all the arguments that were alleged in favour of the authenticity of Ossian. It had been said, ob * See Note I, at the end of the Dissertation. + See Note K, at the end of the Dissertation. serves Shaw, that the original manuscript would be exhibited in the shop of Mr. Becket, the bookseller; very well; no person has ever seen it. If with a view of imposing on the credulity of the public, it had been left, as announced, at Becket's, it could only be an Irish manuscript, but never that of Ossian, because the Erse dialect was never written, nor printed. Macpherson, adds Shaw, instead of turning Gaelic into English, translated his own English into Gaelic; and such is the poem of Temora, which he gave as a specimen of the original, at the end of the second volume; in this he even shewed his ignorance of the orthography of that language. Ossian's mythology is an accumulation of those superstitions that prevailed in the Highlands in the fifteenth century, and which Macpherson affects to despise, although he acknowledged himself greatly indebted to them: for the spirits that swarm in his poems, are nothing less nor more than the common Highland idea of devils, that even now are thought the authors of storms. According to the opinion of Mr. Shaw, it is very easy to pack together a variety of poetical ingredients as Mr. Clark has done, in order to deceive ignorant credulity. Clark himself is said to have owned afterwards to Shaw, that his work was imaginary and counterfeited. Smith asserts, that Macpherson was very ready to shew the originals to the best judges; Shaw absolutely denies this, and says, that whenever Macpherson was asked to do it, he always gave an evasive answer. Sometimes he said the manuscript was at his country-house, sometimes it was in other people's hands, and at another time the key was lost, or that he would shew it the first opportunity. Shaw undertook a journey to the Highlands of Scotland and to the Hebrides in 1778, on purpose to collect materials for his dictionary: he declares having made researches with the greatest assiduity, with a view to trace the poems of Ossian, but that all his labours proved unsuccessful: thus, while he was flattering himself with the hopes of being able to convert Johnson, he became himself a sceptic. He afterwards undertakes to examine minutely the arguments urged by Smith and Blair, in favour of the authenticity of Ossian, and endeavours to prove them weak and groundless. Among those Highlanders he questioned on the subject, some denied the fact, others equivocated; no one openly and fairly confirmed the fact. He freely challenged all those persons he named, to contradict him if they could. In a signal and triumphant manner, he asserts he had silenced Mr. Macleod, Professor of the University of Glasgow, quoted by Smith, as a very proper person to examine and compare the original of Ossian, with Macpherson's translation. In a conversation that Shaw mentions to have had with him, Shaw challenged him, or any man, to point out only six lines of Ossian's original, offering to pay at the rate of two shillings and sixpence for each word. Macleod, he says, could neither repeat a single syllable, nor undertake to procure from Mr. Macpherson, although then in London, a single line. Another important evidence was, that Mr. Macnicol also, in his remarks on Johnson's journey, vapouringly invited that critic to see a copious collection of MS. volumes, all in the Gaelic language and ancient characters, in the possession of Mr. Mackenzie, secretary to the Highland Society of London. Shaw, on his first receiving the intelligence, ran with eagerness to see them; but to his utmost surprise, he perceived them to be manuscripts written in the Irish dialect and character, containing nothing else but Irish or national genealogies. There is every reason, observes Shaw, to believe that these are the very manuscripts, which Mackenzie deposited at Becket's, to prop the imposture, and delude the public. If we can believe Shaw, there was among the Scotch a conspiracy to defend Ossian's reputation, almost at the expense of every virtue. In proof of this, he did not hesitate to assert, that both Blair and Ferguson, those two celebrated Scotch authors, conspired together to deceive Doctor Percy regarding the subject of their idolized authenticity; and having, for this purpose, translated from Macpherson's English, a short poem, or fragment, into the Gaelic language, they caused it to be recited by a young Highlander, in the presence of Doctor Percy himself, as an original piece of Ossian. He also adds, that if we were not to suppose (which seems to be the opinion of a judicious and impartial journalist) this to be contrived for a mockery, it would prove that the Scottish enthusiasm was highly ridiculous, and carried to the extreme, in attempting to maintain what was known to be chimerical, and that |