peace at Edinburgh, on the 19th day of January, 1801,* bears testimony of his having deposited with the deputy secretary of the Highland Society of Edinburgh, a collection of Gaelic poems, consisting of one hundred and ninety-four pages, many of which relate to the achievements of the tribe or race of Fingal, or of the Fionns, as they are named in the Gaelic language, and of which poems the declarant got copies written in the country, from his own oral recitation. That some of the poems in this collection he heard recited and learnt by heart forty years prior to the date of his affidavit, and that the poem published by Macpherson, under the name of Darthula, and which is commonly called in the country, Clan Uisneachain, or the sons of Usno, he heard recited above fifty years ago by many persons in Glenorchay, particularly by Nicol Macnicoll in Arivean, and this he thinks was about ten years before Macpherson went about collecting the poems of Ossian.

Captain John Macdonald of Breakish, now residing at Thurso in the county of Caithness, has by affidavit made before Colonel Benjamin Williamson of Banneskirk, one of his Majesty's justices of the peace for the county of Caithness, dated the 25th day of September, 1805, + solemnly declared that he was then aged seventy-eight years, and that when about twelve and fifteen years of age, he could repeat from one hundred to two hundred of those poems of

* See Appendix to Report of the Highland Society, p. 270.

+ Although Archibald Fletcher could write his name, he could not

read the manuscript deposited.

See Appendix to Sir John Sinclair's Dissertation, No. I.

different lengths and number of verses. That he learned them from an old man about eighty years of age, who sung them for years to his father at night, when he went to bed, and in spring and winter in the morning before he rose, and that even at the advanced age of seventy-eight, he still can repeat two poems of considerable length. That he met with the late Mr. James Macpherson at Dr. Macpherson's house in Sleat, when collecting Ossian's poems, that he sung many of them to him, and that Mr. Macpherson wrote them down as he repeated them.*

The late ingenious Mr. Garnett, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry in the Royal Institution of Great Britain, has, in his Observations on a Tour through the Highlands and part of the Western Isles of Scotland in the year 1798, given great weight to his own opinion respecting the authenticity of Ossian's poems, by introducing an extract of a letter from the Rev. Mr. Macintyre, minister of Glenorchay, which was intended as an answer to the inquiries of the Highland Society in London, and is peculiarly interesting.

Mr. Garnett, in describing the celebrated Glencoe, introduces the subject in the following words: "This glen was frequently the resort of Fingal and his

* Dr. John Macpherson, in his letter to Dr. Blair, published in the Appendix to Report of the Society, p. 11 and 12, gives evidence to Captain Macdonald's rehearsing several fragments, or detached pieces of Ossian's poems, and that he compared them with Mr. Macpherson's translation, and found them in general correct. Dr. Macpherson mentions in particular Captain Macdonald's repeating Cuthullin's car, the episode of Faineasollis, and the combat between Oscar and Ullin.

party. It seems to me wonderful, that any person, who has travelled in the Highlands, should doubt the authenticity of the Celtic poetry, which has been given to the English reader by Macpherson, since in almost every glen are to be found persons, who can repeat from tradition several of these, and other Celtic tales of the same date.

"I cannot pretend to offer any evidence stronger than what has been brought forward. I trust, however, thar the following extract from a letter, which I received from Dr. Macintire, of Glenorchay, on this subject, will not be uninteresting to the reader.

"To the mass of evidence laid already before the public by persons of the first respectability in the nation, I know of little that can be added. These tales we have been accustomed to hear recited from our earliest years, and they have made an indelible impression on my memory. In the close of the year 1783, and beginning of 1784, I was in London. For some time previous to that period, I had a correspondence with Mr. Macpherson, but not on subjects of Celtic literature. During two months that I continued in London, I was frequently with him at his own house and elsewhere. We spoke occasionally about the poems, and the attempts made by Dr. Johnson to discredit them. I hinted that, though my own belief of their authenticity was unalterably fixed, still my opinion ever was, that he had never found the poem of Fingal in the full and perfect form in which he had published it; but that, having got the substance, or greater part of the interesting tale, he had, from his knowledge of Celtic imagery

and allusions, filled up the chasms in the translation. He replied, You are much mistaken in the matter: I had occasion to do less of that than you suppose. And at any time that you are at leisure, and wish to see the originals, tell me, and we will concert a day for going to my house on Putney-heath, where those papers lie, and you will then be satisfied.'

"This conversation passed in the presence of Dr. Shaw, a Scotch physician, to whom he introduced

me.

"I fully intended to avail myself of this offer, but have to regret that, from various avocations, and leaving London sooner than I thought I could, I was prevented from a sight and perusal of the originals of these poems.

"Calling the day before I left London on the late General Macnab, a gentleman well versed in Celtic literature, and of unimpeached veracity and honour, who had lived long in habits of intimacy with Mr. Macpherson, I mentioned this circumstance to him, and my regret. He said, he was sorry I had not seen the poems; that to him Mr. Macpherson had often recited parts of Fingal in the Gaelic, with various other tales, which brought to his remembrance what had given him so much gratification when a boy.

"Thus, my dear Sir, have I given you a diffuse, but a true detail of a circumstance, that can add little to the credibility of a fact, authenticated by men, whom no consideration could induce to avow a falsehood.

"The Highland Society, who intend to publish the

original of Fingal, have applied to me for an account of the preceding conversation with Mr. Macpherson, which I have hitherto been prevented from communicating; you are therefore at full liberty to make what use of it you please.

"At the time when I was a student of theology, I was present at the delivery of a sermon by a worthy, but eccentric preacher, on the resurrection from the dead. He concluded his subject with words that I can never forget. Thus have I endeavoured to set before you this great truth of God; and I trust, that you believe it: but, believe it who will, I believe it myself.'

"So say I, in all the candour of truth, as to the poems of Ossian, believe them who will, I believe them myself.

'My son is anxious to procure you some unpublished Celtic tales, but the truth is, that Dr. Smith of Campbeltown, who is a native of this parish, and who has been indefatigable in his research for these tales, has picked up every thing of value of that kind in the country, and published them with translations. Indeed the period is past, or almost past, when an investigation and research, after these amusements of the times of old would be of avail.

Happily our people are forming habits, and acquiring modes of industry and manners, that preclude the tale, and the song, and the harp."

The unequivocal assertions contained in these affidavits and declarations, the terms in which they are expressed, and the very high respectability of the gentlemen who made them, yield a body of evidence sufficient perhaps for the establishment of any, even