B'fhear Mac moire ri aon lo No duine dtaineg riamh 20. Nir raibh math aig neach fuin 'Ghrein Gum bfhear efein na mo thrialh Mac muirneach nach d'eitich Cliar Scha leige se Dia osachian 30. Na comh'ad 'usa Duine ri Dia 31. 'Chomhad innse Fuinn namsleagh haired man! The son of the virgin Mary is more excellent than any man who ever appeared upon earth. 30. Compare not any to God; harbour not any such thoughts, old man! Long has his superior power stood acknowledged, and it shall for ever continue. Ossian. 31. I certainly would com. pare the hospitable Fingal to any man who ever looked the sun in the face. He never asked a favour of another, nor did he ever refuse when asked f Ossian seems to have been offended at the gross reproaches which the humility of the Christian Apostle had just bestowed upon him with all the prodigality of one of Homer's heroes: and he answers with the rough but gene rous boldness of barbareus independence. N. B. In printing this Extract from the publication of Mr. Hill, it was omitted to insert the words "I observed in 66 p. 19. that" before "Gaul" in 1. 4. of note + p. 120. The last word of stanza 20. is to be read fein; and Riochos in 1. 2. of stanza 24. is to be read Riogh os. K No. IX. OBSERVATIONS ON THE GAELIC POEMS COLLECTED BY MR. HILL, THE original and translation of the foregoing Poem, as indeed all the rest of the Collection, abound in errors; the most remarkable of which shall now be pointed out. Stanza 2. "Oishein nan glonn" is translated "O Ossian! father of many children," instead of O Ossian of the deeds of prowess. Which mistake gave rise to the note of Mr. Hill This is ever accounted a great honour among "Barbarians. See also Ossian agus an Clerich, v. 47.” The passage which is here referred to, is equally erroneous: For the original of it, "Mi fein agus Mathair is Golf "Triur bo mho Glonn san Fhein," is translated" Myself, my Father, and Gaul, were the "three who had most children among the heroes," instead of Myself, and my Father, and Gaul, were the three of greatest prowess among the heroes. The error may have proceeded from mistaking Glonn prowess, for Clann children.. Stanza 7. "'Noavil ù'm bionan e s mac Cubhail "An riogh sin a bha air na Fiannibh “Dol na Thallamhsan gun iaruidh.” There is no word in the Gaclic language that bears the most distant likeness to 'Noavil, which begins this quota-. tion. It is to be presumed from the English that is given for it, Dost thou imagine, that the translator read, or took it, for An Saoil. And if we read it so, the literal translation of the passage is as follows Dost thou imagine that he was equal to the son of That king who was over the heroes of Fingal. All the men of the world might enter Into his hall unbidden. Instead of which it is thus rendered in the version of Mr. Hill" Dost thou imagine that he is equal to the son "of Comhal? that king who ruled over the nations, who "defeated all the people of the earth, and visited their kingdoms unsent for." 66 There seems but one way of accounting for so singular a translation of a very plain passage. Mr. Hill had observed (p. 16.), that he was "inclined to suspect that there are in 4 the song of Dermid killing the wild Boar, some words di rectly derived from the English, as Bheist, thri, &c." It did not, perhaps, occur to him that the Gaelic beist and tri wese synonymous with the bestia and tria of the Latin; in which they were known for a whole millennium, and we know not how much longer, before the English language, as it has been written from the time of its formation in the reign of Henry II. had a being*. He might have known, however, from the very song in which it occurred to him, that best does not apply, as beast docs in English, to ever four-footed animal, but denotes a fierce beast, or beast of prey-the very meaning in which bestia is used by Cicero-Sexcentos ad bestias misistit. From this misapprehension Mr. Hill goes on to present to the eye of the reader a word purely English, which the Latin could have neither lent to the Celtic, nor borrowed from it. D'fheudadh (they might) was transformed into Dhéfheudadh, a word utterly unknown in the Gaelic, but which, from a similarity of sound, might be expressed in English by the word defeated. So that a future enquirer into the authenticity of Ossian's Poems, might, by this means, be led to suppose that they were no older than the reign of Henry II. of England, A. D. 1172, when the partial conquest atchieved by Dermot Mac-Murrogh king of Leinster, and Richard, surnamed Strongbow, Earl of Strigul, introduced the English tongue into Ireland: whence, by a singular hypothesis of Mr. Hill (to be hereafter noticed), which he adopted in contradiction of the very poems he has published, they might be transplanted into the Highlands of Scotland. A translation so very singular as that of stanza 7. above quoted; had the effect of raising a suspicion equally singular "Pro tribus linguae Saxonicae epochis totidem dialectos censeo esse sta "tuendas: Prima est quam majores nostri locuti sunt a primo suo in Britan. “niam ingressu ad Banorum usque introitum. Secunda est, quae in usu erat "a Danorum in Britanniam ingressu ad Normannorum adventum. Tertia "illa est quam locuti sunt majores nostri a Normannorum ingressu ad Henrici “ejus nominis secundi tempora. Hanc Norman-Dano-Saxonicam vocandam a censemus." Hickes. Thesaur. Linguar. Septentrional. p. 87, 88. Vid. Ainsw. Diction, in voce. |