preventing many inaccuracies in penning the new acts, and would foon render the reft eafy and intelligible.

To the fame head may be referred another difficulty and embarraffment attending juflices of the peace, which I think ought to be prevented. They are at a great expence in purchafing the acts of parliament; and complaints are frequently brought to them, upon new laws, before they have been able to procure the acts.

• I should hope fome means may be found to obviate this, without much expence either to his Majesty or the Public.

These bills, with the observations I have made upon them, convey my fentiments, upon a fubject the most interefting and important to the future welfare and profperity of this country,, that can poffibly come before parliament; formed, not haftily, but upon the moft mature deliberation.

I can affure the reader, whoever he may be, high, low, rich, or poor, that I have no purposes of my own to ferve, no views to gratify, no expectation of reward for my labours, but what arifes from the pleafing reflection of my own mind; that I have, for many years paft, devoted a great fhare of my time, not without confiderable expence, to an object, pleafing to myfelf, and, I prefume, not unworthy the attention of fuch as have at heart the welfare of their country, that of difcovering, and endeavouring to relieve, the dif treffes of many hundred thousands of our fellow-creatures, who fall under the reach of thefe bills.

I do not pretend to reprefent thefe bills as perfect and fit, in their prefent flate, to be paffed into laws; but as the diftreffes of the poor, and the burden upon those who maintain them, are fo great, and daily increafing, I could not prevail upon myself, any longer, to poftpone bringing the fubject, fairly and openly, in the fhape it now is, before parliament; having found, after waiting many years, that no other gentleman was inclined to undertake it, nor any plan propofed, for bringing forward fo very effential a work, by those who are at the head of our public affairs. Nor have I been deterred from steadily pursuing the object to its prefent crifis, by meeting with the frowns, inftead of receiving the countenance, of fome perfons, which, from their fituation, and the great importance of the fubject, I thought I had good reason to expect.

The utmost of my wishes are, that the plan and bills may be confidered, during the course of the fummer, by the members of both houfes, and particularly thofe of the long robe; and also by magiftrates, and others converfant in the fubject; and that they may be fairly and candidly difcuffed the next feffion, in a manner which the magnitude of the fubject deferves.

If they fhould, after proper correction and amendments, be found admiffible, it will afford me great fatisfaction; if not, I hope they will be the means of producing fome others, better digefted, and adapted to the purpose; as my defires are, that this neceffary fervice may be rendered to the Public; not being at all anxious from whole hands it fhall come.'

Авт,

ART. IX. Supplement to Mr. Gilbert's Plan and Bills for the Relief of the Poor, &c. Delivered Gratis to the Purchafers of the Plan.

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HIS fupplement contains fome further explanations, and judicious alterations, of the bills as originally framed; and likewife a fhort index to the material parts of each.

ART. X. An Anfaver to Mr. Shaw's Enquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems afcribed to Offian. By John Clark, Tranflator of the Caledonian Bards †, and Member of the Society of Scots Antiquaries. 8vo. 1 s. Cadell, 1781.

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N our late review of Mr. Shaw's Enquiry *, we expreffed an opinion, in ftrong terms, of the neceffity of a fuil and clear answer to it. His charges were direct, and perfonal; and ftruck deep at the credit of fome respectable characters. Their veracity was impeached by the moft forcible and pointed affertions; and several gentlemen, in whofe honour we had the fulleft confidence, were held up to the Public as the wilful abettors of an impofture.

Amongst others, the ingenious and learned Dr. Ferguson, profeffor of moral philofophy at Edinburgh, was reprefented by Mr. Shaw as a co-adjutor in the fraud of Mr. Macpherson, by introducing to Dr. Percy a Highland ftudent, to rehearse fome parts of Offian in the pretended original, which, in fact, Mr. Shaw declares were tranflated from English into Gaelic, in order to carry on the impofition. Dr. Ferguson, by a public advertisement in the St. James's Chronicle, and other papers, not only denied the more ferious part of the charge, which fo deeply affected his honour, but alfo declared that he never was prefent at fuch a recital; and that every circumftance in the charge was falfe. One part of Dr. Ferguson's declaration, however, hath been contradicted in the fame papers by Dr. Percy himself but with a politeness and delicacy beoming the character of that ingenious and worthy divine. He would not fuppofe that, if any fraud was acted, Dr. Ferguson was privy to it; and is willing to believe, that his having been present at the recital abovementioned had escaped his recollection. For, in fact, it appears, that Dr. Ferguson was prefent, together with Dr. Blair; and was alfo the very perfon who introduced the Highland ftudent to Dr. Percy, and gave the Doctor, who was fceptical about Offian's poems, an invitation to his own houfe, for the purpose of convincing him of their authenticity by means of this very recital.

+ For our account of the Caledonian Bards, fee Rev. vol. lix. p. 357. * See Review for laft month.

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The author of this pamphlet informs us, that he perfonally applied to Dr. Blair, and Profeffor Ferguson, and they authorifed him to affure the Public, that the whole is, in every particular, a falsehood. If Mr. Shaw wishes to clear himself of this direct charge of writing a falfehood, he may apply to Dr. Percy, the refpectable Dean of Carlisle, for his authority to contradict it in public.' Dr. Percy informed the Public, that he entered, with the greateft reluctance, into the controversy; but that he was compelled, by truth, to relate what he knew of the affair.

We think it due to Mr. Shaw to give thefe particulars to the Public, with their full evidence. How far his having been cleared by fo uncontrovertible an authority, from the direct charge of falsehood, in one inftance, may leffen the weight of other charges of a fimilar nature alledged against him, is a point we must leave to be decided by every man for himself. We have already obferved, that impofture muft exist fomewhere or other. Mr. Clark avers, that it exifts wholly and entirely with Mr. Shaw; and, to convince the Public that this is really the cafe, he hath not only attempted to confute Mr. Shaw's Enquiry by argument, but by teftimony;-and fuch teftimony, too, as appears to be in a very great measure decifive.

As we have ftated Mr. Shaw's evidence at large, the fame juftice is due to Mr. Clark; and we will fully discharge the obligation.

We were indeed aware, that much depended on the personal credit of Mr. Shaw; and, from fome enquiries concerning his character, we were not difpofed to reject his teftimony as wholly fpurious: nor could we willingly allow ourselves to think that he was fo far loft to honour, and even common precaution, as to crowd his book, not only with evafive and equivocal reasonings, but with affertions fo palpably falfe, as to open the evident door to detection and confutation. However, we are forry to fay, that Mr. Clark feems to have fucceeded too well in expofing Mr. Shaw's pretenfions to truth:' for if we might comprise the prefent attempt into a brief yet comprehensive account of its general defign, we might call it The LIE direct to Mr. William Shaw.'-This gentleman, who was fo eager to fix the charge of impofition on his countryman, and who flood forward as the only Scotchman who had the honesty or the courage to speak the truth, is here held forth to public view, in the horrid light of an abandoned and unprincipled man, whofe fole motive was intereft, combined with revenge: -a miferable outcaft from his country, and his country's ef teem; a venal apoftate from the Church of Scotland; an ingrate to his best friend, and a mean parafite of Offian's worft

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enemy-Dr. Johnfon. This-if we may credit Mr. Clarkthis is Mr. Shaw.

After fome general remarks on Mr. Shaw's birth, edu cation, and profeffion, Mr. Clark expofes his Gaelic erudition with the most pointed severity; and particularly observes, with refpect to his Dictionary, that inftead of adhering to the dialect fpoken in the Highlands of Scotland, he hath thrown into his work all the words he could collect from vocabularies of the different diaJets of the Celtic; particularly that which is ufed in Ireland.' This corrupt mixture is attributed, by our author, to Mr. Shaw's having spent the former part of his life in his native ifle of Arran, ⚫ where a dialect of the Gaelic tongue is ufed, fo corrupt in the words, and fo v cious in the pronunciation, as to be almost unintelligible in the other weltern islands, and the oppofite continent of the Highlands, where the language is fpoken with elegance and purity."

To the fingle and unfupported affertions of Mr. Shaw, his anfwerer opposes the direct and explicit teftimonies of feveral very refpectable gentlemen; and hath even oppofed Mr. Shaw's affertions by his own teftimony, in part collected from his Analyfis, which is before the Public, and in part from private letters, which are in the poffeffion of the Author himself.

With respect to the authenticity of the poems of Offian, which it was the defign of Mr. Shaw's Enquiry totally to invalidate, Mr. Clark grants, that he never, indeed, heard the Fingal and Temora rehearfed by any fingle Highlander in the fame arrangement in which Mr. Macpherson bath published them.' But he afferts, that he hath frequently heard, from different perfons, almost every paffage in thefe two poems, with no more difference from the tranflation than what the genius of the language required; and not near fo much as there is between the different editions of thefe poems in the different parts of the Highlands. This variation was well accounted for (fays Mr. Clark) by Mr. Shaw himself (viz. in his Analyfis], before he thought it his interest to difguife the truth.'

There was a time, it feems, when Mr. Shaw was fo firmly perfuaded of the authenticity of thefe poems, that he propofed to me (fays Mr. Clark), to print proposals for a general collection of them, as well as of others, and to arrange the whole fim ply as they are rehearfed by the people, without making them up into epic pieces; which I accordingly did. The originals, and tranflations were to have been published in feparate volumes. Mr. Shaw bim felf, with the greatest enthufiafin, voluntarily undertook to procure fubfcribers for me in England, and wrote me feveral letters on that fubject from London, affuring me in the most pofitive manner of his fuccefs. But instead of performing what he had thus fpontaresully promifed, the very next part of his conduct towards me was to hold me forth as an impoftor to the Public.'

Mr. Shaw, we find, was angry with Mr. Macpherson, not for palming fictitious poems on the Public, but for curtailing REV. Jan. 1781..

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the originals. The Maid of Craca, an episode in Fingal, was omitted by the editor, but is now in the poffeffion of Mr. Clark. It extends to fome hundred lines, and is a large complete poem of itself.

Mr. Shaw, in his Enquiry, speaks very particularly of his vifits to Mr. Mackenzie, treasurer of the Highland Society, for the purpose of infpecting Gaelic MSS.; and records a fingular circumftance, which we quoted in our laft Review. It is fit we should prefent the reader with Mr. Mackenzie's own account of this tranfaction.

To prove (fays our author), beyond the power of contradiction, the difingenuity, as well as the grofs ignorance of Mr. Shaw, on a fubject which he pretends to understand better than any man living, I will lay before the reader the following facts. Mr. Mackenzie hath authorised me to fay, "that Mr. Shaw had feen the MSS. in his cuftody before the publication of his pamphlet; had looked at them, and turned over the leaves; but at that time had read only a few words up and down in different places, but not one complete fentence, though requested fo to do by Mr. Mackenzie at that time. That fince the publication of his pamplet, Mr. Shaw hath again seen thofe MSS. and again read fingle words in different parts; but upon being preffed by Mr. Mackenzie, in prefence of another gentleman, to try to read a few fentences, he applied himself to one page of a MS. in verfe; and, after poring about a quarter of an hour, he made out three lines, which related, as read aloud by Mr. Shaw himself, to Ofear the fon of Offian. Upon being asked how thofe lines agreed with the doctrine of his pamphlet? Mr. Shaw anfwered, that he believed" they were the compofitions of the 15th century, and

not of Offian.'

After remarking fome curious inftances of Mr. Shaw's alleged ignorance, contradiction, and vanity, our Author gives us a piece of valuable information. Dr. Johnfon, on being informed that fome part of Offian's poems had been found in the Saxon character, remarks, in his Journey to the Western Iflands,' that the editor of Offian had discovered, by fome peculiar fortune, an unwritten language, written in a character which the natives probably never beheld.' Here,' fays Mr. Clark, Dr. Johnfon betrays ignorance incompatible with his high pretenfions to letters. There is not a man in Great Britain, or Ire land, at all converfant with old MSS. but knows that the Saxons, Highlanders, and Irish wrote their feveral languages in the self-fame character. Whether the Irish and Highlanders had them originally from the Saxons, or the Saxons from them is a matter of no moment. They are undoubtedly the fame, and came originally from the Romans, who were certainly the introducers of letters into Great Britain; from which they were tranfplanted, with the Christian religion, into Ireland. St. Patrick, who was a Scotchman, is faid to have been the firft who introduced letters into Ireland; and if that was the cafe, it is probable that the Irish, Scotch, and Saxons, received the Roman letters through the hands of the ancient Britons.