best Erse scholar in that part of the country. From this lady he learnt the language grammatically, and to read and write it; she likewise gave him a high opinion of Erse poetry, by the many excellent compositions in that language, with which she made him acquainted; in consequence of this, when he became master of the language, he collected every thing of the kind he could meet with, and of such collections was formed the MS. in question.

I first saw the MS. in the possession of Mr. Farquharson, when I was a student in the Scotch college of Douay, and afterwards of Dinant in the county of Liege, Mr. Farquharson being then our prefect of studies. I know certainly of its remaining in his possession from the year 1763, when I went first to the college, until 1773, when he and I both left Dinant, he to return to Scotland, and I to prosecute my studies at Douay. Mr. Farquharson on his return to Scotland, passed by Douay, where he left his MS. I saw it there till the summer of 1775, when I left Douay. It was at that time in a much worse condition than I had ever seen it before it had got into the hands of the students, none of whom, I believe, could read it: it was much battered in many places, and many leaves had been entirely torn out. I suppose from the manner in which it was then treated, that very little care had been taken of it afterwards: but allowing that what remained of it had been carefully kept, it must have perished with every thing else in that house, during the French revolution.

The MS. was a large folio about three inches thick, and entirely in Mr. Farquharson's own hand writing. As it consisted wholly of poems collected by himself, it was written pretty close, so that it must have contained a great deal. I cannot say positively how Mr. Farquharson collected the poems; many of them certainly must have been obtained from hearing them recited, and I have a sort of remembrance that he frequently mentioned his having got a great many of them from Mrs. Fraser, and indeed it must have been so, as she first gave him a relish for Gaelic poetry, by the fine pieces with which she

made him acquainted. I can say nothing at all of the particular pieces which he got from her, or from any other person, as I do not remember to have heard him specify any thing of the kind.

In the year 1766 or 1767, Mr. Farquharson first saw Mr. Macpherson's translation of Ossian. It was sent to him by a friend, Mr. Glendoning of Parton. I remember perfectly well his receiving it, although I do not recollect the exact time, and his telling us when he had read it, that he had all the translated poems in his collection. I have an hundred times seen him turning over his folio, when he read the translation, and comparing it with the Erse; and I can positively say, that I saw him in this manner go through the whole poems of Fingal and Temora. Although I cannot speak so precisely of his comparing the other poems in the translation with his manuscript, I am convinced he had them, as he spoke in general of his having all the translated poems; and I never heard him mention that any poem in the translation was wanting in his collection; whereas I have often heard him say that there were many pieces in it, as good as any that had been published, and regret that the translator had not found them, or had not translated them. I do not remember to have ever heard him tax Mr. Macpherson's translation, with deviating essentially from the sense of the original, which he would not have failed to have done, had he found grounds for it; for he very frequently complained that it did not come up to the strength of the original, and to convince us of this, he used to repeat the Erse expressions, and to translate them literally, comparing them with Macpherson's. This difference however he seemed to ascribe rather to the nature of the two languages, than to any inaccuracy or infidelity in the translator.

With regard to the time at which Mr. Farquharson collected the poems he had, all I can say, is that it is evident, that it must have been during his residence in Strathglass, as he brought them from Scotland to Douay with him; I do not know the very year he came to Douay, but I am sure it was

before 1760, and I always understood that he had collected them long before that time. When Mr. Farquharson first received Macpherson's translation, I was studying poetry and rhetoric, and thought that nothing could equal the beauties of the ancient poets, whom I was then reading; I used with a sort of indignation to hear Mr. Farquharson say, that there were Erse poems equal in merit to the pieces of the ancients, whom I so much admired; but when I saw the translation, I began to think my indignation unjust, and consequently paid more attention to the comparison which he made of it with his own collection, than I would otherwise have done.

This is all the information I can give relative to Mr. Farquharson's manuscript; I have often regretted, since disputes began to run so high about the authenticity of Ossian's poems, that I did not ask of Mr. Farquharson a thousand questions about them, which I did not think of then, and to which I am sure he could have given me the most satisfactory answers; at any rate, what I so often heard from him, has left on my mind so full a conviction of the authenticity of the poems, or at least that they are no forgery of Macpherson's, that I could never since hear the thing called in question, without the greatest indignation. It is certain that Mr. Farquharson made his collection before Macpherson's time, and I am sure that he never heard of Macpherson till he saw his book. I sincerely wish that persons of more judgment, and more reflection than I had at the time, had had the same opportunities of seeing and hearing what I did, and of receiving from Mr. Farquharson, whose known character was sincerity, the information he could have given them; in that case, I believe they would have been convinced themselves, and I make no doubt but they would have been the means of convincing the most incredulous.

I remain, Right Rev. Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,

JAMES MACGILLIVRAY.

Right Rev. Dr. Cameron, Edinburgh.

Bishop Cameron afterwards transmitted the following letter on the same subject:

SIR,

FRIDAY last I had the honour of sending you the letters of Dr. Chisholm and Mr. Macgillivray, concerning the Rev. John Farquharson's Gaelic manuscript. As Dr. Chisholm's answers were short, and referred to the order in which your queries were proposed, I have thought it proper to return you the original, from an apprehension that you may not have kept a copy of them.

Two other persons have been named, who were students in the Scots college of Douay, in the year 1773, when Mr. Farquharson, returning to Scotland, from Dinant, spent some days amongst his countrymen, and left his manuscript with them. The first of these two, afterwards president of the college, and now residing in Elgin, had occurred to myself, and I had interrogated him upon the subject; he declared to me, that he remembered the MS., that no one in the college could read it, and that he had seen the leaves torn out of it, as long as it lasted, to light the fire; I gave you this unpleasant information in some of my former letters. This was all that the Rev. John Farquharson remembered concerning the MS.

The Rev. Ronald Macdonald, now residing in Uist, declares, that he has a clear remembrance of having seen the manuscript. But it was after his return to Scotland in 1780, after he had acquired a more perfect knowledge of the Gaelic, when he discovered that the poems of Ossian were not so common, or so fresh in the memory of his countrymen, when the public began to despair of Mr. Macpherson's publishing his original text, and when some people doubted, or affected to doubt, the existence of an original, it was then Mr. Macdonald formed some idea of the value of the manuscript, and often expressed his regret, that he had not brought it to Scotland, for he was con

fident no objection would have been made to his taking it. I had occasion to see him here; and this is the sum of what he declared to me on the 16th instant.

From the year 1775, when he came to Scotland, to 1780, when I went to Spain, where I resided more than twenty years, Mr. Macgillivray and I lived in a habit of intimacy and friendship. Our interviews were frequent, and we were not strangers to Macpherson's translation of the Poems of Ossian. It was then Mr. Macgillivray gave me the first account of the manuscript. The Rev. John Farquharson, to whom it had belonged, lived at that time with his nephew Mr. Farquharson of Inverey, at Balmorral. Amongst many others who visited in that respectable family, it is probable Lord Fife may still recollect the venerable old man, and bear testimony of the amiable candour and simplicity of his manners. I knew him, and he confirmed to me all that my friend Mr. Macgillivray had told me. He added that, when he was called to Douay, I believe about the year 1753, he had left another collection of Gaelic poems in Braemar. He told me by whom, and in what manner it had been destroyed; and made many humorous and just observations on the different points of view, in which different people may place the same object. He seemed to think that similar, and even fuller collections might still be formed with little trouble. He was not sensible of the rapid, the incredible, the total change, which had taken place in the Highlands of Scotland, in the course of a few years.

The Poems of Ossian were sometimes the subject of my conversation with my friends in Spain. I wished to see them in a Spanish dress. The experiment was made; but the public reception of the specimen did not encourage the translator to continue his labour. The author of a very popular work on the Origin, Progress, and present State of Literature, had confidently adopted the opinion of those, who thought, or called, Mr. Macpherson the author, not the translator of the poems; and the opinion became common amongst our literati. This gave me occasion