and was fully elicited by Dr Blair and by a Committee Mr Lachlan Macpherson, writing to Dr Blair from "In the year 1760 I had the pleasure of accompanying my friend Mr Macpherson during some part of his journey in search of the poems of Ossian through the Highlands. I assisted him in collecting them, and took down from oral tradition and transcribed from old manuscripts by far the greatest part of those pieces he has published. I have carefully compared the translation with the copies of the originals in my hands, and find it amazingly literal. Some of the hereditary bards retained by the chiefs committed very early to writing some of the works of Ossian. One manuscript in particular was written as far back as the year 1410, which.. I saw in Mr Macpherson's possession." Mr Angus McNeill, minister of Howmore, in South Uist, in a letter to Dr Blair, dated 22d December 1763, says:t Neil McMurrich, a native of this country, who with his predecessors for nineteen generations back have been + Id., App., p. 18. * H. S. R., p. 8. the bards and historians of the family of Clanranald, Captain A. Morison, in answer to the queries of the * "That Mr James Macpherson, on his tour through the Highlands and Isles, was a night in his house in Skinnader, Sky. He was then collecting the ancient poems, but when in his house had only a few of them ; that he gave him some, which he afterwards translated and published, together with other Fingalian or old heroic poems not published in his translations, one of them 'Dargo.' "That he afterwards in London had access to Mr Macpherson's papers,-saw many MSS. in the old Gaelic character with Mr Macpherson, contaning some of the poems translated, which MSS. they found difficult to read. That he heard of such being in the country. How old the MSS. were cannot say, but from the Xcharacter and spelling seemed very ancient.” Ewan Macpherson, late schoolmaster at Badenoch, declares before Mr Norman Macdonald, J.P. at Knock, Sleat, Sky, on 11th September 1800,* "That having come to this country from the opposite coast of Knoydart to pay a visit to the Rev. Dr John Macpherson, then minister of the parish of Sleat, he happened to meet his old acquaintance Mr James Macpherson, who was then employed in collecting the poems of Ossian; and being well acquainted with the Gaelic orthography and character, was urged by James Macpherson to accompany him to the Long Island, which he eventually did. "That on that occasion they were one or two nights at the house of the elder Clanranald at Ormiglade, and about a week at the house of the younger at Benbicula, and at Mr McNeill's, minister in South Uist, where he became acquainted with MacMhurich, the representative of the celebrated bards of that name, but was not himself a man of any note. From this man the declarant got for Mr James Macpherson a book of the size of a Testament, and of the nature of a Common-Place Book, which contained some accounts of the families of the Macdonalds and the exploits of the great Montrose, together with some of the poems of Ossian. And Mr Macpherson obtained at the same time an order from Clanranald, sen., on Lieut. Donald Macdonald of Edinburgh, for a Gaelic folio manuscript belonging to the family, which was called the 'Leabhar Derg,' and conn-Ü tained, as he heard Clanranald say, some of the poems of Ossian." * See H. S. R., App., p. 94. Uor M These MSS. the late Mr Macdonald of Clanranald was very anxious to recover from Mr Macpherson, and after an ineffectual correspondence, actually gave directions to Mr William Macdonald, formerly secretary and then treasurer to the Highland Society, to bring an action for their recovery: this, on the understanding that they would be returned by Mr Macpherson, was not followed out.* The Rev. Andrew Gallie, in a letter to Charles Macintosh, Esq., W.S., of date 12th March 1799, says: + "The translator of Ossian's poems was for some years before he entered on that work my intimate. acquaintance and friend. When he returned from his tour through the Western Highlands and Islands, he came to my house in Brae, Badenoch. I inquired the success of his journey, and he produced several volumes small octavo, or rather large duodecimo, in the Gaelic language and characters, being the poems of Ossian and other ancient bards. "I remember perfectly that many of those volumes were at the close said to have been collected. by Paul MacMhurich, Bard, Clanraonuil, and about the beginning of the fourteenth century. Mr Macpherson and I were of opinion that, though the Bard collected them, yet they must have been writ by an ecclesiastic, for the characters and spelling were most beautiful and correct. Every poem had its first letter of its first word most elegantly flourished and gilded—some red, some yellow, some blue, and some green. The material writ on seemed to be a limber yet coarse and dark vellum. See H. S. R., p. 81. + Id., p. 31. The volumes were bound in strong parchment. Mr "At that time I could read the Gaelic characters, though with difficulty, and did often amuse myself with reading here and there in those poems while Mr Macpherson was employed on his translation. At times we differed as to the meaning of certain words in the original. "With much labour I have recovered some scattered parts of the translation made at my fireside-I should rather say of the original translated there, and I communicate to you a few stanzas taken from the manuscript:* "Bha fer re fer, is cruaigh re cruaigh, Bha Suaran mar chaoir fasàích thall Am fraoch fuaimar Gorm-mheall bras. Bu scrathoil stri bha san bhlár Bu lassach ard mo lann. Bu scrathoil Osgar mo mhac fein, brother Thar càch bu treubhach maith ! * The Gaelic here is not very correctly written, but the present writer has given it without alteration, as printed in the Highland Society's Report. |