No doubt Macpherson had the assistance of Captain Morison and Strathmashie in translating, transcribing, and arranging. But Captain Morison was no poet; Macpherson never wrote a line of Gaelic poetry in his life ; and Strathmashie, judging from the few songs he has written, was a poet of a very secondary class. We therefore concur with Dr Blair that, though these poems were not found in the connected form in which they are now presented to the public, but were collected from different manuscripts, and from oral recitation, as described by Macpherson himself, yet they exhibit, "as they stand, a genuine, authentic view of ancient Gaelic poetry.

To the criticisms on the particular form of verse we do not attach much importance. In Gaelic poetry the rhyme, if such it may be called, is peculiar, and is rather a harmony of sound or cadence which pleases the ear. The verse in which Ossian is composed consists of eight feet, and is well suited for heroic poetry; but Gaelic is a language so well adapted, from its great flexibility, for composition in verse, that we find in Gaelic songs all sorts of measures adopted, and even some in imitation of pipe-music. These are composed from the ear; and though, perhaps, rules might be deduced for the formation of any kind of verse, yet we cannot go into the complicated theories of Mr Davies and others on the subject, which were never understood by some of the best Gaelic poets of even modern times, many of whom could neither read, write, nor speak English.

The superiority of the Gaelic version of the Ossianic

poems over the English translation is one of the strongest arguments in favour of their authenticity, but it is one which, though it may be inferred by all, can only be fully felt by those acquainted with both languages, and therefore the supporters of the authenticity of Ossian have had reason to complain that they had suffered more from the ignorance than from the knowledge of their opponents.

In order to appreciate with tolerable accuracy the mode in which Macpherson proceeded in the arrangement of his materials, we may mention, what is well known to many, that before the Highland reciter delivers his poem he he generally prefaces it with a short summary, in a kind of measured prose, of the principal events contained in the verses which he is about to recite. This outline of the poem is called the Sgeulachd or tale. By the help of this outline Macpherson seems to have been enabled at least to connect in regular order the several detached pieces which he found in tradition according to the series of events to which they related. When a poem occurred which could not by this method be made to coalesce with his larger work, he seems to have proceeded by two ways he either gives the poem in its detached state as he found it, and as the lesser poems now appear in his publication, or he introduces it as an episode, as he has done in the instance of the 'Maid of Craca,' and in that of the expedition of Carthon in the close of the Seventh Book of Temora.' Of such episodes, indeed, skilfully introduced, and in general allied to the subject of the work, a great portion of 'Fingal' and 'Temora' consists.

*

As to the inference attempted to be rested on Macpherson's taciturnity, we may here quote from a passage in Dr Blair's letter to Mr Mackenzie, 20th December 1797: "For my own part, from my perfect knowledge of all the circumstances of their discovery and translation, it was impossible for me to entertain any doubts on the subject of their authenticity. Of all men I ever knew Mr Macpherson was the most unlikely and unfit to contrive and carry on such an imposture as some people in England ascribed to him. He had none of the versatility, the art, and dissimulation which such a character and such an undertaking would have required. He was proud, high-spirited, and disdainful; irritable to a degree when his honour and veracity were impeached; not very apt on any occasion to listen to advice; and when unjust censures were thrown out against him, obstinate in his purpose of disregarding and contemning them, without the least concern of giving any satisfaction to those who opposed or cavilled at him."

Were Macpherson even more inclined to be communicative than he was, we are at a loss to conjecture how he could have satisfied further inquiry as to the originality of these poems; for it must be kept in mind that they were not found in one continuous whole, but were in detached pieces, as collected by himself or others in the Highlands, or scattered through the pages of old manuscripts, written in a language and in a character intelligible to but few. He had fully stated to the public in his prefaces how they had been ob

* H. S. R. App., p. 56.

tained, and in this he had been corroborated by Dr Blair, who took an active part in their collection, and who published a dissertation on the subject, and while he declined to appeal to the testimony of those who aided him in their collection, he allowed Blair to do so. Yielding, however, to advice, he placed the manuscripts in Becket's shop for public inspection, and advertised that he had done so. Nor is it to be forgotten that those to whom he had submitted them privately were the persons best qualified to judge of their authenticity.

We have thus shown:

1. That Macpherson collected manuscripts containing Ossianic poetry, which he was assisted in transcribing and translating by friends who testify to the fact.

2. That he also collected a number of Ossianic poems from recitation, which were taken down by gentlemen who accompanied him in his search and acted as his

amanuenses.

3. That he received several Ossianic poems from friends.

4. That he was by no means a good Gaelic scholar, and required the assistance of friends to translate for him, and that he often mistook the meaning of the original.

5. That subsequent to the publication of the English Ossian, but many years before that of the Gaelic poems, a large portion of the finest parts of the poems translated by him were recovered in the original, partly from private collections, but principally from the recitation of persons who could neither read nor write.

hot, in Brist Ms

76

AUTHENTICITY OF THE POEMS OF OSSIAN.

6. That previous to the publication of these Gaelic poems, a large number of other Ossianic poems not published by Macpherson were collected and given to the public in the original, many of which are as fine as any of those published by him.

7. That the original poetry translated by Macpherson contains a number of obsolete words not to be found in any modern poetry, and that as a composition it is much superior to his translation.

8. That Macpherson openly avowed that his larger poems were compiled from detached poems arranged by him, which had been collected from old manuscripts, from recitation, and from ancient poems sent him by friends, and that he himself gave them the name of Epic.

At what date Ossian lived we do not pretend to determine; but this, at least, is sufficiently clear, that the Gaelic Ossian was not the production of Macpherson or any author of modern times, but must be referred to a period of remote antiquity. It further appears, from the internal evidence of these poems, that they refer to a period prior to the diffusion of Christianity and the era of clanship in the Highlands.

ting Mare Curial "was Bend "a 8184

to me.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.