among the Chickisaws or Cherokees, in order to tame and civilize him. Since writing the above, I have been in company with Mrs. Montague, a lady of great distinction in this place, and a zealous partisan of Ossian. I told her of your intention, and even used the freedom to read your letter to her. She was extremely pleased with your project; and the rather, as the Duc de Nivernois, she said, had talked to her much on that subject last winter; and desired, if possible, to get collected some proofs of the authenticity of these poems, which he proposed to lay before the Academie de Belles Lettres at Paris. You see, then, that you are upon a great stage in this inquiry, and that many people have their eyes upon you. This is a new motive for rendering your proofs as complete as possible. I cannot conceive any objection which a man even of the gravest character could have to your publication of his letters, which will only attest a plain fact known to him. Such scruples, if they occur, you must endeavour to remove, for on this trial of yours will the judgment of the public finally depend.' be seen, Without being acquainted with Hume's advice to Dr. Blair, the Committee, composed of chosen persons, and assisted by the best Celtic scholars, adopted, as it will a very similar manner of acting. It conceived the purpose of its nomination to be, to employ the influence of the society, and the extensive communication which it possesses with every part of the Highlands, in collecting what materials or information it was still practicable to collect, regarding the authenticity and nature of the poems ascribed to Ossian, and particulary of that celebrated collection published by Mr. James Macpherson. For the purpose above-mentioned, the Committee, soon after its appointment, circulated the following set of Queries, through such parts of the Highlands and Islands, and among such persons resident there, as seemed most likely to afford the information required. QUERIES. 1. Have you ever heard repeated, or sung, any of the poems ascribed to Ossian, translated and published by Mr. Macpherson? By whom have you heard them so repeated, and at what time or times? Did you ever commit any of them to writing? or can you remember them so well as now to set them down? In either of these cases, be so good as to send the Gaelic original to the Committee. 2. The same answer is requested concerning any other ancient poems of the same kind, and relating to the same traditionary persons or stories with those in Mr. Macpherson's collection. 3. Are any of the persons from whom you heard any such poems now alive? or are there, in your part of the country, any persons who remember and can repeat or recite such poems? If there are, be so good as to examine them as to the manner of their getting or learning such compositions; and set down, as accurately as possible, such as they can now repeat or recite; and transmit such their account, and such compositions as they repeat, to the Committee. 4. If there are, in your neighbourhood, any persons from whom Mr. Macpherson received any poems, inquire particularly what the poems were which he so received, the manner in which he received them, and how he wrote them down; show those persons, if you have an opportunity, his translation of such poems, and desire them to say, if the translation is exact and literal; or, if it differs, in what it differs from the poems, as they repeated them to Mr. Macpherson, and can now recollect them. 5. Be so good to procure every information you conveniently can, with regard to the traditionary belief, in the country in which you live, concerning the history of Fingal and his followers, and that of Ossian and his poems; particularly those stories and poems published by Mr. Macpherson, and the heroes mentioned in them. Transmit any such account, and any proverbial or traditionary expression in the original Gaelic, relating to the subject, to the Committee. 6. In all the above inquiries, or any that may occur to in elucidation of this subject, he is requested by the Committee to make the inquiry, and to take down the answers, with as much impartiality and precision as possible, in the same manner as if it were a legal question, and the proof to be investigated with a legal strictness.See the 'Report.' It is presumed, as undisputed, that a traditionary history of a great hero or chief, called Fion, Fion na Gael, or, as it is modernised, Fingal, exists, and has immemorially existed, in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and that certain poems or ballads containing the exploits of him and his associate heroes were the favourite lovo of the natives of those districts. The general belief of the existence of such heroic personages, and the great poet Ossian, the son of Fingal, by whom their exploits were sung, is as universal in the Highlands as the belief of any ancient fact whatsoever. It is recorded in proverbs, which pass through || all ranks and conditions of men. Ossian dall, blind Ossian *, is a person as well known as strong Samson or wise Solomon. The very boys in their sports cry out for fair play, Cothram na feine, the equal combat of the Fingalians. Ossian, an deigh nam fiann, Ossian, the last of his race, is proverbial, to signify a man who has had the misfortune to survive his kindred; and servants returning from a fair or wedding were in use to describe the beauty of young women whom they had seen there, by the words, Tha i cho boidheach reh Agandecca, nighean ant sneachda, she is as beautiful as Agandecca, daughter of the Snow **. All this will be readily conceded, and Mr. Macpherson's being at one period an 'indifferent proficient in the Gaelic language' may seem an argument of some weight against his having himself composed these Ossianic Poems. Of his inaccuracy in the Gaelic, a ludicrous instance is related in the declaration of Mr. Ewan Macpherson, at Knock, in Sleat, Sep. 11, 1800. He declares, that he, Colonel Macleod, of Talisker, and the late Mr. Maclean, of Coll, embarked with Mr. Macpherson for Uist on the same pursuit: that they landed at Lochmaddy, and proceeded across the Muir to Benbecula, the seat of the younger Clanronald: that on their way thither, they fell in with a man whom they afterwards ascertained to have been Mac Codrum, the poet: that Mr. Macpherson asked him the question, Abheil dad agad air an Fheinn? by which he meant to inquire, whether or not he knew any of the poems of Ossian relative to the Fingalians; but that the term in which the question was asked strictly imported whether or not the Fingalians owed him any thing; and that Mac Codrum being a man of humour, took advantage of the incorrectness or inelegance of the Gaelic in which the question was put, and answered, that really if they had owed him any thing, the bonds and obligations were lost, and he believed any attempt to recover them at that time of day would be unavailing. Which sally of Mac Codrum's wit seemed to have hurt Mr. Macpherson, who cut short the conversation, and proceeded on towards Benbecula. And the declarant being asked whether or not the late Mr. James Macpherson was capable of composing such poems as those of Ossian, declares most explicitly and positively that he is certain Mr. Macpherson was as unequal to such compositions as the declarant himself, who could no more make them than take wings and fly.' P. 96. * We would here observe, that the suffi Τυφλος γ' Όμηρος. Lascaris Const. ** Report, p. 15. ciency of a man's knowledge of such a language as the Gaelic, for all the purposes of composition, is not to be questioned, because he does not speak it accurately or elegantly, much less is it to be quibbled into suspicion by the pleasantry of a double entendre. But we hold it prudent, and it shall be our endeavour in this place, to give no decided opinion on the main subject of dispute. For us the contention shall still remain sub judice. To the Queries circulated through such parts of the Highlands as the Committee imagined most likely to afford information in reply to them, they received many answers, most of which were conceived in nearly similar terms; that the persons themselves had never doubted of the existence of such poems as Mr. Macpherson had translated; that they had heard many of them repeated in their youth: that listening to them was the favourite amusement of Highlanders in the hours of leisure and idleness; but that since the rebellion in 1745, the manners of the people had undergone a change so unfavourable to the recitation of these poems, that it was now an amusement scarcely known, and that very few persons remained alive who were able to recite them. That many of the poems which they had formerly heard were similar in subject and story, as well as in the names of the heroes mentioned in them, to those translated by Mr. Macpherson: that his translation seemed, to such as had read it, a very able one; but that it did not by any means come up to the force or energy of the original to such as had read it; for his book was by no means universally possessed, or read among the Highlanders, even accustomed to reading, who conceived that his translation could add but little to their amusement, and not at all to their conviction, in a matter which they had never doubted. A few of the Committee's correspondents sent them such ancient poems as they possessed in writing, from having formerly taken them down from the oral recitation of the old Highlanders who were in use to recite them, or as they now took them down from some person, whom a very advanced period of life, or a particular connexion with some reciter of the old school, enabled still to retain them in his memory ** but those, the Com * We doubt not that Mr. Professor Porsen could, if he pleased, forge a short poem in Greek, and ascribing it, for instance, to Theocritus, and probability; and yet were it possible for him maintain its authenticity with considerable force to speak to the simplest shepherd of ancient Greece, he would quickly afford as good reason as Mr. M. to be suspected of being an 'indifferent proficient' in the language. ** The Rev. Mr. Smith, who has published translations of many Gaelic poems, accompanied mittee's correspondents said, were generally less perfect, and more corrupted, than the poems which they had formerly heard, or which might have been obtained at an earlier period *. || golden locks are spread on the face of the Several collections came to them, by pre- 'I got,' says Mr. Mac Diarmid **, 'the copy of these poems,' (Ossian's Address to the Sun in Carthon, and a similar address in Carrickthura) about thirty years ago, from an old man in Glenlyon. I took it, and several other fragments, now, I fear, irrecoverably lost, from the man's mouth. He had learnt them in his youth from people in the same glen, which must have been long before Macpherson was born.' The comparison may be made, by turning to the end of Mr. Macpherson's version of Carthon,' beginning 0 thou that rollest above.' But it must not be concealed, that after all the exertions of the Committee, it has not been able to obtain any one poem, the same in title and tenor with the poems published by him. We therefore feel that the reader of 'Ossian's Poems,' until grounds more relative be produced, will often, in the perusal of Mr. M's translations, be induced, with some show of justice, to exclaim with him, when he looked over the manuscript copies found in Clanronald's family, Literal translation of Ossian's Address to the D-n the scoundrel, it is he himself that now Sun in Carthon. speaks, and not Ossian *. To this sentiment the Committee has the 'O! thou who travellest above, round as candour to incline, as it will appear by their the fullorbed hard shield of the mighty! summing up. After producing or pointing whence is thy brightness without frown, thy to a large body of mixed evidence, and talight that is lasting, O sun? Thou comest king for granted the existence, at some peforth in thy powerful beauty, and the stars riod, of an abundance of Ossianic poetry, it hide their course; the moon, without strength, || comes to the question, "How far that colgoes from the sky, hiding herself under a lection of such poetry, published by Mr. wave in the west. Thou art in thy journey James Macpherson, is genuine?' To answer alone; who is so bold as to come nigh this query decisively, is, as they confess, thee? The oak falleth from the high moun- difficult. This, however, is the ingenuous tain; the rock and the precipice fall under manner in which they treat it. old age; the ocean ebbeth and floweth, the moon is lost above in the sky; but thou alone for ever in victory, in the rejoicing of thy own light. When the storm darkeneth around the world, with fierce thunder, and piercing lightnings, thou lookest in thy beauty from the noise, smiling in the troubled sky! To me is thy light in vain, as I can never see thy countenance; though thy yellow by the originals, assures us, that 'near himself, in See Report. || "The Committee is possessed of no documents, to show how much of his collection Mr. Macpherson obtained in the form in which he has given it to the world. The poems and fragments of poems which the Committee has been able to procure contain, as will appear from the article in the Appendix (No. 15.) already mentioned, often the substance, and sometimes almost the literal expression (the ipsissima verba), of passages given by Mr. Macpherson, in the poems of which he has published the translations. But the Committee has not been able to obtain any one poem the same in title or tenor with the poems published by him. It is inclined to believe, that he was in use to supply chasms, and to give connexion, by inserting passages which he did Report, p. 44. from which the similes and images are indisputably derived *. And these he pretends to find in Holy Writ, and in the classical poets, both of ancient and modern times. Mr. Laing, however, is one of those detectors of plagiarisms and discoverers of coincidences, whose exquisite penetration and acuteness can find any thing any where. Dr. Johnson, || who was shut against conviction with respect to Ossian, even when he affected to seek the truth in the heart of the Hebrides, may yet be made useful to the Ossianites in canvassing the merits of this redoubted stickler on the side of opposition. Among the innumerable practices,' says the Rambler **, by which interest or envy have taught those who live upon literary fame to disturb each other at their airy banquets, one of the most common is the charge of plagiarism. When the excellence of a new composition can no longer be contested, and malice is compelled to give way to the unanimity of applause, there is yet this one expedient to be tried, by which the author may be degraded, though his work be reverenced; and the excellence which we cannot obscure, may be set at such a distance as not to overpower our fainter lustre. This accusation is dangerous, because, even when it is false, it may be sometimes urged with probability.' not find, and to add what he conceived to || Which shows us many more.' The first of these is Mr. Laing, who has recently published 'The Poems of Ossian, &c. containing the Poetical Works of James Macpherson, Esq. in Prose and Rhyme: with Notes and Illustrations. In 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1805.' In these 'Notes and IIlustrations,' we foresee, that Ossian is likely to share the fate of Shakspeare: that is, ultimately to be loaded and oppressed by heavy commentators until his immortal spirit groan beneath vast heaps of perishable matter. The object of Mr. Laing's commentary, after having elsewhere * endeavoured to show that the Poems are spurious, and of no historical authority, 'is,' says he, 'not merely to exhibit parallel passages, much less instances of a fortuitous resemblance of ideas, but to produce the precise originals How far this just sentence applies to Mr. Laing, it does not become us, nor is it our business, now to declare: but we must say, that nothing can be more disingenuous or groundless than his frequent charges of plagiarism of the following description: 'because, in the War of Caros, we meet with these words: 'It is like the field, when darkness covers the hills around, and the shadow grows slowly on the plain of the sun,' we are to believe, according to Mr. Laing, that the idea was stolen from Virgil's thing must be nearly the same; and descriptions, which are definitions of a more lax and fanciful kind, must always have, in some degree, that resemblance to each other which they all have to their object.' It is true, however, if we were fully able to admit that Macpherson could not have obtained these ideas where he professes to have found them, Mr. Laing has produced many instances of such remarkable coincidence as would make it probable that Macpherson frequently translates, not the Gaelic, but the poetical lore of antiquity. Still this is a battery that can only be brought to play on particular points; and then with great uncertainty. The mode of attack used by Mr. Knight, could it have been carried on to any extent, would have proved much more effectual. We shall give the instance alluded to. In his 'Analytical Enquiry into the Principles of Taste, 1805,' he makes these remarks: "The untutored, but uncorrupted feelings of all unpolished nations, have regulated their fictions upon the same principles, even when most rudely exhibited. In relating the actions of their gods and deceased heroes, they are licentiously extravagant; for there falsehood could amuse, because it could not be detected: but in describing the common appearances of nature, and all those objects and effects which are exposed to habitual observation, their bards are scrupulously exact; so that an extravagant hyperbole, in a matter of this kind, is sufficient to mark as counterfeit any composition attributed to them. In the early stages of society, men are as acute and accurate in practical observation as they are limited and deficient in speculative science; and in proportion as they are ready to give up their imaginations to delusion, they are jealously tenacious of the evidence of their senses. James Macpherson, in the person of his blind bard, could say, with applause, in the eighteenth century, Thus have I seen in Cona; but Cona I behold no more; thus have I seen two dark hills removed from their place by the strength of the mountain stream. They turn from side to side, and their tall oaks meet one another on high. Then they fall together with all their rocks and trees.' But had a blind bard, or any other bard, presumed to utter such a rhapsody of bombast in the hall of shells, amid the savage warriors to whom Ossian is supposed to have sung, he would have needed all the influence of royal birth, attributed to that fabulous personage, to restain the audience from throwing their shells at his head, and hooting him out of their company as an impudent liar. They must have been sufficiently acquainted with the rivulets of Cona or Glen-Coe to know that he had seen nothing of the kind; and have known enough of mountain torrents in general to know that no such effects are ever produced by them; and would, therefore, have indignantly rejected such a barefaced attempt to impose on their credulity.' The best defence that can be set up in this case will, perhaps, be to repeat, 'It is he himself that now speaks, and not Ossian.' Mr. Laing had scarcely thrown down the gauntlet, when Mr. Archibald M'Donald * appeared 'Ready, aye ready **, for the field:' The opinion of the colour of his opposition, whether it be that of truth or error, will depend on the eye that contemplates it. Those who delight to feast with Mr. Laing on the limbs of a mangled poet, will think the latter unanswered; while those *** who continue to indulge the animating thought, that Fingal lived, and that Ossian sung,' will entertain a different sentiment. After successfully combating several old positions ***, Mr. M'Donald terminates his discussion of the point at issue with these words: 'He (Mr. Laing) declares, if a single poem of Ossian in MS. of an older date than the present century (1700), be procured and lodged in a public library, I (Laing) shall return among the first to our national creed.' "This is reducing the point at issue to a narrow compass. Had the proposal been made at the outset, it would have saved both him and me a great deal of trouble: not that in regard to ancient Gaelic manuscripts I could give any more satisfactory account than has been done in the course of this discourse. There the reader will see, that though some of the poems are confessedly procured from oral tradition, yet several gentlemen of veracity attest to have seen, among Macpherson's papers, several * Some of Ossian's lesser poems, rendered into verse, with a preliminary discourse, in answer to Mr. Laing's Critical and Historical Dissertation Liverpool, 1805.' on the Antiquity of Ossian's Poems. 8vo. p. 284. **Thirlestane's motto. See Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.. the amiable and learned Dr. Gregory, is on the *** A Professor in the University of Edinburgh, side of the believers in Ossian. His judgment is a tower of strength. See the Preface, p. vi. to xii. and p. 146, of his Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man with those of the Animal World. ***** Such as the silence of Ossian in respect to religion; his omission of wolves and bears, &c. See also, in the Literary Journal, August, 1804, a powerful' encounter of many of Mr. L.'s other arguments in his Dissertation against the authenticity of these poems. His ignorance of the Gaelic, and the consequent futility of his etymological remarks, are there ably exposed. |