enabled still to retain them in his memory ;* but those, the committee'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.† One Several collections came to them by presents, as well as by purchase, and in these are numerous “shred3 and patches, that bear a strong resemblance to the materials of which "Ossian's Poems" are composed. These are of various degrees of consequence. of them we are the more tempted to give, for the same reason as the committee was the more solicitous to procure it, because it was one which some of the opposers of the authenticity of Ossian had quoted as evidently spurious, betraying the most convincing marks of its being a close imitation of the address to the sun in Milton. "I got," says Mr. Mac Diarmid, "the copy of these poerns" (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 Rev. Mr. Smith, who has published translations of many Gaelic poems, accompanied by the originals, assures us, that "near himself, in the parish of Klimnver, lived a person named M Pheal, whom he has heard, for weeks together, from five till ten o'clock at night, rehearse ancient poems, and many of them Os ian's. Two others, called M'Dugal and M'Neil, could entertain their hearers in the same manner for a whole winter season. It was from persons of this description, undoubtedly, that Macpherson recovered a great part of the works of Ossian. A. Macdonald's Prelim. Disc. p. 76. † See Report. Date, April 9, 1801, p. 71. LITERAL TRANSLATION OF OSSI. N'S ADIRESS TO THE SUN IN CARTHON. "()! thou who travellest above, round as the full-orbed ard shield of the mighty! whence is thy brightness without frown, thy light that is lasting, O sun? Thou comest forth in thy powerful beauty, and the stars hide their course; the moon, without strength, goes from the sky, hiding herself under a wave in the west. Thou art in thy journey alone; who is so bold as to come nigh thee? The oak falleth from the high mountain; the rock and the precipice fall under oid age; the ocean ebbeth and floweth, the moon is lost above in the sky; but thou alone forever in victory, in the rejoicing of thy own light. When the storn 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 golden locks are spread on the face of the clouds in the east; or when thou tremblest in the west, at thy dusky doors in the ocean. Perhaps thou and myself are at one time mighty, at another feeble, our years sliding down from the skies, quickly travelling together to their end. Rejoice then, O sun! while thou art strong, O king! in thy youth. Dark and unpleasant is old age, like the vain and feeble light of the moon, while she looks through a cloud on the field, and her gray mist on the sides of the rocks; a blast from the north on the plain, a traveller in distress, and he slow." The comparison may be made, by turning to the end of Mr. Macpherson's version of "Carthon," bcginning "O thou that rollest above." But it must not be concealed, that after all the exer. tions 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 rela tive be produced, will often, in the perusal of Mr. Mac. pherson'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, "D-n the scoundrel, it is he himself that now speaks, and not Ossian * To this sentiment the committee has the candor to incline, as it will appear by their summing up. After producing or pointing to a large body of mixed evidence, and taking for granted the existence, at some period, of an abundance of Ossianic poetry, it comes to the question, "How far that collection of such poetry, published by Mr. James Macpherson, is genu. ine? To answer this query decisively, is, as they confess, difficult. This, however, is the ingenious manner in which they treat it. "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 rhasms, and to give connection, by inserting passages * Report, p. 44. which he did not find, and to add what he conceived to be dignity and delicacy to the criginal composition, by striking out passages, by softening incidents, by re fining the language in short, by changing what he considered as too simple or too rude for a modern ear, and elevating what, in his opinion, was below the standard of good poetry. To what degree, however, he exercised these liberties, it is impossible for the committee to determine. The advantages he possessed, which the committee began its inquiries too late to enjoy, of collecting from the oral recitation of a num ber of persons, now no more, a very great number of the same poems on the same subjects, and then colla ting those different copies, or editions, if they may be so called, rejecting what was spurious or corrupted in one copy, and adopting from another, something more genuine and excellent in its place, afforded him an opportunity of putting together what might fairly enough be called an original whole, of much more beauty, and with much fewer blemishes, than the committee believe it now possible for any person, or combination of persons, to obtain." P. 152-3. Some Scotch critics, who should not be ignorant of he strongholds and fastnesses of the advocates for the authenticity of these poems, appear so convinced of their insufficiency, that they pronounce the question put to rest forever. But we greatly distrust that any literary question, possessing a single inch of debateable ground to stand upon, will be suffered to enjoy much rest in an age like the present. There are as many minds as men, and of wranglers there is no end. Be. hold another and "another yet," and in our imagina. tion, he 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. 8 vo. Edinburgh, 1805." In these "notes and illus. trations," 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 endeavored 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 from which the similes and images are indisputably derived." And these be 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 penetartion and acuteness can find any thing anywhere. 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 innu. merable 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 onger be contested, and malice is compelled to give * In his Critical and Historical Dissertation on the Antiquity of Ossian's Poems. + Preface, p. v 1 No. 43. |