detection. The desert is a correlative term, suggested by its contrast with peopled or cultivated fields; but as all places were equally desert, to a tribe of hunters who subsisted in the desert, there was no relative to suggest either the idea or the name. The same observation is applicable to autumn's dark storms. Among hunters who have neither harvest nor fruits, "Autumni perinde nomen et "bona ignorantur." Whitaker, who read Ossian only in English, pronounces steel to have been an early British manufacture, as it was distinguished (before iron) by an original name in the Irish language, "the fairest mirror of "the British original." Cruadh, hard, is equally applied to cruadh, a stone, and to cruaidh, steel; but in those specimens of Ossian, steel, the German stabel, the Saxon and Scandinavian stall, is repeated by name. "Gniomh bu chruai "Mighty deeds. "Leth dhoiller an deallin na stallin "Half hid in the bright gleams (coals) of steel. "She saw him in his hard steel." The ancients were indebted to the Chalybeans for the manufacture and the name of steel, but it is observable that Chalybs is very seldom employed, like Ferrum, metaphorically for a sword; never for armour, which was generally of brass. But the English name and idiom, of steel for armour, are assigned by Macpherson, from his own Highlander, "steel speaks on steel," to the third century, when steel was seldom or never used in armour by the Romans themselves. After this passage, the application of barbarous to Cathmor's soul, may excite the less surprise. "Ni mosguil cunart anam borb, "Can danger shake (awake) his daring (barbarous) soul; "Ach ni'n solas do m' anam tla, "But it gives no solace to my soft soul." In the description of Cathmor's shield, an obvious imitation of the shield of Achilles, I was curious to know what term would be employed for the sounding boss. Crun a crown, crap a knob, were inadequate to the effect, and boss itself was too gross to be transcribed. "Seached coppain a b’h' air an sciath "On the great nation of the Belgæ, "Air gach copan ta reul do noiche, "On each boss was a star of night, The same terms are repeatedly employed. "Bhuail en "sciath as fuaimnach cop," struck the shield of the sounding boss; "Chualas le sciath nan cop," she heard the shield of the boss. "Ach ta m fhocul le cunairt nan Erin; "But my voice is (I warn you of) the danger of Erin. "An cualas duit coppan na fuaim "Heard you the sound of the boss." The reader may be surprised to learn that focal is literally vocalis a vowel, (foclair a vocabulary,) and that coppar is the Saxon and German cup. If a circumstance can render the detection more complete, the hundred cups of the Irish ballad of Erragon, are converted, in the battle of Lora, into ten shells (sligh) studded with gems, that gladdened once the kings of the world. But in Cathmor's marvellous shield, copan a cup, so fastidiously rejected as unknown to Ossian in its proper signification 6, is applied metaphorically to the seven bosses tipt with seven stars of night, that spoke like a peal of bells, each in a separate voice or vowel, to seven kings. After such gross detection, it is unnecessary to examine more than Larthon's dream, and the description of his ship. 60 "Thanic aslin gu Learthon nan long, "Dreams descended on Larthon (of ships ;) "Seached samla do'n lina nach beo, "Seven spirits of his fathers, (of the generations that are past.) "Chualas an guth brista, trom, "He heard their half formed (broken) words (asleep), "Thaom iad am feachda fein, "They led (poured) their hosts (fights) "Mar cheadh a terna on bhein "Along the field, like ridges of mist." Samlis, semblance, a word I believe of the author's coinage, from samhuil, similis; lina, literally a line or lineage, (linns-gearadh, a genealogy,) are both from the Latin; 60"It is worthy of being remarked," says Macpherson on the English word case, (supra 466.) in the Irish ballad of Fingal and Magnus," that Ossian, who lived in St. Patrick's day, seems to have understood something of English, a language not then subsisting. Ossian, ii. 276. Barcas a bark, stoirm a storm, Carbad carborne, baiste a beast, occur in Smith, the difference between whom and Macpherson is, that the latter imitated the classics, while Smith and Clark imitate Macpherson. brista, a Teutonick word, is the German bresten, the French briser, the Saxon bursten, the Scottish brist, to break or burst; but feachda, battles, forces, fights, from feachthao1, was fought, is a word that indicates equal confidence in deceit, and contempt for the credulous simplicity of mankind. "Leathain scaoile secil bhan an righ, "Dark rider (horseman) of the wave." Loingheas and long are indisputably derived from the naves longa of the Romans, and of the middle ages; seoil are the English sails, from the Saxon segel, seyl, an universal word among the northern nations; and marcadh, from the Teutonick mark, a horse, is still retained in marishal and mare 2. Riding, applied in English to ships, is a familiar idiom; and the dark riders of Ocean, is an easy metaphor, not to be translated with impunity into a different language. The steeds and coursers of Ocean, are metaphors frequently used by the Scalds, Eurus per Siculas equi 6 Ihre, Junius. Lye. O'Brian. 62 Seol a sail in Earse and Irish, not in the Welsh. Bullet and O'Brian have assigned Marc to the Celtick, as it occurs in Pausanias' Account of the Irruption of the Gauls into Greece. Paus. Phoc. But the Marcomanni were a German tribe, and Merula (Cosmogr. 421), and Pinkerton have proved indisputably from St. Jerome, that the Galatæ of Asia minor, were German Gauls, who spoke the same language with the Treviri or inhabitants of Triers, a tribe originally German. Tacitus Germ. c. 28. Dissertation on the Scythians and Goths, 148. See Meric Casaub. de quatuor Linguis Comment. 139. tavit undas, occurs in Horace, and the horses of Ocean in Homer; but a name for the rider, from rede a chariot, distinct from that of the horse, is peculiar to the English and other Gothic languages; and Marchadh a chuain mhoir, the horseman of the great sea, is a harsh, and obvious translation of the rider of Ocean, equally ridiculous with eques maris in Latin, or Cavalier de la mer, were it translated into French. From the specimens already published, `the language is indisputably of a recent growth; and from the preceding detections, it is not difficult to predict, that the publication of an Earse Ossian will counteract the design, and reflect utter discredit on the whole of the poems. VIII. 1. Macpherson himself has in fact, from the The deceit very beginning, avowed the deceit. The supposed transla- avowed by Macpher tion was undertaken with real, or affected reluctance; and son in his letters to a confidential friend 3, his great objection to the publication of the Fragments, was "that his high"land pride was alarmed at appearing to the world only as "translator." Such an idea could have occurred only to a person conscious that the poems were his own; not to a genuine translator, like Pope and Dryden; but to one unwilling to forfeit, by a pretended translation, all claim to his own productions, or to the conscious merit of an original poet. The same idea predominates in every subsequent edition of Ossian. In the preface to the first edition of Fingal, he informs the reader that " poetry, like virtue, "receives its reward after death. The fame which men pursued in vain, when living, is often bestowed upon "them when they are not sensible of it. This neglect of living authors, is not altogether to be attributed to that 66 63 Mr. George Lawrie, late minister of Loudon, whose letter on the subject is now in my possession. |