"But the chief point in which it will be necessary for you to exert yourself, will be, to get positive testimony from many different hands that such poems are vulgarly recited in the Highlands, and have there long been the entertainment of the people. This testimony must be as particular as it is positive. It will not be sufficient that a Highland gentleman or clergyman say or write to you that he has heard such poems; nobody questions that there are traditional poems of that part of the country, where the names of Ossian and Fingal, and Oscar and Gaul, are mentioned in every stanza. The only doubt is, whether these poems have any farther resemblance to the poems published by Macpherson. I was told by Bourke, a very ingenious Irish gentleman, the author of a tract on the sublime and beautiful, that on the first publication of Macpherson's book, all the Irish cried out, We know all those poems. We have always heard them from our infancy.' But when he asked more particular questions, he could never learn that any one ever heard or could repeat the original of any one paragraph of the pretended translation. This generality, then, must be carefully guarded against, as being of no authority.

*

"Your connections among your brethren of the clergy may be of great use to you. You may easily learn the names of all ministers of that country who understand the language of it. You may write to them, expressing the doubts that have arisen, and desiring them to send for such of the bards as remain, and make them rehearse their ancient poems. Let the clergymen then have the translation in their hands, and let them write back to you, and inform you, that they heard such a one, (naming him,) living in such a place, rehearse the original of such a passage, from

* So in MS

such a page to such a page of the English translation, which appeared exact and faithful. If you give to the public a sufficient number of such testimonials, you may prevail. But I venture to foretel to you, that nothing less will serve the purpose; nothing less wil so much as command the attention of the public.

“Becket tells me, that he is to give us a new edition of your dissertation, accompanied with some remarks on Temora. Here is a favorable opportunity for you to execute this purpose. You have a just and laudable zeal for the credit of these poems. They are, if genu. ine, one of the greatest curiosities, in all respects, that ever was discovered in the commonwealth of letters; and the child is, in a manner, become yours by adop tion, as Macpherson has totally abandoned all care of it. These motives call upon you to exert yourself: and I think it were suitable to your candor, and most satisfactory also to the reader, to publish all the answers to all the letters you write, even though some of those letters should make somewhat against your own opinion in this affair. We shall always be the more assured, that no arguments are strained beyond their proper force, and no contrary arguments suppressed, where such an entire communication is made to us. Becket joins me heartily in that application; and he owns to me, that the believers in the authenticity of the poems diminish every day among the men of sense and reflection. Nothing less than what I propose can throw the balance on the other side."

Lisle street, Leicester Fields,

19th Sept., 1763.

The second letter contains less matter of impor tance; but what there is that is relevant deserves not to be omitted.

"I am very glad," he writes on the 6th of October,

1763, "you have undertaken the task which I used the freedom to recommend to you. Nothing less than what you propose will serve the purpose. You must expect no assistance from Macpherson, who flew into a passion when I told him of the letter I had wrote to you. But you must not mind so strange and heteroclite a mortal, than whom I have scarce ever known a man more perverse and unamiable. He will probably depart for Florida with Governor Johnstone, and I would advise him to travel among the Chickasaws 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 endeavor to remove, for on this trial of yours will the judgment of the public finally depend."

*

*

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 be seen, 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 cominunication 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 Os sian, and particularly of that celebrated collection pub. lished 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.

of

1. Have you ever heard repeated, or sung, any 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 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 accu rately as possible, such as they can now repeat or re cite; and transmit such their account, and such com. positions as they repeat, to the committee.

4. If there are, in your neighborhood, any persons from whom Mr. Macpherson received any poems, in. quire 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.

to

6 In all the above inquiries, or any that may occur 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 modernized, Fingal, exists, and has immemorially existed, in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and that certain poems or ballads containing