more agreeable to its mother-language, and more abounding with primitives, than that now spoken, or even that which has been writ for some centuries back, amongst the most unmixed part of the Irish nation. A Scotsman tolerably conversant in his own language, understands an Irish composition, from that derivative analogy which it has to the Gaelic of North Britain. An Irishman, on the other hand, without the aid of study, can never understand a composition in the Gaelic tongue. This affords a proof that the Scots Gaelic is the most original, and consequently the language of a more ancient and unmixed people. The Irish, however backward they may be to allow any thing to the prejudice of their antiquity, seem inadvertently to acknowledge it, by the very appellation they gave to the dialect they speak. They call their own language 'Gaelic Eirinach, i. e. Caledonian Irish, when, on the contrary, they call the dialect of North Britian, a Chaelic, or the Caledonian tongue, emphatically. A circumstance of this nature tends more to decide which is the most ancient nation, than the united testimony of a whole legion of ignorant bards and senachies, who perhaps never dreamed of bringing the Scots from Spain to Ireland, till some one of them, more learned than the rest, discovered, that the Romans called the first Iberia, and the latter Hibernia. On such a slight foundation were probably built those romantic fictions concerning the Milesians of Ireland. From internal proofs it sufficiently appears, that the poems published under the name of Ossian, are not of Irish composition. The favourite chimera, that Ireland is the mother-country of the Scots, is totally subverted and ruined. The fictions concerning the antiquities of that country, which were forming for ages, and growing as they came down, on the hands of successive se nachies and fileas, are found, at last, to be the spurious brood of modern and ignorant ages. To those who know how tenacious the Irish are of their pretends Iberian descent, this alone is proof sufficient, that poe so subversive of their system, could never be produ by an Hibernian bard. But when we look to the language, it is so different from the Irish dialect, that it would be as ridiculous to think, that Miiton's Paradise Lost could be wrote by a Scottish peasant, as to suppose that the Poems ascribed to Ossian were writ in Ireland. The pretensions of Ireland to Ossian proceed from another quarter. There are handed down, in that country, traditional poems concerning the Fiona, or the heroes of Fion Mac Comnal. This Fion, say the Irish annalists, was general of the militia of Ireland, in the reign of Cormac, in the third century. Where Keat. ing and O'Flaherty learned that Ireland had an embodied militia so early, is not easy for me to determine. Their information certainly did not come from the Irish poems concerning Fion. I have just now in my hands, all that remain of those compositions; but, unluckily for the antiquities of Ireland, they appear to be the work of a very modern period. Every stanza, nay almost every line, affords striking proofs that they cannot be three centuries old. Their allusions to the manners and customs of the fifteenth century are so many, that it is matter of wonder to me how any one could dream of their antiquity. They are entirely writ in that romantic taste which prevailed two ages ago. Giants, inchanted castles, dwarfs, palfreys, witches, and magicians, from the whole circle of the poet's invention. The celebrated Fion could scarcely move from one hillock to another, without encountering a giant, or being entang led in the circles of a magician. Witches, on broomsticks, were continually hovering round him like crows; and he had freed inchanted virgins in every valley in Ireland. In short, Fion, great as he was, passed a disagreeable life. Not only had he to engage all the mischiefs in his own country, foreign armies invaded him, assisted by magicians and witches, and headed by kings as tall as the main mast of a first-rate. It must be owned, however, that Fion was not inferior to them in eight. A chos air Cromleach, druim-ard, Thoga Fion le lamh mhoir An d'uisgeo Lubhair na fruth. With one foot on Cromleach his brow, The water from Lubar of the streams. Cromleach and Crommal were two mountains in the neighbourhood of one another, in Ulster, and the river Lubar ran through the intermediate valley. The property of such a monster as this Fion, I should never have disputed with any nation. But the bard himself, in the poem from which the above quotation is taken, cedes him to Scotland. Fion o Albin, fiol nan laoich, Fion from Albion, race of heroes! Were it allowable to contradict the authority of a bard, at this distance of time, I should have given as my opinion, that this enormous Fion was of the race of Hibernian giants, of Ruanus, or some other celebrated name, rather than a native of Caledonia, whose inhabitants, now at least, are not remarkable for their stature. 6 If Fion was so remarkable for his stature, his heroes had also other extraordinary properties. In weight all the sons of strangers' yielded to the celebrated Ton-iosal; and for hardness of skull, and, perhaps, for thickness too, the valiant Oscar stood unrivalled and alone.' Ossian himself had many singular and less delicate qualifications than playing on the harp; and the brave Cuchullin was of so diminutive a size, as to be taken for a child of two years of age, by the gigantic Swaran. To illustrate this subject, I shall here lay before the reader the history of some of the Irish poems concerning Fion Mac-Comnal. A translation of these pieces, if well executed, might afford satisfaction to the public. But this ought to be the work of a native of Ireland. To draw forth from cb. scurity, the poems of my own country, has afforded ample employment to me; besides, I am too diffider of my own abilities to uudertake such a work, gentleman in Dublin accused me to the public of committing blunders and absurdities, in translating the language of my own country, and that before any translation of mine appeared. How the gentleman came to see my blunders before I committed them, is not easy to determine, if he did not conclude that, as a Scotsman and of course descended of the Milesian race, I might have committed some of those oversights, which, perhaps very unjustly, are said to be peculiar to them. From the whole tenor of the Irish poems concerning the Fiona, it appears, that Fion Mac-Comnal flourished in the reign of Cormac, which is placed by the universal consent of the senachies in the third centuIV. They even fix the death of Fingal in the year 286, yet his son Ossian is made cotemporary with St Patrick, who preached the gospel, in Ireland, about the middle of the fifth age. Ossian, though at that time he must have been two hundred and fifty years of age, had a daughter young enough to become the wife to the saint. On account of this family connection, Patrick of the psalms," for so the apostle of Ireland is emphatically called in the poems, took great delight in the company of Ossian, and in hearing the great actions of his family. The saint sometimes threw off the austerity of his profession, drank freely, and had his soul properly warmed with wine, in order to hear with becoming enthusiasm the poems of his father-injaw. One of the poems begins with this piece of useful information. In Faukener's Dublin Journal, of the 1st December, 1761, appeared the following Advertisement: "Speedily will be published, by a gentleman of this kingdom, who hath been for some time past employed in writing Historical Notes to FINGAL: A POEM, rinally wrote in the Irish or Erse language. In the preface to which, the translator, is a perfect master of the Irish tongue, will give an account of the manners and as of the ancient Irish cr Scots: and, therefore, most humbly entreats the publi t for his edition, which will appear in a short time, as he will set forth all the ders and absurditie in the edition now printing in London, and shew the ignorance e nglish translator in his knowledge of Irish grammer, not understanding any patt ut accidence." Lo don rabh Padric na mhur, The title of this poem is Teantach mor na Fiona.' It appears to have been founded on the same story with the Battle of Lora, one of the poems of the genuine Ossian. The circumstances and catastrophe in both are much the same; but the Irish Ossian discovers the age in which he lived, by an unlucky anachronism. After describing the total rout of Erragon, he very gravely concludes with this remarkable anecdote, "that none of the foe escaped, but a few who were "allowed to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy land." This circumstance fixes the date of the composition of the piece some centuries after the famous croisade; for it is evident, that the poet thought the time of the croisade so ancient, that he confounds it with the age of Fingal. Erragon, in the course of this poem, is often called: Roigh Lochlin an du shloigh, King of Denmark of two nations, which alludes to the union of the kingdoms of Norway and Denmark, a circumstance which brings down the date of the piece to an era not far remote. Modern, however, as this pretended Ossian was, it is certain, he lived before the Irish had dreamed of appropriating Fion, or Fingal, to themselves. He concludes the poem with this reflection: Na fagha se comhthrom nan n' arm, Had Erragon, son of Annir of gleaming swords, a"voided the equal contest of arms, (single combat) no "chief should have afterwards been numbered in Albion, "and the heroes of Fion should no more be named." The next poem that falls under our observation 'Cath-cabhra,' or The Death of Oscar. This piece founded on the same story which we have in the fi |