OSSIAN, the son of Fingal, a celebrated Celtic bard, who is commonly supposed to have flourished about the end of the second or the beginning of the third century.

Several incidents in the poems ascribed to him are conceived to point out this as the era of the poet; particularly the engagement of Fingal with Caracul, “the son of the king of the world,” who, according to Macpherson and Whitaker, is the same with the son of Severus, the Caracalla of Roman history. Fingal, who commanded the Caledonians[7:16:658] at that memorable juncture, is said to have eluded the power of Severus, and gained a signal victory on the banks of the Carron, in which Caracul fled from his arms “along the fields of his pride.” As Gibbon observes, however, “Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these Highland traditions, nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most ingenious researches of modern criticism; but if we could with safety indulge the pleasing supposition that Fingal lived, and that Ossian sung, the striking contrast of the situation and manners of the contending nations might amuse a philosophic mind. The parallel,” he adds, “would be little to the advantage of the more civilized people, if we compared the unrelenting revenge of Severus with the generous clemency of Fingal; the timid and brutal cruelty of Caracalla with the bravery, the tenderness, the elegant genius of Ossian; the mercenary chiefs who, from motives of fear or interest, served under the imperial standard, with the free-born warriors who started to arms at the voice of the king of Morven: if, in a word, we contemplated the untutored Caledonians, glowing with the warm virtues of nature, and the degenerate Romans, polluted with the mean vices of wealth and slavery.”

Speculations like these, however, though they may amuse by their novelty, or surprise by a striking contrast of situation and of manners, can have no real value in themselves, if they rest merely on a “pleasing supposition,” unsupported by evidence. “That Fingal lived, and that Ossian sung,” can only be believed upon the assumption that the poems ascribed to the son of the Caledonian hero are authentic productions; and, until this be established, it is obviously vain to attempt to deduce from them any inference as to the existence of the one, the era of the other, or the circumstances and manners of the times when they are said to have flourished. The primary question therefore is, Are the poems attributed to Ossian, more especially those given to the world by Macpherson, the genuine productions of a Celtic bard of the third century; or are they, on the other hand, a forgery, palmed upon the world by an individual who attempted to give currency to his own compositions under the mask and pretence of a high antiquity?

“The appearance of the poems, of Ossian,” says the Abbate Cesarotti, “was a phenomenon so unexpected and extraordinary, that it is not surprising they should have excited doubts and astonishment, even during the period of enthusiasm itself, in a country scarcely known to history— wild, savage, and covered with mists; in a state of society the most rude, miserable, and barbarous, without commerce, without learning, without writing, and without arts; how could there arise so transcendent a genius, who should at length come to dispute the palm with the most celebrated poets of the most polished nations, nay, even with those who for so many ages were regarded as models of the art? This novelty was too much at variance with all received opinions to be believed without question, or admitted without controversy. Was there truly an Ossian? Was he really the author of the poems which have been published under his name? Can this be a spurious work? But when? How? By whom? These are the questions which have divided England and civilized Europe respecting this surprising phenomenon. These are the doubts which have been raised by learned men and critics; doubts which, though much weakened, have not yet been entirely removed from the minds of many persons. Whatever opinion be adopted, it is certain that various embarrassing difficulties present themselves, and that the most strenuous advocates on both sides cannot fail to waver in their conclusions.”^[1. L’apparizione delle poesie di Ossian era un fenomeno cosi impensato e straordinario, che non è da stupirsi se destò nel tempo stesso entusiasmo, sorpresa, e dubbi∙ In un paese appeno noto alla storia, alpestre, selvaggio, ingombro, e quasi oppresso di nebbia; in uno stato di società il più rozzo, mescliino, e barbaro, senza commercio, senza idee, senza serittura, senz’arti, come potea sorgere un Genio cosi trascendente, cbe venisse a disputai' la palma ai ρoeti più celebri delli più coite nazioni; a quegli stessi, che si riguardano da tanti secoli come i modelli delΓarte? Questa novità rovesciava troppo tutte le idee ricevute per esser accolta senza contrasta Vi fu veramente un Ossian? fu egli realmente l’autore delle poesie, che comparvero sotto il suo nome? Sarebbe questa un’ opera supposta? ma quando? come? da chi ?...Ecco le questioni, che per lungo tempo divisero 1’Inghilterra, et l’Europa colta sopra questo sorprendente fenomeno. Ecco i dubbi, che insorsero nei letterati, e ne’critici; dubbi che quantunque indeboliti di molto, non sono però cessati interamente in tutti gli spiriti. Qualunque opinione si adotti, è certo, che Tuna e i’altra presentano varie difficotà imbarazzan-ti, e che possono far vacillare i più fermi sostenitori dei due partiti.” CRagionamento StoricoCriticointorno le Controversis sull , Autenti∙ cità dei Poemi di Ossian nell' Opere dell' Abbate Cesarotti, vol. ii. p. 49, Firenze, 1807, i∏ 12mα) An English translation of Cesarotti’s Historical and Critical Dissertation was published by Dr John M‘Arthur (London, 1806, in 8vo), “one of the Committee of the Highland Society of London, appointed to superintend the publication of Ossian in the original Gaelic.” But, for the sake of the Celtic bard, it is to be hoped that this gentleman’s knowledge of Italian cannot be taken as the measure of his acquaintance with Gaelic. We have been at the pains to compare his translation with the original, and the result has been to satisfy us that he was not only incapacitated, by ignorance of the language, for translating any Italian work correctly; but that he has, in several parts of the Historical and Critical Dissertation, been guilty of material suppressions. Examples of both occur in his translation of the passage above quoted. 1. The words of the original, “in uno stato di società. il più rozzo, mescliino, e barbaro, senza commercio, senza idee, senza serittura, senz’arti,” he renders, “in a state of society the most unpolished, wretched, and barbarous thus suppressing the material words, “senza serittura,” without writing, containing an important admission on the part of the Italian translator of Ossian. 2. His knowledge of the original may be judged of from his translation of the following sentence: “Ecco le questioni, che per lungo tempo divisero l’Inghilterra, e J’Europa colta sopra questo sorprendente fenomeno,” which he renders thus: “These are questions that for a length of time have agitated and divided public opinion in England, while Europe regarded with veneration this surprising phenomenon.” This is either ignorance, or something still worse. Cesarotti says nothing about “Europe regarding with veneration,'' &c.: what he states is, that the questions he had indicated long divided England, and civilized Europe, respecting the unexpected and extraordinary appearance of the poems of Ossian. Numerous instances of a similar and still more striking kind might easily be added. ]

The ingenious Italian translator having here suggested the questions which it is most material to resolve, before any conclusion can be safely deduced from the contents of the poems themselves, we shall endeavour to furnish our readers with the means of judging for themselves respecting the whole matter in controversy; first, by submitting a short historical account of the manner in which the poems ascribed to Ossian are said to have been originally collected, translated, and published, by Macpherson; secondly, by exhibiting a summary of the arguments which have been employed to disprove the authenticity of these poems; thirdly, by stating the results of the elaborate inquiry into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian, instituted by the Highland Society of Scotland, and conducted by a Committee of that body, under the auspices of its chairman, Mr Henry Mackenzie, by whom the Report was drawn up; and, lastly, by subjoining some particulars respecting the other collectors of Celtic poetry, whose proceedings form a curious sequel to those of Mr James Macpherson. It is only by a clear and comprehensive statement of the whole case, that a rational judgment can be formed respecting the various matters in dispute; nor is it possible otherwise to enable the reader to decide for himself, whether the doubts raised by learned men and critics have been removed, or even in any material degree obviated.
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I. The first person who seems to have conceived the idea of collecting and translating some of the traditional poems floating in the Highlands, was a young man named Jerome Stone, formerly a schoolmaster at Dunkeld. In 1756, he published, in the Scots Magazine, a translation in verse of Bas Fhroich, or the death of Fraoch, under the title of Albin and Mey; and this specimen he accompanied with a short letter addressed to the editor, indicating his opinion of the poetical merits of the various pieces in his possession. Stone did not think of giving to the public the original of his translation; but Mr Mackenzie, having procured it from Mr Chalmers of London, into whose hands it had accidentally fallen, has inserted it in the appendix to the Report of the Committee of the Highland Society, with Stone’s version and a literal translation subjoined. This poem, according to Dr Graham, approaches nearer to the style of the Gaelic fragments of Ossian than any thing he had yet met with.^[2. Essay on the Authenticity of Ossian’s Poems, p. 208, et seq. ] About the same time Mr Pope, minister of Reay, in Caithness, had thoughts of making a collection of the old Highland poems ascribed to Ossian, in concert with a gentleman then living on Lord Reay’s estate; but the death of the latter, upon whose assistance he had mainly depended, put an end to the scheme.^[3. Appendix to the Report on Ossian, No. 3. ]

The next, and by far the most celebrated, collector of Gaelic poetry, was Mr James Macpherson, whose translations first attracted notice to the supposed productions of the Celtic muse, and whose proceedings in connection with these gave rise to the controversy which so long divided the literary world. The circumstances which originally led to the employment of this gentleman as a collector and translator of Gaelic poetry, have been fully stated by Mr Mackenzie, in the Report of the Committee of the Highland Society.

Mr Home, author of Douglas, happening to be at Moffat, a watering-place in Dumfriesshire, in the summer of 1759, met there with Macpherson, whom he found officiating as tutor to Mr Graham, younger of Balgowan, whose father’s family was then residing at that place. In the course of his inquiries about the manners and customs of the Highlanders, Mr Home learned from Macpherson, that one of their favourite amusements consisted in listening to the compositions of their ancient bards, which were described as highly pathetic and imaginative; and some fragments of these traditional poems, which, at Mr Home’s desire, Macpherson translated from memory, struck him as exceedingly beautiful. Mr Home communicated these pieces to his friends, whose opinion proved as favourable as his own; and, under this impression, they prevailed on Macpherson to publish them in a small volume at Edinburgh, at the same time undertaking to superintend the publication, and also to defray the expense. To this volume Dr Blair wrote an introduction; and, on its appearance, it attracted “universal attention.” The literary circle of Edinburgh, consisting of David Hume, Dr Robertson, Dr Blair, Dr Carlyle, Mr Home, and others, felt much interested in the discovery of what seemed to be a new mine of poetical wealth; and a subscription was accordingly entered into to enable Macpher son to make a tour through the Highlands for the purpose of collecting larger and more complete poems, which he represented as still existing there, and of which some of the pieces already published were described by him as only detached and disconnected fragments. He particularly mentioned a poem in an epic form, and of considerable length, on the subject of the wars of Fion or Fingal, which he thought might be recovered entire. Mean while, that is, about 1758, he published, in his own name, a poem, entitled The Highlander, which appears to have sunk into oblivion immediately after its publication; but the remembrance of this production was revived by Mr Laing, in the controversy which subsequently arose respecting the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian; and it is not a little remarkable that the style and imagery of the poem called Fingal occur in almost every page of The Highlander.

Under the patronage of the eminent individuals already mentioned, Macpherson performed his literary tour in 1766; transmitting from time to time accounts of his progress, and of the various poems which, as he said, he had succeeded in collecting. The districts through which he travelled were chiefly the north-western parts of Inverness-shire, the Isle of Skye, and some of the adjoining islands; places which, from their remoteness, and the state of manners that then existed in them, were thought the most likely to afford, in a pure and genuine state, those traditionary tales and poems in the recital of which the Highlanders were represented as taking so much delight. On his return from the north, Macpherson passed some time with an early acquaintance of his own, Mr Gallie, then a missionary in Badenoch; and availed himself of the assistance of this gentleman, as well as of that of Mr Macpherson of Strathmashie, in collating the different copies of the poems which he had collected, in translating difficult passages, and in determining the meaning of obsolete words.^[4. It is alleged that Macpherson, when he undertook his journey to the Highlands, was but an indifferent proficient in the Gaelic language. An instance of this, to which much importance seems to be attached, is recorded in the Appendix to the Committee’s Report (p. 95); and a Highland gentleman who met him in London in 1762 also describes him as being “very imperfectly acquainted with the Gaelic language.” The instance mentioned in the Report, however, amounts only to a verbal blunder in conversation, and is so very trifling, that we are surprised to find it gravely adduced as a proof of Macpherson’s ignorance of Gaelic; whilst as to the opinion expressed by the Highland gentleman who met Macpherson in London, the measure of its value must be the competency of that individual to form a correct judgment, a subject on which we have no information. The object of impeaching Macpherson’s knowledge of Gaelic is to render it improbable that he could have fabricated the originals of the poems which he professed to have translated. But it is forgotten that Gaelic was his mother tongue; and that, though his knowledge of that language might not be great, he could command the assistance of others who were more skilful than himself. ] He then proceeded to Edinburgh, where he communicated to his patrons the result of his expedition, and in 1762 published Fingal, an epic poem in six books, with some other detached pieces of a similar kind. In an advertisement prefixed to Fingal, he states, that “some men of genius had advised him to print the originals by subscription, rather than deposit them in a public library and, in the preliminary dissertation, he says that “his translation is literal, and that as he claims no merit on account of his version, he wishes that the imperfect semblance which he draws may not prejudice the world against an original which contains what is beautiful in simplicity, or grand in the sublime.” In the year 1765, he published another epic poem, entitled Temora, to the seventh book of which he annexed the original Gaelic; but of all the rest he published only translations. At his death, however, he left a sum of money for defraying the expense of publishing the originals of the whole, with directions to his executors for carrying that purpose into effect. But, from whatever cause, this publication has not yet appeared, and it is more than probable that it never will.^[5. All the information that the Committee of the Highland Society could collect on this subject is contained in the following passage of their Report (p. 79, et seq.) :—“A source of information to which your Committee early applied was the executors of Mr Macpherson, of whom they requested to know if he had left behind him any of those MSS., particularly those ancient books which the Committee understood he possessed. Mr John Mackenzie, of the Temple, London, whom Mr Macpherson had left sole trustee ]
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public access to his manuscripts, at one time proposing to print them by subscription, and at another to deposit them in some public library; and, lastly, they have not yet been published, and probably never will, because, if they were, their authenticity would be fully as liable to challenge or dispute as the translations which Macpherson professed to have made from them. The demand made by Dr Johnson and others was in itself most reasonable; and the refusal to produce evidence, merely because men doubted in a case where there was great room for incredulity, is either a proof that none whatever existed, or an instance of perversity unexampled in the history of literary controversy.^[6. “I suppose my opinion of the poems of Ossian,” says Johnson, “is already discovered. I believe they never existed in any other form than that which we have seen. The editor or author never could show the original, nor can it be shown by any other: to revenge reasonable incredulity by refusing evidence, is a degree of insolence with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt. It would be easy to show it if he had it; but whence could it be had? It is too long to be remembered, and the language formerly had nothing written. He has doubtless inserted names that circulate in popular stories, and may have translated some wandering ballads, if any can be found; and the names and some of the images being recollected, make an inaccurate auditor imagine that he has formerly heard the whole.” (Journey to the Western Islands, pp. 273, 274, London, 1774.) Bishop Warburton expresses a similar opinion, u Several fragments in these poems have been heard by living witnesses, sung to the harp both in the Highlands and in Ireland. My solution of the diffièulty is, that on these and from these fragments the forgery has been erected.” “You will say,” he adds, “it is a work infinitely above one of those tame cheaters we call a sophist I do not know how it is, but mimicry is a species of poetic imitation so different from the true, that we have seen excellent copies in painting from originals of great masters, by those whose own designs were all sign-post daubings. The most celebrated mimics on the stage, as Eastcourt and Foote, were the most miserable actors; and, to come a little nearer, the book written by Burke against civil society, under the name and character of Bolingbroke, is far superior to any other of his compositions.” (Extract of a Letter to Mr Mason, dated 12th January 1762.) ]

II. But if Blair, in his elaborate and rhetorical Dissertation, had done little or nothing to remove the doubts which from the first were entertained as to the authenticity. of the poems ascribed to Ossian, incredulity gained still greater confidence from the formidable and systematic onset of Mr Laing. In the third volume of liis History of Scotland, that gentleman, in treating of the Highlanders, had adverted to the state of society and manners represented in these poems, as existing amongst that people, about the end of the second or commencement of the third century, and had thence deduced an argument against the authenticity of productions displaying a refinement and cultivation of sentiment inconsistent with all history and experience. “The productions of the Celtic muse,” said he, “would persuade us to believe that the early manners of the Highlanders displayed a civilization inconsistent with an utter ignorance of the arts of life; an uniform heroism unknown to barbarians; a gallantry which chivalry never inspired; a humanity which refinement has never equalled; and that before their advance to the shepherd state, they possessed a correct taste, a polished diction, a cultivated and sublime poetry, enriched with the choicest images of classical antiquity, and intermixed with all the sentimental affectation of the present times. Their history contains no marks of primeval refinement, unless we can persuade ourselves that their descendants, as soon as they approached observation, degenerated on emerging from the savage state, and became more barbarous in proportion as they became more civilized.”

The improbability of such an inversion of the ordinary law of human society is sufficiently apparent. But Mr Laing, not content with urging this argument, which he held to be “unanswerable,” annexed to the fourth volume of his history a “Dissertation bn the supposed Authenticity of Ossian’s Poems,” in which he has reduced his numerous detections, historical and critical, under a few general heads, “and endeavoured,” as he says, “to disabuse his countrymen, and to put an end, if possible, to the controversy and deception for ever.” These heads are, the Roman History of Britain, the Middle Ages, Tradition, the Customs and Manners of the Times, the Real Origin of the Poems, Imitations of the ancient and modern Poets, the pretended Originals, and Macpherson’s avowal of the whole imposture; thus embracing the whole question in all its bearings and details. In such an article as the present, it is of course impossible to enter into a subject branching out into so many divisions; or even to attempt giving an abstract of the various arguments which have been urged by Mr Laing in attempting to disprove the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian. We shall therefore content ourselves with indicating a few of the leading points, leaving those who take an interest in the controversy, of desire further information, to consult the Dissertation itself.

On the first branch of his subject, Mr Laing contends that, as the Highlanders originated from Ireland, and as their arrival from that country is established by the concurrence of every Scottish and Irish historian, whether their first migration is placed in 258 under Cairbar Riada, or postponed until 503, when they were restored by Fergus MacErth and his brother Loam, there was not a Highlander in Scotland of the present race at the beginning of the era which is assigned to Fingal by Macpherson. He next shows, that by connecting his poems with Roman history, Macpherson has fallen into the most ridiculous mistakes. Gibbon had previously remarked the absurdity of making the Highland bard describe the son of Severus “by a nickname invented four years afterwards, scarcely used by the Romans till after the death of that emperor, and seldom employed by the most ancient historians;”^[7. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. c∙ 8, p. 209. Macpherson gives three several etymologies of the name Caracalla, being altogether unconscious of the historical anachronism in which it involved him. ] and the detection is as complete with respect to Carausius, who is represented as the contemporary and successor of that emperor. The most noted or classical places in Scotland are also, by a dexterous anticipation, appropriated to Ossian, as Carron, Glencoen or Cona, and Dumbarton the Alcuith of Bede. The name of Balclutha Mr Laing considers as fictitious; and in Fingal’s intercourse with other nations he discovers the same minute yet conclusive anachronisms. The invasions from Lochlin, a name unknown until the ninth century, are also, according to Mr Laing, equally fabulous with the pretended exploits of Fingal against the Romans. The detections resulting from a comparison of the incidents mentioned in these poems with the history of the middle ages are not less important. They relate chiefly to Magnus, surnamed Barefoot; Cathulà or Ketil, the friend of Fingal; Carrick-Thura, the palace of the king of Innistore; and the circle of Loda.

But one of the strongest points of Mr Laing’s argument is that which has for its object to disprove that poems of such length could have been preserved entire, for upwards of fifteen hundred years, by means of oral tradition alone. “It is indeed strange,” says Hume, in a letter to Gibbon, “that any man of sense could have imagined it possible, that above twenty thousand verses, along with numberless historical facts, could have been preserved by oral tradition, during fifty generations, by the rudest, perhaps, of all the civilized nations, the most necessitous, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled. Where a supposition[7:16:661] is so contrary to common sense, any positive evidence of it ought never to be regarded. Men run with great avidity to give their evidence in favour of what flatters their passions and their national prejudices.” The consideration of the mutability of language also supplies an argument which cannot easily be obviated. This is counteracted only by letters and by the art of printing; but an unwritten language naturally diverges into different dialects, and in every age assumes a new form, although the radical structure may remain. If these poems, then, are alleged to have been preserved by oral tradition, in an obsolete diction, that is, in a dialect disused by the people, this alone is sufficient to confute their authenticity. But if it be maintained that the language has remained invariably the same since the end of the second or beginning of the third century, this is contrary to the experience of all nations, and, besides, is disproved by the difference of the Gaelic from the parent Irish, a page of which a few centuries old is confessedly unintelligible to the people of the present day. Nor has the difficulty been in any degree removed by the numerous attestations which have, at different times, been obtained. No sooner were the translations published, than the traditionary existence of the poems disappeared. When Dr Johnson visited the Western Isles, the natives had nothing to communicate that deserved attention; and his assertion that there was not a Gaelic manuscript above a century old still remains undisproved by the publication of any such document. In proof that the Highlanders were neither rude and illiterate, nor the Gaelic an unwritten language, in the time of Ossian, it has been alleged that the Druids, when expelled from Scotland, retired to Iona, where they established a college, and lived and taught unmolested till the sixth century, when they were dispossessed by St Columba. But, according to Mr Laing, there is no evidence, nothing indeed but conjecture, that the Druids ever existed in Ireland; and the fact appears to be certain, that there never was a Druid in Scotland, otherwise Tacitus, who describes the destruction of their order in England, would most probably have remarked their influence or existence under Galgacus in the Caledonian war. “The man,” he adds, “who can thus create an historical fact, requires nothing but genius to fabricate an epic poem.” Finally, if manuscripts be appealed to, “let a single book of Fingal in manuscript, such as translated by Macpherson, of an older date than a century, be produced and lodged in a public library, and there is an end of the dispute.”

Mr Laing then proceeds to show that the contradiction is not greater between the primeval refinement ascribed to the Highlanders, and their recent barbarism, than between their real manners at the period of Fingal and those described in the poems of Ossian. He alleges that reli gion was avoided as a dangerous topic, which led to detection; that, from the difficulty of inventing a religious mythology, Macpherson has created a savage society of refined atheists, who believe in ghosts, but not in deities; and that, solicitous only for proper machinery, he has rendered the Highlanders a race of unparalleled infidels, who believed in no gods but the ghosts of their fathers. And the same difficulty, he adds, occurred in the adaptation of circumstances, peculiar customs, or rites, to the supposed state of society; points on which Macpherson has laid himself open to suspicion or detection. Mr Laing next traces the origin of the poems ascribed to Ossian, which he ascribed to the failure of Macpherson’s avowed poem, entitled The Highlander, published at Edinburgh in 1758, four years before the appearance of Fingal, and a desire on the part of Macpherson to insure a more favourable reception to his subsequent productions, by assigning to them a remote antiquity.^[8. λVhat says Mr Macpherson' himself in his preface to Fingal? “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 reluctance which men show in praising and rewarding genius. It often appears that, the man who writes differs from the same man in common life. His foibles, however, are obliterated by death, and his better part, his writings, remain: his character is formed from them; and he that was no extraordinary man in his own time, becomes the wonder of succeeding ages. From this source proceeds our veneration for the dead. Their virtues remain, but the vices which were once blended with their virtues have died with themselves. This consideration might indnce a man, diffident of his abilities, to ascribe his own compositions to a person whose remote antiquity, and whose situation when alive, might well answer for faults which would be inexcusable in a writer of this age." ] He shows, that when The Highlander is examined, its plot exhibits the very outlines of Fingal; that the inferiority of The Highlander to Fingal affords no presumption whatsoever that the latter is authentic; and that the Fragments of Gaelic Poetry published at Edinburgh in 1760, were produced when his taste and style had been considerably improved. But the most copious and curious source of detection is, according to Mr Laing, the constant imitation of the classics, the Scriptures, and such temporary publications as were then in vogue. The details on this part of the subject admit not of any condensation, and the reader is consequently referred to the Dissertation itself. Some of the supposed imitations are perhaps a little overstrained, and others not very obvious or striking; but the number that is liable to neither objection is so great, and in many cases so apparent, as to be altogether destructive of the notion that Macpherson translated from originals which had been composed by a Celtic bard, who flourished fifteen centuries before the time when his pretended compositions were given to the public. As to the specimens of the original produced by Macpherson, Mr Laing contends that they were translated into Gaelic from the English original by the translator himself; and, in particular, that the original Gaelic of Malvina’s Dream was produced by the translator at the request of Lord Kames. Lastly, he has shown that, from the very beginning, Macpherson avowed the deceit, and that he ended, as we have already seen, by expressly vindicating and appropriating to himself the poems which he had at first attributed to Ossian.

Dr Graham’s Essay on the Authenticity of the Poems of Ossian professes to be an answer to Mr Laing’s masterly Dissertation on the same subject. But in reality it is only a piece of captious controversial writing, deficient in critical ability, displaying neither originality, acuteness, nor research, and as devoid of candour and fairness^[9. Dr Graham, in the Introduction to his Essay, has taken occasion to remark, “that though the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland has, very properly, considered it as beneath its dignity to stoop to the refutation of the arguments of Mr Laing, it may not be improper for one who has little to lose, and who may have the good fortune to gain some advantage in the discussion, to enter the lists even with this powerful antagonist.” It would have been more creditable to Dr Graham, however, if he had not prefaced his entry into the lists, as he calls it, by a most unpardonable misrepresentation. In the Report of the Committee, there is not one word from which it can, by any violence of construction, be inferred that they were guilty of the ridiculous folly and presumption here ascribed to them. They very properly “wished sedulously to avoid anything like controversy, desirous rather of procuring evi-denceiaå information, than of drawing inferences from them and, so far from their Report embodying any expression which could justify the strange assertion that they “considered it as beneath their dignity to stoop to the refutation of Mr Laing’s arguments,” which was no part of the plan upon which they proceeded, it contains abundant proofs of the respect and deference which they showed for the views and opinions of that distinguished person. Compare with this disingenuous allegation, the honest valedictory appeal of the ac- ] as it is [7:16:662] public access to his manuscripts, at one time proposing to print them by subscription, and at another to deposit them in some public library; and, lastly, they have not yet been published, and probably never will, because, if they were, their authenticity would be fully as liable to challenge or dispute as the translations which Macpherson professed to have made from them. The demand made by Dr Johnson and others was in itself most reasonable; and the refusal to produce evidence, merely because men doubted in a case where there was great room for incredulity, is either a proof that none whatever existed, or an instance, of perversity unexampled in the history of literary controversy.^[10. “I suppose my opinion of the poems of Ossian,” says Johnson, “is already discovered. I believe they never existed in any other form than that which we have seen. The editor or author never could show the original, nor can it be shown by any other: to revenge reasonable incredulity by refusing evidence, is a degree of insolence with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt. It would be easy to show it if he had it; but whence could it be had? It is too long to be remembered, and the language formerly had nothing written. He has doubtless inserted names that circulate in popular stories, and may have translated some wandering ballads, if any can be found; and the names and some of the images being recollected, make an inaccurate auditor imagine that he has formerly heard the whole.” {Journey to the Western Islands, pp. 273, 274, London, 1774.) Bishop Warburton expresses a similar opinion. “Several fragments in these poems have been heard by living witnesses, sung to the harp both in the Highlands and in Ireland. My solution of the diffièulty is, that on these and from these fragments the forgery has been erected.” “You will say,” he adds, “it is a work infinitely above one of those tame cheaters we call a sophist. I do not know how it is, but mimicry is a species of poetic imitation so different from the true, that we have seen excellent copies in painting from originals of great masters, by those whose own designs were all sign-post daubings. The most celebrated mimics on the stage, as Eastcourt and Foote, were the most miserable actors; and, to come a little nearer, the book written by Burke against civil society, under the name and character of Bolingbroke, is far superior to any other of his compositions.” {Extract of a Letter to Mr Mason, dated 12th January 1762.) ]

II. But if Blair, in his elaborate and rhetorical Dissertation, had done little or nothing to remove the doubts which from the first were entertained as to the authenticity. of the poems ascribed to Ossian, incredulity gained still greater confidence from the formidable and systematic onset of Mr Laing. In the third volume of his History of Scotland, that gentleman, in treating of the Highlanders, had adverted to the state of society and manners represented in these poems, as existing amongst that people, about the end of the second or commencement of the third century, and had thence deduced an argument against the authenticity of productions displaying a refinement and cultivation of sentiment inconsistent with all history and experience. “The productions of the Celtic muse,” said he, “would persuade us to believe that the early manners of the Highlanders displayed a civilization inconsistent with an utter ignorance of the arts of life; an uniform heroism unknown to barbarians; a gallantry which chivalry never inspired; a humanity which refinement has never equalled; and that before their advance to the shepherd state, they possessed a correct taste, a polished diction, a cultivated and sublime poetry, enriched with the choicest images of classical antiquity, and intermixed with all the sentimental affectation of the present times. Their history contains no marks of primeval refinemetìt, unless we can persuade ourselves that their descendants, as soon as they approached observation, degenerated on emerging from the savage state, and became more barbarous in proportion as they became more civilized.”

The improbability of such an inversion of the ordinary law of human society is sufficiently apparent. But Mr Laing, not content with urging this argument, which he held to be “unanswerable,” annexed to the fourth volume of his history a “Dissertation bn the supposed Authenticity of Ossian’s Poems,” in which he has reduced his numerous detections, historical and critical, under a few general heads, “and endeavoured,” as he says, “to disabuse his countrymen, and to put an end, if possible, to the controversy and deception for ever.” These heads are, the Roman History of Britain, the Middle Ages, Tradition, the Customs and Manners of the Times, the Real Origin of the Poems, Imitations of the ancient and modern Poets, the pretended

Originals, and Macpherson’s avowal of the whole imposture; thus embracing the whole question in all its bearings and details. In such an article as the present, it is of course impossible to enter into a subject branching out into so many divisions; or even to attempt giving an abstract of the various arguments which have been urged by Mr Laing in attempting to disprove the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian. We shall therefore content ourselves with indicating a few of the leading points, leaving those who take an interest in the controversy, of desire further information, to consult the Dissertation itself.

On the first branch of his subject, Mr Laing contends that, as the Highlanders originated from Ireland, and as their arrival from that country is established by the concurrence of every Scottish and Irish historian, whether their first migration is placed in 258 under Cairbar Riada, or postponed until 503, when they were restored by Fergus MacErth and his brother Loam, there was not a Highlander in Scotland of the present race at the beginning of the era which is assigned to Fingal by Macpherson. He next shows, that by connecting his poems with Roman history, Macpherson has fallen into the most ridiculous mistakes. Gibbon had previously remarked the absurdity of making the Highland bard describe the son of Severus “by a nickname invented four years afterwards, scarcely used by the Romans till after the death of that emperor, and seldom employed by the most ancient historians;”^[11. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. c. 8, p. 209. Macpherson gives three several etymologies of the name Caracalla, being altogether unconscious of the historical anachronism in which it involved him. ] and the detection is as complete with respect to Carausius, who is represented as the contemporary and successor of that emperor. The most noted or classical places in Scotland are also, by a dexterous anticipation, appropriated to Ossian, as Carron, Glencoen or Cona, and Dumbarton the Alcuith of Bede. The name of Balclutha Mr Laing considers as fictitious; and in Fingal’s intercourse with other nations he discovers the same minute yet conclusive anachronisms. The invasions from Lochlin, a name unknown until the ninth century, are also, according to Mr Laing, equally fabulous with the pretended exploits of Fingal against the Romans. The detections resulting from a comparison of the incidents mentioned in these poems with the history of the middle ages are not less important. They relate chiefly to Magnus, surnamed Barefoot; Cathulâ or Ketil, the friend of Fingal; Carrick-Thura, the palace of the king of Innistore; and the circle of Loda.

But one of the strongest points of Mr Laing’s argument is that which has for its object to disprove that poems of such length could have been preserved entire, for upwards of fifteen hundred years, by means of oral tradition alone. “It is indeed strange,” says Hume, in a letter to Gibbon, “that any man of sense could have imagined it possible, that above twenty thousand verses, along with numberless historical facts, could have been preserved by oral tradition, during fifty generations, by the rudest, perhaps, of all the civilized nations, the most necessitous, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled. Where a supposition[7:16:663] is so contrary to common sense, any positive evidence of it ought never to be regarded. Men run with great avidity to give their evidence in favour of what flatters their passions and their national prejudices.” The consideration of the mutability of language also supplies an argument which cannot easily be obviated. This is counteracted only by letters and by the art of printing; but an unwritten language naturally diverges into different dialects, and in every age assumes a new form, although the radical structure may remain. If these poems, then, are alleged to have been preserved by oral tradition, in an obsolete diction, that is, in a dialect disused by the people, this alone is sufficient to confute their authenticity. But if it be maintained that the language has remained invariably the same since the end of the second or beginning of the third century, this is contrary to the experience of all nations, and, besides, is disproved by the difference of the Gaelic from the parent Irish, a page of which a few centuries old is confessedly unintelligible to the people of the present day. Nor has the difficulty been in any degree removed by the numerous attestations which have, at different times, been obtained. No sooner were the translations published, than the traditionary existence of the poems disappeared. When Dr Johnson visited the Western Isles, the natives had nothing to communicate that deserved attention; and his assertion that there was not a Gaelic manuscript above a century old still remains undisproved by the publication of any such document. In proof that the Highlanders were neither rude and illiterate, nor the Gaelic an unwritten language, in the time of Ossian, it has been alleged that the Druids, when expelled from Scotland, retired to Iona, where they established a college, and lived and taught unmolested till the sixth century, when they were dispossessed by St Columba. But, according to Mr Laing, there is no evidence, nothing indeed but conjecture, that the Druids ever existed in Ireland; and the fact appears to be certain, that there never was a Druid in Scotland, otherwise Tacitus, who describes the destruction of their order in England, would most probably have remarked their influence or existence under Galgacus in the Caledonian war. “The man,” he adds, “who can thus create an historical fact, requires nothing but genius to fabricate an epic poem.” Finally, if manuscripts be appealed to, “let a single book of Fingal in manuscript, such as translated by Macpherson, of an older date than a century, be produced and lodged in a public library, and there is an end of the dispute.”

Mr Laing then proceeds to show that the contradiction is not greater between the primeval refinement ascribed to the Highlanders, and their recent barbarism, than between their real manners at the period of Fingal and those described in the poems of Ossian. He alleges that reli gion was avoided as a dangerous topic, which led to detection; that, from the difficulty of inventing a religious mythology, Macpherson has created a savage society of refined atheists, who believe in ghosts, but not in deities; and that, solicitous only for proper machinery, he has rendered the Highlanders a race of unparalleled infidels, who believed in no gods but the ghosts of their fathers. And the same difficulty, he adds, occurred in the adaptation of circumstances, peculiar customs, or rites, to the supposed state of society; points on which Macpherson has laid himself open to suspicion or detection. Mr Laing next traces the origin of the poems ascribed to Ossian, which he ascribed to the failure of Macpherson’s avowed poem, entitled The Highlander, published at Edinburgh in 1758, four years before the appearance of Fingal, and a desire on the part of Macpherson to insure a more favourable reception to his subsequent productions, by assigning to them a remote antiquity.^[12. What says Mr Macpherson' himself in his preface to Fingal? “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 reluctance which men show in praising and rewarding genius. It often appears that the man who writes differs from the same man in common life. His foibles, however, are obliterated by death, and his better part, his writings, remain: his character is formed from them; and he that was no extraordinary man in his own time, becomes the wonder of succeeding ages. From this source proceeds our veneration for the dead. Their virtues remain, but the vices which were once blended with their virtues have died with themselves. This consideration might induce a man, diffident of his abilities, to ascribe his own compositions to a person whose remote antiquity, and whose situation when alive, might well answer for faults which would be inexcusable in a writer of this age." ] He shows, that when The Highlander is examined, its plot exhibits the very outlines of Fingal; that the inferiority of The Highlander to Fingal affords no presumption whatsoever that the latter is authentic; and that the Fragments of Gaelic Poetry published at Edinburgh in 1760, were produced when his taste and style had been considerably improved. But the most copious and curious source of detection is, according to Mr Laing, the constant imitation of the classics, the Scriptures, and such temporary publications as were then in vogue. The details on this part of the subject admit not of any condensation, and the reader is consequently referred to the Dissertation itself. Some of the supposed imitations are perhaps a little overstrained, and others not very obvious or striking; but the number that is liable to neither objection is so great, and in many cases so apparent, as to be altogether destructive of the notion that Macpherson translated from originals which had been composed by a Celtic bard, who flourished fifteen centuries before the time when his pretended compositions were given to the public. As to the specimens of the original produced by Macpherson, Mr Laing contends that they were translated into Gaelic from the English original by the translator himself; and, in particular, that the original Gaelic of Malvina’s Dream was produced by the translator at the request of Lord Kames. Lastly, he has shown that, from the very beginning, Macpherson avowed the deceit, and that he ended, as we have already seen, by expressly vindicating and appropriating to himself the poems which he had at first attributed to Ossian.

Dr Graham’s Essay on the Authenticity of the Poems of Ossian professes to be an answer to Mr Laing’s masterly Dissertation on the same subject. But in reality it is only a piece of captious controversial writing, deficient in critical ability, displaying neither originality, acuteness, nor research, and as devoid of candour and fairness^[13. Dr Graham, in the Introduction to his Essay, has taken occasion to remark, “that though the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland has, very properly, considered it as beneath its dignity to stoop to the refutation of the arguments of Mr Laing, it may not be improper for one who has little to lose, and who may have the good fortune to gain some advantage in the discussion, to enter the lists even with this powerful antagonist.” It would have been more creditable to Dr Graham, however, if he had not prefaced his entry into the lists, as he calls it, by a most unpardonable misrepresentation. In the Report of the Committee, there is not one word from which it can, by any violence of construction, be inferred that they were guilty of the ridiculous folly and presumption here ascribed to them. They very properly “wished sedulously to avoid anything like controversy, desirous rather of procuring evidence and information, than of drawing inferences from them and, so far from their Report embodying any expression which could justify the strange assertion that they “considered it as beneath their dignity to stoop to the refutation of Mr Laing’s arguments,” which was no part of the plan upon which they proceeded, it contains abundant proofs of the respect and deference which they showed for the views and opinions of that distinguished person. Compare with this disingenuous allegation, the honest valedictory appeal of the ac complished and enthusiastic author of the Ρhingaleisι “ Jamque vale, mi Laingi: si fors resipueris; si to paeniteat; si reum tete confiteare, fas tibi mecurn in amicitiam coire. Solemne namque fuit adeoque est Caledonibus, ] as it is [7:16:664]of ingenuity or talent. At the outset, Dr Graham seems disposed to throw James Macpherson overboard. “I speak only of the poems,” says he; “of Macpherson’s dreams I make no account.” But, unfortunately, the one can never be separated from the other. The question is not as to the existence of detached poems, songs, or “wandering ballads,” which nobody has disputed; but whether it is possible now to produce the originals of Fingal, Temora, and other poems, of which Mr Macpherson has given what he calls translations, and at the same time to establish the authenticity of these originals. Until this be done, or until some ancient manuscript of these poems shall have been published, all the arguments employed by Mr Laing will remain in full force and unshaken. It is no doubt true that Dr Blair has pronounced Ossian superior to Virgil, and that the Italian translator, Cesarotti, who implicitly adopted his opinion, has re-echoed the same extraordinary sentiment. This, however, is matter of taste alone; and as Dr Blair’s Dissertation left the real question at issue exactly where the ingenious author found it, the same thing may, without any discourtesy, be affirmed of Dr Graham’s Essay. The attempts made, in the latter work, to answer Mr Laing’s arguments in detail, have signally failed in the object contemplated, particularly in all questions of a purely historical kind. In proof of this we need only refer to his confused notions respecting the origin of the Caledonians; the absurdities in which he has involved himself from not understanding the statements of Bede, upon which he professes to ground part of his refutation of Laing; and especially the extraordinary notion, contradicted by all history, that Ireland derived its Celtic population from Scotland. In grasping at straws, he also betrays a consciousness of the weakness of his cause, or the difficulty of the side which he has undertaken to defend. It may be true, as he alleges, and as several persons have testified, that Macpherson was not at first very profoundly skilled in the Gaelic language; but it is to be observed that this was his vernacular tongue, and that, at all events, he had the assistance of persons whose knowledge of the Highland dialect has never, as far as we know, been questioned or disputed.

But Dr Graham, when at a loss to resolve difficulties by an appeal to facts, has always a theory at hand to help him. The transmission of the poems of Ossian, by oral tradition, through a period of more than fifteen centuries, is acknowledged to be “a phenomenon of which we have no example in the history of literature.” Yet we are desired to receive with undoubting faith this unparalleled anomaly; first, because, from the time in which these poems were composed till that in which “they were collected and translated by Macpherson, the Caledonians or Highlanders remained unconquered; and, secondly, because, in consequence of this permanency of political situation, their language remained unaltered, and unmixed with any foreign idiom.” In this last point, however, Dr Graham contradicts himself, and makes an admission which appears of itself to be fatal to his theory. After informing his readers that the poems ascribed to Ossian “bear throughout the stamp of antiquity,” he adds, “that some foreign, and even some modern terms, sometimes occur ;” but that “still the Gaelic idiom is maintained, and the purity of its structure preserved inviolate.” Nor is his reference to the supposed history of the poems of Homer, as a case in point respecting the alleged oral transmission of those ascribed to Ossian, much more fortunate than his theory of the immutable permanency and purity of the Gaelic language. For every scholar who has read Wolf’s Prolegomena ad Eomerum must be aware that this is neither more nor less than citing what is doubtful or improbable, in one case, to support what is at least equally doubtful or improbable in another. And as to the wonderfully retentive memory ascribed to the old Highlanders, it may be sufficient to observe, that this new theoretical element cannot be admitted upon a mere assumption without proof, and contrary to all experience or probability. Lastly, Dr Graham, anxious to dispose of the whole question at once, furnishes us with what he calls “a very obvious criterion of originality.” “Mr James Macpherson,” says he, “was brought up in the bosom of polished society; his mind was enriched with the stores of ancient and modern literature; he was familiarized, from an early period of life, to the modes of acting, and thinking, and expressing himself, which characterize the scholar of the present times. That a person of such education, and of such habits of thinking, should so completely divest himself of all his previous acquisitions in literature, and science, and of every idea rendered familiar to him by long use; and that he should be able to write with uniform consistency, in the character of a person who is supposed to have lived fourteen hundred years ago, and in a state of society so different from the present order of things; in short, that a modern European should produce such a work as the poetry of Ossian, distinguished exclusively by the ideas peculiar to people in the most simple state of society,— all these, I confess, I must consider as efforts beyond the reach of humanityT We are not prepared to admit that the real case is here fairly stated, or that Macpherson has preserved the uniform consistency which Dr Graham has gratuitously ascribed to him; indeed Mr Laing has shown that, in numerous cases, the very reverse is the fact. But supposing that the doctor were correct to the letter in his statement of the question, it follows that Chatterton achieved an “effort beyond the reach of humanity,” by the composition of the poems he ascribed to Rowley, which are entirely divested of every allusion to the modes and manners of the time when they were written, whilst the language is almost as faultlessly antique as that of the era to which the ingenious and unfortunate author chose to assign them.^[14. The Gil Blas of Le Sage is another instance in point. Though written by a Frenchman, it is, in sentiment, feeling, manners, and habits of thought and expression, as completely Spanish, as if it had been the production of Cervantes himself ]

III. We come now to the Report of the Committee of the Highland Society, which, as a sort of judicial document, is particularly deserving of attention. The Committee in question was appointed for the express purpose of collecting all the evidence and information which could be obtained on the subject; and with this view it began by circulating a set of queries, embracing the principal points which had been brought into dispute in the controversy respecting the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian. Its declared object was sedulously to avoid all controversy on the subject, and rather to collect materials from which a judgment might be formed respecting the question at issue, than to attempt to pronounce any formal decision of its own. In this spirit the Report was drawn up by Mr Henry Mackenzie, the chairman; and although there is a manifest and not unnatural bias in favour of the Celtic bard, yet, upon the whole, it displays a candour, fairness, and impartiality which, on a subject where national prejudices had been strongly excited, cannot be too highly commended. It only remains for us, therefore, to lay before our readers the results of this patient and laborious investigation, as these have been stated in the Report itself, and to leave them to form their own judgment.
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Before proceeding, however, to submit to the Society the general conclusions at which they had arrived, the Committee felt themselves called upon to take notice “of some difficulties in this investigation, which have struck, and must strike, every impartial person at all acquainted with the subject, and Conversant at the same time with the history of nations, and the progress of society.” 1. The first of these is the circumstance of the language, in poems for which such a high antiquity is claimed, being so nearly what it still is, in the common use and understanding of the country. This has always been considered as a fatal objection; and, as we have already seen, it is forcibly urged by Mr Laing, who contends, that if the language had been ancient or obsolete, the poems could not have been preserved, and that the circumstance of its being modern is a proof that the poems could not be ancient. The Committee, however, suggest that “perhaps the situation of the Highlands and Islands, where this poetry has been preserved, and the little communication they had with other countries, may in some measure account for this circumstance.” 2. Another preliminary difficulty adverted to is, that any human memory should have been able to retain poems of such length, and so numerous, as some of those Highlanders, from whose oral recitation the collectors of such poems professed to obtain them, are said to have repeated. The solution offered by the Committee is the common one, that “the power of memory in persons accustomed from their infancy to such repetitions, and who are unable to assist or injure it by writing, must not be judged of by any ideas or any experience possessed by those who have only seen its exertions in ordinary life ;” and that “instances of such miraculous powers of memory” are known in most countries, “where the want of writing, like the want of a sense, gives an almost supernatural force to those by which that privation is supplied.” 3.Athird difficulty, which has always appeared to intelligent inquirers the hardest to be surmounted in this matter, is the style of manners and of sentiment exhibited in the poems ascribed to Ossian. The Committee reply, that in all the ancient Celtic poetry, a distinction is made between the Fingalian race and their invaders or enemies, the former assuming a degree of generosity, compassion, and delicate attention to the female sex, which is denied to the latter; and, besides, that some allowance ought to be made “for the colouring of poetry on the manners and sentiments of the heroic persons of whom it speaks.” The real difficulty, however,, is to explain how any poet living amidst barbarism, violence, and anarchy, could have conceived or imagined a style of manners and sentiment so different from all that he could ever have known or observed, and drawn such pictures of generosity, compassion, and gallantry, as are to be found in the poems of Ossian.

Having disposed of these preliminary difficulties, the Committee proceed to report, that there are two questions to which it has directed its attention, and on which it now submits the best evidence it has been able to procure. These are, 1st, What poetry, of what kind, and of what degree of excellence, existed anciently in the Highlands of Scotland, and was generally known by the denomination of Ossianic, from the universal belief that its father and principal composer was Ossian the son of Fingal? And, 2d, How far that collection of such poetry published by Mr James Macpherson is genuine?

In answer to the first of these questions, the Committee states with confidence an opinion “that such poetry did exist; that it was common, general, and in great abundance; that it was of a most impressive and striking sort, in a high degree eloquent, tender, and sublime.” The second question, however, the Committee found it “much more difficult to answer decisively.” It was possessed of no documents to show how much of his collection Mr Macpherson had obtained in the form in which he gave it to the world. The poems and fragments of poems they had been able to procure contained often the substance, and sometimes almost the literal expression, of passages given by Mr Macpherson in the poems of which he published translations. « But the Committee has not been able to obtain any one poem the same in title and tenor with the poems published by him. It is inclined to believe that he was in use to supply chasms, and to give connection by inserting passages which he did not find, and to add what he conceived to be dignity and delicacy to the original, by striking out passages, by softening incidents, by refining the language, in short, by changing what he considered as too simple or too rude for a modern ear, and elevating what in his opinioh was below the standard of good poetry. To what degree, however, he exercised these liberties, it is impossible for the Committee to determine.” Such is the deliberate judgment pronounced in the report; a judgment, we may observe, which disposes of the whole matter in dispute, by establishing the important feet, that there could exist no originals, in the proper sense of the term, from which Macpherson’s translations, manufactured as they are here admitted to have been, could possibly have been derived. That he availed himself largely of the traditionary poems and ballads which formerly circulated in the Highlands, as in most other countries similarly situated, no one has ever denied or disputed. This, indeed, has been the opinion even of those who most strenuously contended thathis pretended translations, taken as a whole, were spurious. But that there ever existed in the Gaelic language such long and connected poems as those of Fingal and Temora, seems to be now definitively decided in the negative. The Report concludes by stating, that the Committee “encountered many more difficulties, and was obliged to bestow more labour, than it was at all aware of when it undertook the investigation committed to it by the Society ;” and it adds, that this labour “has, after all, effected its purpose in a very imperfect manner meaning, no doubt, in as far as regards the object originally contemplated, of establishing the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian. In this “purpose,” indeed, if such was entertained, it has entirely failed; but, on the other hand, it evinced perfect candour and impartiality in its researches, and acted throughout with a jealousy and circumspection which it rightly conceived to be due to itself, to the Society, and to truth.

IV. In order to render our view of this subject as complete as possible, it only remains to notice two other collectors of Gaelic poetry; namely, Mr Duncan Kennedy, and Dr Smith of Campbelton.

Mr Kennedy, originally a schoolmaster in Argyleshire, and afterwards an accountant in Glasgow, appears to have begun to collect Gaelic poetry somewhat prior to the year 1780; and his collection, consisting of three thin folio volumes in manuscript, having been purchased by the Highland Society of Scotland, is now in the possession of that body. Dr Graham, the author of the Essay already mentioned, having opened a correspondence with Mr Kennedy, called his particular attention to a passage in one of Dr Smith’s letters to Mr Henry Mackenzie, in which the reverend gentleman states, that, on observing the beauty of one or two passages of some poems communicated to him by Kennedy, the latter said, these were of his own composition ; and after stating to Kennedy how much it concerned his honour to take notice of this charge, Dr Graham invited him “to come forward, and make a fair acknowledgment of the share which he had in the business.” Kennedy, nothing loth, obeyed the call thus made on him; and in his answer to Dr Graham’s application, dated the 25th of October 1805, there is the following extraordinary.
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and, we may add, instructive passage: “As the rage of both parties must soon subside, a fair division of property ought to take place, and poetical justice [to be] distributed between Ossian and the fabricators. It will, therefore, be admitted, at least by me, that Macpherson has interpolated ; that Smith has composed ; and that Kennedy, with much reluctance, is forced to confess, that he has ventured to make some verses, which, perhaps his vanity may deceive him, but he is inclined to think, approach nearest to the genuine strains of Ossian that have yet been produced in the Gaelic language? In the same communication he declares that he composed about a sixth or seventh part of what is contained in the manuscripts purchased by the Highland Society; that the Death of Carril is entirely his own; that most of Bas Ossian he also claims; that considerable portions of the Death of Diarmid, Goll, Os-cair, Garbh, Latha na Lìur, and other poems in the collection, are of his composition; and that “a good Gaelic scholar, of a good ear, and well acquainted with his imagery, and the qualifications and names of his favourite heroes and professed enemies, may compose verses approximate to the excellence of the original, and which not one in a thousand will be able to distinguish from the real? strains of Ossian. Here is a full, free, and instructive confession, which, although it excited the indignation and provoked the criticism of Dr Graham, who, no doubt, expected something very different, appears, nevertheless, to be distinguished for its frankness and candour, and which affords a significant hint of that process of manufacture which was pursued by Macpherson in concocting his pretended translations.

The next, and only other, collector we have to notice is the Rev. Dr John Smith of Campbel ton, who, like Kennedy, performs a secondary part in this extraordinary literary imposture. It appears that Dr Smith had the use of Kennedy’s manuscripts, and that he transcribed from them into his own collection whatever he conceived to possess merit. In the year 1780, Dr Smith gave this collection to the public in a translation; and, seven years afterwards, he published the originals, in an octavo volume, under the title of Scandana. Kennedy, however, in his letter to Dr Graham, distinctly states that Dr Smith “composed? or, in other words, fabricated originals; and as he has frankly acknowledged the share which he had in the fabrication of his own collection, the charge would carry considerable weight, even if it were not indirectly admitted by Dr Smith himself, which, as we shall presently see, is the case. Dr Graham, who appears to have been most unfortunate in the sources to which he applied for corroborative evidence, addressed a letter to Dr Smith, dated the 24th of March 1806, stating to him the confessions of Kennedy, including the charge of fabrication against Smith himself, and requesting that he would point out the manner in which he might be effectually vindicated from so disgraceful an imputation. Dr Smith, however, being less sensitive on this point than his correspondent, took the matter very calmly, and abandoned all his publications to their fate with the most stoical indifference. “On the subject of your letter,” says the reverend gentleman, in reply, “I have long ago said all I have to say, and take no further concern in the question. If any allege he passed on me as ancient poetry what was his own composition, I have no interest in disputing his allegation. If I had, I would try if he could write such verses as he claims (no doubt the best) on any other given subject; and examine whether these passages were not by a dozen or score of other contributors. Unfortunately for me, not only one, but every contributor, dead or alive, must renounce his right, before I can take the merit of a verse or line, if vanity do not prompt me to take the contribution of such as are dead, and unable to dispute my claim. But this, I think, I shall leave to others; and if they claim the translation as well as the original, I will not dispute it, nor care who may believe and who may doubt it. The stopping of my plough by a shower of rain coming on gives me more concern than either.” This is, perhaps, the most extraordinary answer that ever was made to a charge of literary imposture. Dr Graham says, “it will be found replete with good sense;” but, for our part, we discover in it merely a studied evasion of the important question, to which it so much concerned Dr Smith to give a distinct and unequivocal answer. It is some consolation, however, to find, that the strange proceedings in which this gentleman appears to have been engaged, were not, like those of Macpherson, productive of profit. The eyes of the public had already been opened; and, from one of Dr Smith’s letters to Mr Mackenzie, we learn that “ l ∖ ιe profits of his publication were only a serious loss? — a circumstance which affected him so sensibly, that he adds, “I could never since think of Gaelic poetry with pleasure or with patience, except to wish it had been dead before I was born.”

We have thus placed before our readers as complete and comprehensive a view of this famous controversy as our limits would possibly permit. The subject has no doubt lost much of its original attraction; indeed public opinion appears to have gradually settled down into a decided conviction, that the poems of Ossian, as they appear in the pretended translations of Macpherson, are substantially a forgery. But the controversy as to their authenticity or spuriousness, which was for a considerable time carried on with so much acrimony, forms a curious chapter in the literary history of Scotland; and, for this reason alone, we have endeavoured to exhibit a condensed view of the origin, the progress, and, we may add, the termination, of the dispute, at the same time furnishing such collateral information as seemed calculated to throw light upon the principal question agitated by the advocatesand opponents of the Ossianic hypothesis. (a.)