Lucan. Covinus, or Covinarius, seems to have been defived from the word Coffin, in the Teutonic language, which was a branch of the old Celtic; and though it was imported to England very probably by the Saxons, it is fost in the Gaelic. Our fathers, who were in use to carry their dead betwixt two horses to the congregation-house of all living, called a coffin carbaid, which is the very word that Ossian uses every where for a car; so that your letter is very expressive of my idea of Cuchullin's

car.

I have just now before me a poetical relation, by Ossian, of the interview betwixt Fingal and his friends, and Luno the son of Leven, who made the swords of which I sent you a description in the postscript to my last, in which Luno is pointed out as a very wild savage, going upon one leg, with a staff in his hand, clad in a mantle of black hide, with an apron of the same stuff before him, and his complexion much of the colour of his garb, skipping off to his smiddy with the fleetness of a March wind, and the bobbing of the hard untanned skin behind him, was the principal point of view as he flew over every rising ground before them. Though Cæsar had not said, Britanni interiores pellibus sunt vestiti, I know it must have been then so, as they could only have learned the manufacture of cloaths and linens, from what they saw among the Romans, or from strollers from Gaul, who might have been led to the secret of cloth-making by their neighbourhood with the Roman Colony, or with Massilia; but it seems, in Cæsar's time, few or no experienced manufacturers had found their way to our country; yet, in a poem of Ossians, whose scene lies in Ireland, (it is no other than his own courtship with Everallin), I find mention made of the Belgae and Teutones, though this is omitted by the translator. The first came, very probably, from the colony of

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that people in South Britain, and the Teutones from Scandinavia; so that, as the Celtic nations on the continent, who were in perpetual motion, some one way or other, were coming in frequent detachments to the British Isles, it is likely the leaders of tribes, and the other better sort of people, would have known something of the use of cloaths in Ossian's time. But the lower classes, I mean those who were inferior in valour, or servile mechanics, if they had other than smiths I know not, would have only worn the sagum, like Luno. Sagum, I am informed by two classical writers, is a Galuic word, which is no other than Sheag or Sac, a hide; though it was afterwards applied to any square loose covering, made use of by the military men among the Celts and Romans. I may fairly conclude from this observation, that Ossian sung when the pure original sagum was the dress of many among the British Celts.

I found the genealogy of Aldo, who carried off Erragon's queen, in the following words, in this rehearser's edition: "Aldo, the son of Leven, the son of Lir; one descended of the people of Ti", I take this Ti to be the Celtic divinity Tis, (the Dis of Cæsar) and the people of whom Aldo was originally descended, to be the Titanes or Teutones; for our European forefathers flattered their vanity very much in deriving their origin from some of I their favourite deities, as the Germans pretended to have descended of Tuiston, by his son Mannus. I am sure this genealogy of Aldo hath the character of high antiquity, higher than the general belief of the christian system in this country. Enough of this dry stuff.

The unconquerable aversion which the Druids had against committing any of their poetical works to writ ing, conld not miss of bringing the most of them to a period at the dissolution of their policy. The missionaries from Icolumkill to the Western Isles and

the neighbouring continent were very numerous. There are the remains of about thirty places of worship in this and the two neighbouring parishes, besides monasteries. These reformers were certainly animated with the usual zeal of extinguishing the old religion, with all its appurte nances. The sacred hymns suffered in this devastation, for there is not one couplet of them existing. You will perhaps be surprised to hear, that the goddess of Victory, Andate, (the Andraste of Dio,) who had a temple at Camalodunum, had a particular veneration paid her in this part of the world. There are no less than the remains of four places of worship for her in this island: the most considerable of them lies within an half mile of the castle of Dunvegan, (Anaid in Buy) of which Macleod will give you a description. As human sacrifices were offered at her shrine, the christian missionaries must have been greatly shocked at the priests who officiated at these bloody rituals; in so far that, to this day, when we talk of a cruel savage, we call him a Druid. A little reflection will easily account for the loss of the sacred poems, as well as for the little notice taken of religion in the heroic ones. Perhaps it would have been construed a sacrilegious encroachment on the holy office, to mention the concerns of religion in profane songs; or, if any such mention was made, the rehearsers in after times would have been taught to drop it, as an abomination to christian ears. I should ask your pardon for obtruding all this trash upon you, but believe me to be, very respectfully,

Reverend and dear Sir,
Your very affectionate
humble servant,

DON. MACQUEEN.

P. S.-I have a just esteem for the translator's genius; and believe me, after the narrowest search I could make, that there is a foundation in the ancient songs for eve ry part of his work; but I am apt to believe, also, that he hath tacked together into the poem, descriptions, similes, names, &c. from several detached pieces; but of this I can give no demonstration, as I met only with fragments.

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1. From LORD AUCHINLECK, dated Auchinleck,
2d October 1764.

REVEREND SIR,

In the short visit you favoured me with, you told me of your intending to publish a new Dissertation on your friend Ossian; principally to instruct the antiquity of the book, and that it is not an imposture. Thinking on that subject, a particular occured to me, which you'll judge if proper to come into this new work, .which I long to see. What I have in view is, an intrinsic proof of antiquity from a remarkable passage or expression which we meet with more than once in Ossian. When a hero finds death approaching, he calls to prepare his deer's horn, a passage which I did not understand for a good time after Fingal was published, but came then to get it fully explained accidentally. You must know that in Badenoch, near the church of Alves, on the high-way side, are a number of Tumuli. No body had ever taken notice of these, as artificial, till McPherson of Benchar, a very sensible man, under an apprehension of their being artificial, caused to cut up two of them, and found human 'bones in them, and at right angles with them a red deer's horn above them. These burials plainly have been before christianity, for the corpse lay in the direction of

north and south, not in that of east and west; and as Fingal was published before any of these Tumuli were opened, which you will get attested by Benchar, and the people he employed in the works, this seems to make strong for the antiquity. I am,

Reverend Sir,

Your most obedient

• humble servant,

ALEX, BOSWELL,

P.S.-I was so much pleased with your former Dissertation, that I could not help throwing out to you what is above.

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