civilized world have been employed, since the era of Fingal, in the recitation of poems, neither so long nor so intricate as Ossian's; and consider how small a portion of the psalms or liturgy can be preserved by memory, much less transmitted by oral tradition, for a single generation.

2. In the Fragments published in 1760, the translator, Mutability to prove their antiquity, assures us that "the diction is very guage. "obsolete, and differs widely from the style of such poems

as have been written in the same language two or three "centuries ago." That the ago." That the poems were preserved by oral tradition, in an obsolete diction, or, in other words, in a dialect already disused by the people, is alone sufficient to confute their authenticity. The mutability of language is counteracted only by letters and the art of printing, which, reacting as a model upon conversation, preserve and perpetuate an uniform and refined dialect, through the whole nation, from age to age. An unwritten language diverges in each province into a different dialect, and in every age assumes a new form, though the syntax and radical structures may remain. A tune, a tale, a genealogy, a ballad that adopts the diction of each generation, is the utmost ever preserved by tradition; and though the Scottish melodies are undoubtedly ancient, the songs themselves are of a recent date. But the Earse remained an unwritten language till the present age. That it has remained invariably the same language, since the first migration of the highlanders to Scotland, is disproved by its difference from the parent Irish, a page of which, a few centuries old, is confessedly unintelligible to the people at present's. That any traditionary poems of Ossian, of a remote antiquity, are preserved in the highlands, is refuted by an obvious fact; instead of connecting their clans with the Fions, or heroes

As O'Connor's Ogygia vindicated, p. 20.

of Fingal, the bards or seanachies have given to Scotland their own series of Dalriadick kings. Fordun and Winton, unable to discover materials for their histories in Scotland, had recourse to Ireland. At the coronation of Alexander III. the highland genealogist introduced by Fordun and his continuators, to recite the royal pedigree, instead of ascending from Fergus Mac Erth to Erth, Congal, Fergus, Fingal, and from thence, according to Macpherson's egregious fictions, to Comhal, Trathal, Trenmor, proceeds through the whole fabulous race, not forgetting Riada, to Fergus I. a sufficient proof that there was no tradition then of the six kings of Morven, whom the highlanders would not have failed to communicate to Scotland, along with their genuine list of kings. The genealogy of the clans has been pushed to the utmost, but not a single family is derived from the Fions. They were unknown to Monro, dean of the Isles, in his Genealogy of the Clans, and are mentioned in Buchanan's Surnames as an Irish militia commanded by Fion-macoel, concerning whose huge stature and exploits," diverse rude rhymes were retained by the "Irish and some of the highlanders ;" but Martin, who mentions the same traditions, and enumerates some Irish manuscripts found in South Uist, and Lloyd, and Mackenzie, to whom they were communicated, were equally ignorant of the kings of Morven, and of Ossian's Poems 16.

16 Monro's Descrip. of the Western Isles and Genealogy of the Clans, MS. Adv. Lib. W. Buchanan's Hist. of the Buchanans and Scottish Surnames, p. 12. Martin's Western Isles, 89. 152. 219. The manuscripts of Beaton, which Martin mentions, were examined by Lloyd, who found three leaves of Cairbar Lifachair's history which Sir George Mackenzie quoted against Stillingfeet, but was unable to read. Stillingfleet justly observed, that Cairbar, an Irish king in 284, had been turned into an author by mistake. Origines Britannica, Pref. 42. But Sir George, who discovered the history of Cairbar, (the prince that killed Oscar at Gabhra, and appears so conspicuous in the Temora,) was still ignorant of Fingal and the kings of

3. No sooner were the translations published than the Attestatraditionary existence of the poems disappeared. Of the tions. numerous attestations from those who had heard or remembered to have known the originals, none, it is observable, ever presumed to assert that they possessed in writing, or could repeat from memory, much less that they had originally furnished, a single fragment of the poems which Macpherson had translated. When Johnson visited the Western Isles, the natives had nothing to communicate that deserved attention. Stone, a collector of Earse poems, who preceded Macpherson, Shaw, the author of the Gaelic Dictionary, Mr. Hill, an English gentleman, Dr. Young, ate bishop of Meath, Sir James Foulis, an enthusiast for Celtick poetry, discovered only such rude rhymes of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, as, Ossian's religious dispute with St. Patrick, the battle between Fingal and Magnus, the combats with Con, Muirartack, Ullin king of Spain, Erragon of Lochlin; the death of Oscar, of Deirdar, and of Dermid, who trod on the poisonous bristles of a wild boar he had slain". In their research for manuscripts, John

Morven, in his researches among the highlanders concerning the antiquity of the royal line. Nicholson's Scottish Hist. Library, ch. ii. p. 24. Mackenzie, ii. 430.

17 See Mr. Hill's Collection in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1782—3, Dr. Young's in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. i. We are told that Jerom Stone, a schoolmaster at Dunkeld, whose English poetry was inserted in the Scots Magazine 1756, had conceived the idea of translating Ossian, long before Macpherson appeared. Smith's Gael. Antiq. 92. n. Stone's Collection of Earse poems is in Mr. Chalmer's possession, and from the list now before me, it is certain that he discovered nothing else than those Irish ballads described above. The late sir James Foulis applied to Earse, in his old age, in order to read the epic poems of Ossian in the original; but when he had acquired the language, the epic poems were not to be found. He had nothing to contribute to the Perth edition of Gaelic poetry but those Irish ballads; and in his letters, he inveighs bitterly against Macpherson. "Ossian Macpherson is an execrable

son's assertion remained undisproved, that there was not an Earse manuscript above a century old. As a proof that the highlanders were neither rude and illiterate, nor the Earse an unwritten language in Ossian's days, we are gravely told, in reply to Johnson, that the Druids, when expelled from Scotland, retired to Iona, where they established a college, and lived and taught unmolested till dispossessed in the sixth century by Columba 18. There is no proof but conjecture that the Druids ever existed in Ireland, where their human sacrifices, their divination from human victims, and their favourite doctrine of the metempsychosis were unknown '9. 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, must have remarked their influence, or existence under Galgacus, in the Caledonian war. The man who can thus create an historical fact, requires nothing but genius to fabricate an epic poem. But when manuscripts are

fellow. In spite of all that has been said, or ever may be advanced, in favour of the authenticity of Ossian's Poems, the concealing his originals will always be looked on as a convincing proof that he has forged them himself. It is demonstrable that he has used great juggling about what he calls the two epic poems of Fingal and Temora, and he will probably never shew the original poems."

18 Smith's Gaelic Antiquities, 68.

19 Cæsar, l. 6. c. 13. The name is nothing. Druid, in the Celtick, signifies merely a wise man or wizard. But we discover no trace in Ireland, on the arrival of St. Patrick, of the doctrines or human sacrifices of the Druids, whose groves were sevis superstitionibus sacri, and who, intermixing a Phoenician superstition with barbarous rites, cruore captivo adolere aras, et bominum fibris consulere deas fas habebant. Tacit. Ann. 1. 14. c. 30. Strabo, 1. 4. p. 198. An established and well disciplined priesthood like the Druids, would have resisted, and might have prevented the introduction of Christianity into Ireland. But the most learned and rational of the Irish antiquaries, Ledwich and Campbell, are still tenacious of the Druids, and of the Tuath de Danan; undoubtedly a colony of Damnii from Britain,

appealed to, let a single book of Fingal in manuscript, such as Manutranslated by Macpherson, of an older date than the present scripts. century, be produced and lodged in a public library, and there is an end of the dispute. Macpherson of Strathmashie, a poet who assisted in transcribing the poems from old manuscripts, or oral tradition, or whose poetry, I presume, is, in other words, intermixed with his kinsman's, affirms that one of the old manuscripts which he read or transcribed, was dated in 1410; and the credulous Kaims, in his Sketches of Man, was persuaded to assert that the four first books of Fingal were contained in a Gaelic manuscript, written on vellum in 1403, which the translator found in the Isle of Sky 20. In Trinity College, Dublin, in the Bodleian library at Oxford, and perhaps in the highlands, there are Irish manuscripts of the ballads published by Hill, by Miss Brooks, and by the bishop of Meath. The Red book of Clanronald's bard, to which such frequent and confident appeals were made, was recovered from Macpherson, and contains the genealogy of the Macdonals, and their exploits under Montrose, Colkitto and others, down to 1686, when it was probably written; with some short songs of the present century by Macvuirick the bard, but not a single syllable of Ossian's poems 2. But the

20

Appendix to Blair's Dissertation on Ossian. Kaims's Sketches, i. 426. The copy of Winton's Chronicle in the Royal Library, the oldest Scotch manuscript extant, is not older than 1421, nor later perhaps than 1430. D. Macpherson's edit. p. 31.

21 The Red Book of Clanronald, (Leabhar Dearg,) is now in my hands. It is a small mutilated duodecimo, in modern binding, of an hundred and fifty leaves, in the Irish character which the Macvuricks understood and wrote; and is dated Sept. 8, 1726, in the midst of the songs. But the only poem relative to Ossian, in the whole collection, is a short ballad in the Scriptural style, on the longevity of the Fions; of whom Gaul lived three hundred and odd years, Ossian four hundred, and Fingal himself fifty-two tens of years, that is twenty-six score, or five hundred and twenty