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James Norman Methven

OSSIAN AND MALVINA IN DEFENCE OF OSSIAN

BEING A SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE POEMS.

BY

KEITH NORMAN MACDONALD. M.D.

[REPRINTED FROM THE OBAN TIMES.]

1906.

PRE F^A.CE

THE Poems of Ossian have now been before the public for upwards of 143 years, and the question of their authenticity has not yet been settled to the

satisfaction of the disputants on both sides. The main reason for this is prejudice and ignorance of the Gaelic language, and of the manners, customs, and habits of the ancient Gaels on the part of the vast majority of the combatants in denying the possibility of such long poems being preserved and handed down mainly by oral tradition through so many centuries of time. To this it has been answered in the following pages that equally long poems have been preserved and handed down by oral tradition in other countries, and why not in this one also ? The traditional tales of the Highlands have been can-ied down for countless generations, and if so, why not poetry or poetic prose? True, some Celtic scholars and philologists have decided to their own satisfaction

tliat there were no originals of the poems as we now have them ; that James Mac- pherson created them out of stories collected from ballads. Against this we have the positive evidence of the Douay MSS., and the sworn testimony of several in- dividuals, and the declarations of other living witnesses, including many clergymen and gentlemen, of the highest character and respectability, who had heard large portions of many of them recited and compared in their presence. So far then as circum- stantial and direct evidence are concerned, the existence of such poems seems as true

as any fact recorded in history. The most extraordinary thing is that after the lapse of such a long period of time the slighest spark, even now, would kindle a spirit of the fiercest controversy among the hostile camps, equal to the bitterness so

often engendered over religious and political questions, that it is safe to say another century must elapse before the subject can be approached on all sides with the

calmness and temper such a (juestion demands. I have tried to be impartial

throughout, but how far 1 have succeeded must be left to the public. That a gi'eat deal too much is made of Irish literature in connection with these poems—mostly of a legendary nature— 1 feel certain, and I would suggest that all Irish history, or supposed history, and legends bearing on the subject should be collected and

placed in some easily accessible locality for reference, with full and complete

ADDITIONAL ERRATA.

P. 14, line 6th from top, 2nd column, omit the second "and."

P. 37, 6th line from bottom, 2nd column, for "the" read "their."

P. 44, line 21, 2nd column, from bottom, for "vein" read "view.'

P. 46, for "Dr James Leyden" read " Dr John Leyden."

P. 58, 6th line in Note, for "Methink" read "Methinks."

F>RE FS-ACE

E Poems of Ossiau have now been before the public for upwards of 143 years, TH and the question of their authenticity has not yet been settled to the satisfaction of the disputants on both sides. The main reason for this is prejudice and ignorance of the Gaelic language, and of the manners, customs, and habits of the ancient Gaels on the part of the vast majority of the combatants in denying the possibility of such long poems being preserved and handed down mainly by oral tradition through so many centuries of time. To this it has been answered in the following pages that equally long poems have been preserved and handed down by oi'al tradition in other countries, and why not in this one also ? The traditional tales of the Highlands have been carried down for countless generations, and if so, why not poetry or poetic prose "? True, some Celtic scholars and philologists have decided to their own satisfaction that there were no originals of the poems as we now liave them ; that James Mac- plierson created them out of stories collected from ballads. Against this we have the positive evidence of the Douay MSS., and the sworn testimony of several in- dividuals, and the declarations of other living witnesses, including many clergymen and gentlemen, of the highest character and respectability, who had heard large portions of many of them recited and compared in their presence. So far then as circum- stantial and direct evidence are concerned, the existence of such poems seems as true as any fact recorded in history. The most extraordinary thing is that after the lapse of such a long period of time the slighest spark, even now, would kindle a spirit of the fiercest controversy among the hostile camjjs, equal to the bitterness so often engendered over religious and political questions, that it is safe to say another century must elapse before the subject can be approached on all sides with the calmness and temper such a question demands. I have tried to be impartial throughout, but how far I have succeeded must be left to the public. That a great deal too much is made of Irish litei'ature in connection with these poems—mostly of a legendary nature— I feel certain, and I would suggest that all Irish history, or supposed history, and legends bearing on the subject should be collected and placed in some easily accessible locality for -reference, with full and complete translations. Then, and then only, can comparisons be made, and facts separated

from fiction. In collecting these poems and placing them before the public, I have to acknowledge, with thanks, the courtesy of the proprietors and editor of "The

Oban Times " for their valuable assistance in placing my opinions of the Poems of Ossian on permanent record. K. N. MacDonald. 21 Clarendon Crescent, Edinburgh, 2Uh July, 1906.

E i^ ]E?. ^ a? ^.

Fourth line from bottom of Preface, for " poems" read "papers."

Page 3, 4th line from bottom, for " indispensible " read " indispensable."

Page 13, after Tacitus, 20th line from top, read "or Agricola," and 4th line from bottom, 2nd

column, for " Mons Grampius" read " Mons Granpius."

Page 16, 12 lines from top, 2nd column, for " Fairveasalis " read " Fainasolis."

Page 22, 2nd column, for " Homeridac " read " Homeridae."

Page 37, 6th line from bottom, for "the " read " their."

" " " " Page 40, top line, 2nd column, for del gel " read Ded-Gel ; 7th from bottom, for in light " read

"as light" Footnote of same, for " Cairhur," read " Cairbar," and " stri nan duoim " read " " stri-nan-daoine." F'or " Aganideca," middle of page, 2nd column, read " Agandecca

Page 51, line 10 from top, 2nd column, for "did not publish a translation of the Address to the Sun,"

read " did not publish the Gaelic of the Address to the Sun."

" " Page 58, 6th line from bottom, for Belgue" read Belgae" ; same page, '2nd column, 2nd line from

bottom of Note, for " pladdis " read " plaeddis."

Page 66, 12th line from bottom, for " Milesian " read " Milesians."

In Defence of Macpherson's " Ossian."

BY K. N. MACDONALD, M.D.

-*-

It musti iierver be forgotten that James detection and disgrace and literary eix- MacpheLTsioni, the translator of Ossian'^s tinctiori. No sane person would have poeiras, was only twenty-two year's of agei risked whe-n he puhlished liis " Fragments of SUC!H A CATASTROPHE ancient poetry collected in the Plighlands, from pure imagination ; neither could he of Scotland" in 1760; twenty-four when have foreseiein that any success would have " he published Fingal,'' six books, in, 1762, attended his venture, and failure would " " and twemty-five when Temora in eight have been most disastrousi to a young booika appeiareid in 1763;sioi that if heiwa-t aspirant to fame. the sole author of all theisieif books he must Macpherson's most bitter opponents at have composed " Fingal " within twO' years the time of the publication of " Fingal" of the publication of thei "Fragments,' and " Temora " were non-Gaelic speaking and the eight books of " Temora, " in onei individuals, who were, in consequence, year afteir t-hei publication of ' Fingal." debarred from forming a correct judgment

Anyone perusing them in both laiHgu- a,si to the meiritis or demerits of the case. ages can hardly imagine it, possible that No omei who is ignorant of thei Gaelic such a young man, with little knowledgei language can possibly determine whether of the world, could havei conceived such the Gaelic was Ma,cpherson's own compo- a vast undertaking in soi shoi-t a space of sition or not, and the Gaelic scholars who time; for, if it weire all a forgery, the do> a,asert that hei was the author haveino^ amount of labour bestowed upon it must proof whatever for the assertion. On the have been, in the language of " Dominie contra.ry, t,hey differ among themselves on Sampson," " prodeegeious," not the least the subject. Dr. Stern, of Berlin, holds difficult part of which was the constant that, La.chla,n Macpherson, Strat,hma,shie, alertness, indispensible toi avoid betrayal and Dr. Thomas Ross, Lochbroom, were of himsieilf, and the epoch embraced by the composers of most of Macpherson's the poems, and the working of it out Gaelic; while others a,ttribut,e both the without running the risk of immediate Gaelic and the English to James Mac- plierson—holding that he first composed it is not my business t-o collect fresh

" the English, and then translated it into copies." " The struggle for existence Gaelic. Both cannot be right; therefore was groat, so individual effoi't was out yi their theories can't have any fonndation the question. In the meantime great ill facts. The late Dr. Alox. Cameron, of changes were coming over the Highlands. Brodick, the best Celtic scholar of his day, The chiefs were being gradually won and a Highlander, held that the Gaelic of over to the side of the Government of the

"Ossian" was superior to the English, day ; the people were disgusted, and were which is vei-y remarkable if the English emigi'ating, and most of the old people were the original. To use his own words : weire dying off, their customs changing,

Some of tile finest songs ever -.vritten liave and their habit-s also' to a great extent; been written in Gaelic, and Ossian's poems, hence the diificulty, indeed, the almost though a translation, whicli is in itself un- insuperable impossibility, of collecting questionably a work of genius, although much " line for line " copies of all the originals inferior to the Gaelic, exercised an influence upon the literature of Europe.* of Ossdan. James Macphea'son had a great advant- That does not tally with the opposition age over the Highland Society's commit- remarks that— tee by being one of the early collector'^ of Mr Cameron docs not appear to have pio- Gaelic poetry, and having retained the nounced an opinion! but his attitude on the subject seems to be indicated by a "remark" great majority of what he collected, made in conversation, that not a line of the there would be less for subsequent Gaelic originals which we possess, exactly collectors to find. That there were corresponds with the old Ossianic ballads. originals of the poems of Ossian is as clear Why sihould they? Ossian a. was as any facti mentioned in histoiy, and that geinius, and the authors of the so-called James Macpherson was not the author of Ossianic ballads were not. The stories these po'ems is equally clear. It is now attributed to Ossian in the Dean of about 143 years since " Fingal " was first Lismora's Book seem to be published, and considering the testimony THIRD CLASS IMITATIONS of sworn witnesses and many emineait and of Ossian doctored up ecclesiastically to highly respectable clergy and gentlemen, con-espond with St. Patrick's teaching who had declared they had actually seen among the infidels and brought into many of the originals, and frequently harmony with Church ideas. Besides, 40 heard them recited by the people of the yeai-s weiro allowed to elapse before anyone Highlands, it is futile to assert that these uiidci-took the collection of these "line pen-sons were not telling the truth. What for line " copies of originals, and of course possible object could numerous clergymen they could not be found in all respects have in sustaining and perpetuating identical, word for word. Many would falsehoods? Many of them were say "I believe in the poems of Osian, but JAMES MACPHERSON's CONTEMPORARIES,

Lcclures were good Gaelic scholar.?, and when they and addresses by Dr. Alex. Cameron, 18(;8. Sec " Ileliquic CclticR'," Vol. II., p. 530. declared that Maeplierson could not have —

produced them, we are bound to admit of Darthula (or Dardula), which pai-ts of that tihey were better judges of tbei caso " Fingal '" he knew by heart. tliani we are at tbe present day. When a Lieut. Duncan Ma^Nicol, of the 88th cleirgyman like thei— Rev. Doii. MaeiLeod, Regiment, found some who could reipeat of Gleinelg, says: the following pieces, and —which he It v,'as in my house that Mr Macphth January, 1764, Ossian's works, aaid the most memorable to Dr. Blair, siays: — of Fingal'si exploits, f I have wrote down the passjiges which Mr Macpherson probably tihought otherwise. Macpherson, Stornoway, repeated in your Similarly we must believe in the testi- house, and everyone that reads them allows monies of those who worked for him and that they lose by the translation. Your ac- with him, and saw the poems in his pos- quaintance, Mr Fra.ser, received a letter from session, siuch as Lachlan Macpherson, Mr MacLagan, preacher at Amukie, in which he mentions some detache^l pieces he trans- Strathmashie, Captain Morrison, and the mitted to Maopherson, the translator; par- Gallie, Rev. Dr. Macpher- Rev. Mr John ticularly several passages in the last book of son, Sleat, Skyei, and Rev. Angus 'Fingal," the poem called " Erragon," or MacNedll, Howmore, in South Uist, who " Lora," almost entire, and a poem which heard MaciDonald of Dimisdale, one of beans some resemblance to the opening of " Temoi a." I told you formerly that I saw his parisbioners, rehearse the terms of the originals which Mr Macpherson collected peace proposed by Morla, Fingal, Duan in the Highlands. Mr Fraser will assure you il., Fingal's order for raising his stand- he saw them likewise, and was frequently ards, pp. 57 and 58, Duan iv., his combat present when he v/as translating them, and with Swaran, Duan v. Neil MacMhurrich no man can say that he oould impose his (;riginals upon us, if we had common sense alsoi reipeated, with variations, the whole and a knowledge of our mother tongue.

t The Genuine Remains of Ossian, by Patrick Mac-

Gregor, M.A. 1841. \ Appendix Highland Society's Report. '

Who!i Lachlan Macphei-son, Stratli- It soomsi to have suffered more from mashie, who was a classical scholar as reciters and transcribei's than any other

well as a poet, and country gentleman, jjart of Ossian 's works. says that he accompanied his clansman We ai^ not concerned with what other during somei pai-ts of his journey in nationalities do ; but Scotsmen, and SEARCH OF llHE POEMS especially the Scottish clergy, for more of Ossian, and assisted him in collecting than' 300 years, have stood faithfully by thean, and " took down from oral recita- the truth as being the basis of all moral- tion, and transcribed from old MSS., by ity and guide to their conduct, and there far the greater part of those pieces that, is no community in the world that has he published, are we to understand that had fewer stray sheep. To tell us at this he was telling a delibei'ato falsehood time of day that all these divines and What possible object could he have in professiors were supporting a hollow sham doing so? If he knew that James Mac- is an insult to our intelligence and pherson had no originals, he would not judgment. have voluteei-ed the statement. It wa.s. The loss of the famous Douay MSS. '" " in this "writing down and transcrib- was a very " I'egrettable incident " in ing ' that modern changes wea'e made in connection with this subject, for, if they the orthography of the old MSS., so that had been preserved, they would have James Macphersion could reiad them, and proved conclusively the the latter specially alluded toi what he EXISTENCE OF IOSSIAN's POEMS called the " uncouth orthography '' of in the Highlands long before Jaime« somo of the MSS., and admits that ho Macpherson's time. have got proof himself altered the orthography of some We enough without them; but still they of ' Temora,'' and "connected detached would bo of great assistance as a final }Darts of that poem, which he had received clincher. from various sources, as the sense and the Tlio Rev. John Farquharson, grand- tale or argument required," which, as a uncle to Farquharson of Inveroy, translator, he was perfectly justified in doing. returned to Scotlaxid from tho Continent some time beftwecn 1720 and 1730, aftei- Captain Morrison also declared that iiaving obtained a thorough classical when assisting him, education. Ho was a man of oxcollont it waii tlieir usual i^ractico wlicn any p;i..>saj>;t' taste and well-known sincerity of char- occuiTcd which they did not uiidcr«taiid, either to omit it entiroly or to gloss it ovcm- acter, and a great admirer of the ancient with any cxpn;esioii that liannoniwd with tlw poets. At the time he know little Gaelic, context. § and commenced a serious study of it, and The reason alleged for publishing the was assisted by Mi-s Phraser of Culbokio, a original of the 7th Book of Temora was celebrated Gaelic lady scholar. He " the variety of measures which occur in learned to read the language and to. write it." it grammatically, so that the pupil soon

§ Graham's Essay on Ossian, p. 28i. surpassed the teacher. This lady, by a

latter, howevea-, did not live to see making him acquainted with sevea-al I Tlie ancient poems, gavei bim such a, high the work finished arid revised, a-nd the opinion of Gaelic poeti-y that he was led manuscripts were never returned. James to collect everything of that kind worth M^acpherson, after the death of Strath- notice which fell in, his; way. He received mashie, is siupposed to hava suppressed many from Mrs Eraser herself, who' pos- or destroyed them. Bishop) reques- sessed a MS. ini the Gaelic character I was myself (continues the ted by the widow of Angus MacDonell of written some time after the Reistoration Kyles, in Knoydart, when missionary in Bade- Peter MacDonell, chaplain to by Mr noch, to demand from the said James Mac- Glengarry, by whom she had been taught pherson a MS. containing a portion of Ossian's Gaelic. poems, which her husband when alive had This poem was kept along with somo given to him on the VfOrd of Straxhmashie, I oalled upon him at Balavil, in Badeuoch, other poems in a bag which she called and but did not get the M'S. I mjself saw a large Balg Solair '" (purveying bag). "Am MS. of Ossian's poems in th© possession of These were taken to America in 1776 by Mrs Fraser, Culbokie, in Strathglas^ whicli Simon Frasier, one of her sons, who was she called " Am balg Sollair " (a bag of fortui- an officer in the British Service during tous goods), tills lady's residence being be- fathei-'s house and the school where the War of the Revolution, was taken tween my 1 used to attend with her grand-children at prigoner, and died in jail, and the poems l;er son's, Culbokie House—she being cousin got lost. to my father. She used to take up "Am balg The foiUowing meiiiorandum was re- sollair '' and read pieces. Although a very ceived from Bishop MacDonell by Sir young boy at the time I got so much enrap- tured witli the rehearsal of the achievements John Sinclair shortly before his death : — (4 the heroes of the poems, and so familiar When James Macpherison, the translator of with tlie characters, especially of Oscar, Osisian's Poems, was collecting the MSS. lie Cathmor, and CuchuUin, and when Mac- prevailed upon his namesake, Lachlan Mac- pherson's translation was put into my hands jjherson, of Strathmashio, in Badeuocli— ill the Scotch College of Valladolid in Spain, gentleman ot clacisical education, and well- many years afterwards, it was like meeting known and etsteoHK'd in the Highlands on old friends witii whom I had. been intimately acouuut uf his poetical genius, and polished acquainted. Mrs Eraser's »on, Simon, who manuei's—to acoompany iiim to some of the had a classical education, and was an excel- families on the west coast of Inverness-shiie, lent Uaelic scholar, on emigrating to' America who had in their postsessiou MSS. of Ossian's in the year 1774, took "Am balg sollair" with poems, and carefully preserved them along him as an invaluable treasure. On tlie break- witii their family reoords. By the influence ing out of the revolutionai-y war in the of^Strathmashie tliese MSS. were delivered to American colonies Mr Fraser joined the James Maopnersoii on a solemn promise of Royal Standard, was taken prisoner by the returning them to their ^wnercj ^-hen the Americans, and thrown into jail, where he tia.nslation should be finished. It was the died. I made many inquiries of the different opinion of those who were best acquainted members of the family, but could trace no witli both James Macpherson and Stratli- \estioe of the "balg sollair." mashie tliat the former was incapable of (Signed) Alexander MacDonell. doing justice to the original, and that what- Reiv. Farquharson collected over merit the translation may possess it is The Mr owing to Strathmaehie. two volumes of MSS. before 1745. One was a closely written folio large paper, all the poems translated by Macpherson, about three inches thick. It consisted and that he had many pieces as good as mainly of Ossiau's poems, though it con- any that had beem published, and that tained a few modern piecesi. This lie thei translatio'iis in many parts were not brought with him about 1753, to Douay, equal to the original, or " did not come where he had been a student, and where up to the strength of the original." he was then appointed Prefect of Studies. Mr MacGillivray returned to Scotland He left the other in Braemar, where it in 1775, and Mr Ranald MacDonald five got lost, but is supposed to have been lees years after. The MS. was still at Douay, valuable. whein the latter left the place; but many Bishop Chisholm and Mr James Mac- leaves had been torn, some lost, and some

Gillivray, Edinburgh ; Mr Ranald Mac- were used to kindle the fire,* and thay Donald, Uist; and Mr John Fai-quharson, were all of the opinion that the MSS. had Elgin, attested that they had often see-n been irrecoverably lost during the times the MSS. In. 1766 or 1767 Gleaidinning of the French Revolution, if not before of Parton sent Mr Farquharson a copy then. of Macphersous translation, and thear Here, then, was another set of Bishops attention was consequeoatly more closely and clergy of anothex persuasion who directed to the MSS. Mr MacGillivray could have no interest in perpetuating a was theoi studying poetry and rhetoric, forgery, entirely corroborating tdie state- and used, with a sort of indignation, to ments of those already mentioned, which licar Mr Farquharson assert that tlie makes it as clear as anything caa be that Gaelic poems weii*e not infeaior to' thos<3 there were originals, and that James of Homer and Virgil. Macpherson had the originals of the He was (says Ei.shop Chisliolui) a great pro- poems which he published.! fioient in ptry, and much admii-€d for his In 1805, Captain MacDonald, Thurso, taste. I never saw one more stubborn or a native of Skye, aged 77, declaied to btiff in denying the meritis of Highland poets, lill Miicplienson's translation appeared, which,, Sir John, Sinclair that he was well wiieu compared to Mr Farquliar.s.on's collee- acquainted with James Macphei-son, who liou, iuado a convert of him ; and uoiie then too'k down from him many of these poems jidniiied Ossian more titan ho. " ' 111 Skye, that the poems Ca Lodin,

often compared th'j " ' Mr Farquharson Cbvala,' and Carric-Thura, ' of Gaelic MS. with Macphei-son's transla- which he had lately seen the copiesi aboui tionsi, and he affirmed the whole of the to bo printed, wei'o familiar to him; lattei- was infei-ior to the original. that he often repeated them, in Gaelic up

1 have (says Mr MacGillivray) an hundied to' liis tweditieith year; that he had also limes tieeu Jiim turning over iiis folio wiieii heai-d in Gaelic several addresses to the lie read the trauc-,latioii, and comparing it v^'.th the Erse, and I oa-i positively any tiiat ' Somo Collie scholars sneer nl JVltiti. being lost ii

1 saw liim in this manner go through tiie this way ; evcrytliing should be preserved for them ! wiiole poems of Fingal and Temora. t The eoUection.s of the brothers M'l'alhiin, Dr. .Join .Smith, ".Scan Dana," and ollicrs corroboralc tin He also repeatedly said that he had cxisicncc of Ussianic poetry. sun, the moon, the evening star, and to vated the Gaelic language and things Malvina, and likewise the Gaelic -poeim concerning warriors and champions and called 'The 'Six Bards." Fingal MacCumal, and many others, was Evidence of the aibove nature could be animated by the same spirit. No poems added toi to a greati extent, but wei consider of Ossian would have been preserved by that any intelligent person who objects him. to the evidence already adduced is beyond Tlie marvel is that they lived in spite it taken for granted the pa.le of logic and reason. The mere of him ; but may be fact that the Highland Society could find that all ecclesiastics in thesei days would none of Ossian'si poems complete is easily narrowly scimtinize everything they per- accounted for when we consider the mitted to see the light, hence the weak- multitudes that had emigrated, and the ness of the Dean of Lismore's specimens. vast changes that had taken place in the In perceiving and asserting the merit Highlands during the forty years that of Gaelic poetry, Macpheirson was antici- had elapsed since Macpherson's tour; it pated by Jerome Stone, a native of Fife, is easily conceivable that in the interval who kept a school at Dunkeld, and there these poems, or the remnants left by the learned Gaelic. In a letter dated 15th collectors, might well have been lost. November, 1775, to the editor of the In Dr. John Smith's Dissertation, pub- " Soots Magazine," accompanied with a rhythmical version of an old poem lished in 1780, he says : —

says r Within a certury back the Highlands of called "The Death of Fraoch," he Scotland have undergone a gi'eater revolution Those who have any tolerable acquaintance than for ten before that period. Even since with the Irish language must know that there .Alacpherson gathered his collection, tho are a gi^at number of poetical compositions amusements, employments, and tastes of the in it, and some of them of very great anti- Higlilander.5 ai-e much altered. A greater quity, whose merit entitles them to an ex- attention to commerce, agriculture, and pas- emption from the unfortunate neglect, or turage has quite engrossed that paa'tial regard rather abhonence to which ignorance has

that was paid even then t{. the song of the subjected that emphatic language in whicli bard. Among tho causes which make our they were composed. Several of these per-

ancient poems vanish .so rapidly, poverty and formances are to be met with, which for sub- the iron rod should, in most places, have a limity of sentiment, nei"vousness of expres- large share. Another rea.son is the gix>wtli sion, and high spirited metaphor are hardly of industry, which fills up all blanks of time to be equalled among the cliief productions to bett-er advantage, and especially the in- of the most cultivated nations. Othere of crease of more useful knowledge. Above all, tliem breathe such tenderness and simplicity tlie extiiiction of the order of the bards as must be affecting to every mind that is in hastened the catastrophe of Ossian's poems. the least tinctured with the softer passions The Rev. Alexander Pope, of Reay, of pity and humanity. remarked that " our clergy wore declared With regard to the modernisms which enemies to the poems," and Bishop tho Highland Society thought were to be Carswell, in 1567, who lamented the sinful discovered in the 7th Book of "Tomora," darkness and ignoraJice and evil design they were n\ereily certain Gaelic words of those who taueht and wrote and culti- which i-esemblo Latin, Englisih, etc.. 10 industriously pointed out as detections Macpherson says in a prefatory note that by Mr Malcolm Laing. The same mod- he altered the orthography in many ernisms, according to Mr P. MacGregor, instances, but the

M.A.. abound in every Gaelic book, but striking peculiarities of tliis Duan afford at " with respect to the style of that Duan least a presumption of its having been trans- I can discover np difference between it cribed fi'om an old writing. If we look at the internal evidence from the nature of the and the rest of Ossian's real works." And poetry, any one can see that they cx)uld not Dr. Clerk says: — have been composed by any modern writer. Unfortunately, nothing can be deduced The character of the poetry is primitive and from the G-pelling of tlies^e poems, as they were simple. We have nature pure and pnmitive, rnodeniised before being pubHshed, and we dealt with by man in a very primitive state, have not even Maophenscn's own transcript and treated in a manner without example of Uiom. The only specimens of his G-aelic elsew hero. There is no allusion to agriculture wijich, as far as I know, remain to us, are tlie or commerce, to arts or sciences, to laws or 7th book of "Temora," which lie published ordinances, and there is not the remotest at tlie end of his collection in 1763, and a reference to Chrisr,ianity or to any of the portion of "Carric-Thura," given in the High- great moral and social changes which it brings laud Sec. Kep. The orthography of the 7tli m its train. There is no abstraction or gen- book of " Temora " is different fix>m any other eralisitticu of ideas: Objects are dealt with Gaelic which I have met with, and there are individually as they present themselves at the two peculiarities belonging to it, which I firet glance. And least of all is there a trace would briefly point out. There is a " desti- of that subjective, self-reflectirig, moral pic- " tutio tenuim —the hard consonants c, p, t turing of the outer world, which we find in are used where the soft ones g, b, d are now the poetry produced by the high culture of written, and let it be remembered that the modem days. The mind is, in a sense, use of the hard, instead of the soft conson- passive in the act of perception, and the ants is the test which Zeuss has applied to poetiy reflects the face of nature with the detennine the age of Celtic writings. unimpassionod fidelity of a mirror. O-ssian gives bac]c the face of nature simply and Strathmashie gets the credit of writing purely as it impressed itself upon his eye, left the it this book, and that he MS. of without a trace of self once colouring the among his papers, with corrections and image ; but he depicts the image so vividly interlineations, but Dr. Clerk, who had and clearly as to show the true poetic vision. been in the habit of visiting Badeaioch Many of his descriptions are ujisurpassed, if Pot unequalled, by any other poet, ancient or for 20 years, says he could never get hold modern. seen of the MS., or of any one who had It may, perhaps, be possible for a man wlio or heard of it.* In Gillies' Collection, has been trained under the power of Cliristi- published in 1786, some of Strathmashie's anity, of classical learning, and of the end- songs are given, and as Gillies knew noth- lessly-divensified influences which unconscioiis- ly mould us to what we are in modern days, ing of Gaelic, we must conclude they to divest himself of the effects of all these, to were printed from the author's own travel back on liis journey of life, strippiug writing. Their orthography corresponds himself of every fold of being wluch gathen'd in all things with that of the period, and round him as he advanced, to step beyond the sAvay of every acquired mental habit and Ls widely different from " Temora." association, and occupy ground entirely new • Dr. Clerk's Ossian. and strange. This may jjerhaps be possible : 11

but it will not be credible until stronger evi- showing that the chnnge has not been accomplishment such dence of the of a great for the last four hundred years. marvellous feat be afforded than any which In the national MSS. of Scotland there the world has yet beheld. And therefore I hold the improbability of modern or mediseval is a chai-ter of lands in Islay granted by authorship for Ossian's poems to be incalcul- MacDonald, Lord of the Isles and Earl ably greater than that of an ancient one.t of Ross, to Brian Vicar MacKay. It is One of the most difficult points in con- dated May, 1408, and is written m nection with the poems of Ossian is the Gaelic, which any intelligent Highlander language in which they are written. will readily understand. In fact, it only

' Barring a feav obsolete words like " o® contains one word that has for deei', " aionaicLh " for master, " iuth- BECOME OBSOLETE. " aidh for arrow, etc., the language in its The bcittle song of the MacDcnalds, re- vocables is the language of cited at the battle of Harlaw in 1411, is MODERN TIMES, alsoi modem in its terms. Another singular thing is that " in the and it is at once pronounced impossible older life of St. Kentigem, written prior that this should be at the same time to 1164, it is said that Servanus at Cul- ancient, but it must never be forgotten ross, when he heard of Kentigern's birth, that most of these poems were collected exclaimed—" A dia cur fir sin." In and transcribed from oral tradition, and modern Scotch Gaelic the phrase would those MSS. that were in the old character be—" A Dhia gur fior sin " (probably were also modernised to suit and assist '" " Dhia cuir fior sin " or " cuir sin fior James Macpherson.| A —'"God make that true; be it so!"). impossibilitiy, however, is not so The These scraps are similar to the Gaelic of certain we look to facts in regard when Ossian, the Gaelic now in use, and, to other languages. The Norse language, scanty aa they are, they show, as far as as Professor Muller testifies, remained they go, that Gaelic has undergone little unchanged for seven centuries, and the change for several hundred years back. Greek language has undergone no vital At the same time, there are other and chan,ge for two tho'usand years. The more nameroiisi documents which, on the Highlands have been so isolated as to give other hand, seem to show the changes every chance of permanency, and to this within the same period to have been very day Scottish Gaelic is far freer of foreign great. The Dean of Lismore's Book, on admixture than its cognate tongues in acco'unt of its very peculiar phonography, Wales and Ireland. The public recita- can scarcely be quoted as a competent tion of ancient tales and poems by the witness on the question. But the " Book bardic order helped greatly to preserve of Deer," in the 12th century, and several the language!, and we have some documents of the MSS. in the Advocates' Library, any modern t Dr Clerk's Ossian, 1871. are widely different from

t See Macpherson, Strathmashie's declaration, in Gaelic.ll which he says that he transcribed most of the poems Ossian. for his namesake and clansman. [| Dr Clerk's 12

It is probable that a monkish and a times in which they were composed or bardic Gaelic ran side by side—that in written. It is worth observing, however, the one case we have the vernacular of that Barbour, in 1357, mentions both the people, in the other the learned Fingal and Gaul, the son of Momi, and dialect written by scholars. Be that as Bishop Leslie, in 1758, places Fingal, the it may, nothing can be founded with son of Cuhal, in the fifth century, show- certainty on the mere vocables of Ossian. ing that the belief in the existence and But the structure and arrangement—the antiquity of these heroes prevailed among syntax is most certainly ancient. It is the Saxon inhabitants of Scotland, as undeniably very different from what we well as among the Celts, and could not find in in consequence have been the invention ANY MODERN GAELIC, of James Macpherson. and how James. Macpherson could have One very important fact mentioned by " invented the whole thing out of his own the late Mr Skene in his Essay on the head only adds to the mystery. Highlanders," Vol. I., p. 206-216, is of As to whether the poems are mythical or great consequence in deciding this ques- historical, there is a good deal that we can't tion. He says that the account given of prove, but, at the same time, we can show the Irish Kings in Ossian is something in favour of their historical origin. DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED The dazzling names given in the poems, such as "Fionnghal" (Fingal), "Wlaite" to that given by the Irish historians, who (White), " Clann Baoisgne" (the children of quoted from the monkish chroniclers of " brightness). Fingal's standard was Deo- the fourteenth centuiy. But the Annals greine," or "Sunbeam"; his wife was Ros- of Tighernac, first published in 1825; greine, Roscrana, or Graine, also signifying "sunbeam," or the "eyelid of the sun"; and agree entirely with Ossian! These annals, the romantic elopement of the latter with written in the eleventh century, were Diarmid, in whose name we have "light and absolutely unknown in Macpherson's day. atmosphere," favour the mythical, but the He could not possibly have had access to Ossianic poems grew round these names, and them. It follows then, that the historic we must accept them as we find them. Professor Max Muller says that " the stoi-y of position of Ossian is older than the four- Helen is a dawn myth," and that "the siege teenth century, and is based on truth. of Troy has no historic basis."1I He adds in a note (p. 213) a striking con- We cannot prove the reality of the firmation by the celebrated antiquary special battles which Ossian describes, Finn Macnussen who proves that the whether with Caracal or with Swaran, religion of the Lochlaners, as described because all we have of the early Scottish by Ossian, is a coiTect picture of the annals or histories are not to be relied on ancient religion of the Scandinavians, and for accuracy of statement, but putting that the real natiu'e of that religion could one and two together we are justified in not have been known to Macpherson, believing they are historical in the sense being unknown to modern scholars at the of truly depicting the manners of the time.

Now, if the story been all the II Science of Language, second series, pp. 399 and 172. had l:^

other way, and fcho Irish historians Eraith " (the island of Erath). The ferry and had been right and Macphei'son wrong, farm contiguous to it derive from him also their name, and about a mile distant from it no epithet would have been strong enough is another farm, consisting of an extensive this to hurl at the head of much abused heath bounded by a large mountain-stream, and ill-used patriotic Highlander. and still retaining from tliat unfoi*tunate lady the name of " Dur a' in " (the stream of As he had never been to Ireland or to Daura). And what further confirms that this Scandinavia, there can be no getting out is the scene described by Ossian is that sev- of the fact that his knowledge on the eral places within sight of it are denominated above points was obtained from the poems from Connal and others of his heroes, whose he was translating, and is worth a score names are better known. As nobody can suppose that the translator of Ossian could of samples from the ballads or the Dean thus stumble by chance on names the least Lismore's phonetic Gaelic. Another of common and places the least known, so as very important fact mentioned by the to make so many circumstances exactly cor- Rev. Dr. John Smith, of Campbeltown, respond with his poems, without his ever it, certainly allow this a the collector of " Sean Dana," places be- knowing we must most confounding proof of their authenticity.* yond dispute Macphei son's bona fides Similarly, if not actually The prevalence of Ossianic names through- Tacitus had chariots of out the topography of the Highlands seen and described the war Celtic scholar enables us to identify many localities. Some the ancient Caledonians, no such of the scenes which the poems describe would believe for one moment that such primi- were so obscure that the translator of a thing ever existed among a the late Professor Ossian never heard of them, even in tra- tive people. What " ignorance and dition, so that Macpherson must have Blackie termed Saxon exemplified in found them in MSS., otherwise he insolence " was well " could not have mentioned them. Thes« Wordsworth's Essay on Poetry," when says " contains scarcely allude to the tragic story of Daura and he that Morven Erath, and the island to which the an acre of ground sufiiciently accommo- traitor Ei-ath beguiled Daura in one of dating for a sledge to be trailed along its the parish of the songs of Selma. surface." He mistook Morvern for the wide country of Mor- In Dr. Smith's time " Bheinn—" great mountains —and men- These names had never been heard of in name, tions as a proof of modern origin what is surname, or tradition, yet in an out-of-the- in reality way place, in Argyllshire, which it is certain the translatca- of Ossian never saw, and wliich AN UNANSWERABLE ARGUMENT from his own silence—the silence of tradition in favoxir of the great antiquity of the —upon that story, and the distance and ob- poems of Ossian. At the battle of the scurity of the place, it is ecjualiy certain he "Mens Grampius " (the Grampian never heard of ; in this place can be traced out the very scene and the very uncommon mountains) in the 1st century, " the first names of that eipisode, which of all the col- line of the Caledonians descended to the lection is perhaps the least known to a Gaelic plain, which trembled beneath the antiquary. The island to which Erath be- guiled Daura still retains his name of " Innis " " Smith's Gaelic Antiquities," 1780. !

u galloping of the horses and the rolling a barrier for its protection, while the of the war chariots, "f and the " barbari- presence of these spectators of the engage-

' ans ' had the advantage as long as they ments, and the shrill cries which they fought at a distance " with javelins and were in t.he habit of raising, acted as an aiTOws." incentive to their fathers, hus- In those days each chariot contained a bands, sons, brothers, and lovers, and charioteer with one or two warriors, and to fight to the last in defence of all that was deal' to them.§ Well might Galgacus when they had thrown the enemy int-o " uobiiissimi Britannia." confusion, which Csesar admits they often term them totius did, the warriors leapt from the chariots We shall now pause for a brief space of and fought on foot. time and ask a question. Tacitus allowed seventeen yaars to elapse after the events The horses which the Caledonians before writing the life of his father-in-law, employed in their war chariots were a Agricola. Now, supposing he had died '^mall breed, but swift, spirited, and in the interval, and that Caesar had also haxdy—Cuchullin's were larger animals. died before writing his "De Bello Gallic, ' The cavalry were accustomed, like the and that the question of chariots having car-borno warriors, to dismount on fitting been used by occasions, and to fight on foot. The infantry, according to Tacitus, constituted THE ANCIENT CALEDONIANS the main strength of the armies of the had been cai-ried down by tradition only, Caledonians. Their swiftness of foot and v/hat would the indignant Celtic scholar expertnesa in swimming over rivers and say? He would at once, with flaming crossing fens and marshes, gave them a eyes, exclaim, " No one but a fool would great advantage in making sudden believe in such rubbish," and he would attacks and retreats. Like their High- point out that at Bannockburn, Harlaw, land descendants they were in the Inverlochy, Killiecrankie, and CuUoden laabit of throwing off the greater part of there were no chariots as proof of his their clothing before closing with their contention, and would probably point out adversaries in a hand to hand conflict how easy it would have been for a Tliey were armed with a spear and a long charioteer to have swung round and cat sword, without a point, and only meant the Duke of Cumberland's head off had for cuttiiig.l any been present at the latter battle, and then In their conflicts with the Romans, the sink back in his clmir perfectly con- scious that he was the embodiment of all Caledonians displayed some knowledge jf historical accuracy, military tactics. The infantry was usu- wisdom, and profound ally placed in the centre, and the and indefatigable research cavalry and chariots on the wings. The The armouries of the Britons were waggons which contained their families generally f lUTiished with helmets, shields, were stationed in the rear, and served as and chariots, and with speaxs, daggers,

" t Cassel's History of England," 1905, § "The F-icLorial History of Scotland," by James

t "Tacitus, Argric.,"c. 36. Taylor, D.D. —

15 swords, battle axes, and bows. The hel- move, and some exuberance of imagery may be restrained with advantage by a degree of mets and chariots were confined to the judgment acquired in the progress of time. men fought on chiefs, and the common Impressed with this opinion, he ran over foot, provided with shields for their tlie whole with attention and acciiracy, and defence, and with spears, swords, daggers, he hopes he has brought the work to a state all future bows, and battle axes for opposing the of correctness, which will preclude improvements. enemy. Most of these accoutiements have The above evidence alludes to the been found in the graves of warriors and English only. tumuli. The Caledonian army and preface goes on chariots encountered by Agricola's legions In the same he at the foot of the Grampians only wanted All the polite nations of Europe have trans- languages; union and discipline to have enabled a ferred them into their respective and they speak of him, who brought them to gallant people with such armour to repel light, in terms that might flatter the vanity their invading foes.|| of one fond of fame. In a convenient indiffer- It is said that these poems are ence for a literary reputation, the author Macjoherson's own composition, written hears praisa without being elevated, and ribaldry without being depressed. When first in English, and subsequently trans- rivers define the limit-s of abilities, as weU as lated into Gaelic. This theory charges the boundaries cf countrifjs, a writer may with measure his success by the latitude under DELIBERATE FALSEHOOD which he was born. It was to avoid a part —in many instances with perjury—the of this inconvenience that the author is said, by some, who speak without any authority, to many respectable' clergymen and gentle- have ascribed his own productions to another men whose testimony has already been name. If this was the case he was but young quoted, for some of them declare most in the art of deception. When lie placed the positively that they assisted Macpherson poet in antiquity the translator should liave before the publication of his English have been born on this side of the TWeed-t in translating Gaelic MSS, which it is It is quit3' clear from the context here " most certain he had.1I One reason, no that the use of the word " author refers doubt, for this belief was the us© of the to the English only, as he expressly speaks word " autlior " by Macpherson on sev- of himself as the " translator." His eral occasions when alluding to his work original intention was to publish the as a translator. poems in rhyme or verse, " though he In his preface to the 1773 edition yielded lo the judgment of others* in a (London, August 15), he says: — mode which presented fieedom and dig- Without increasing his genius, the author nity of expression, iristead of fetters which may have improved liis language in the eleven cramp the thought, whilst the harmony yearn that the following poems have been in of language ^s preserved." Here is the hands of the public. Errors in diction another proof of the existence of Gaelic migiit have been committed at twenty-four, poems in MSS. Still in the same preface which the experience of a riper age may re-

Vol. 1., b> Chalmers, F.R..A. t The above shows how much Maopherson's pride II "Caledonia," Ueorge and I.A., 1807. was hurt. t Dr Clerk's " Ossian." * Especially John Holme, the author of "Douglas," — a —;

16 he goes on—"It is, however, doubtful and have made thorn rehearse in my hearing whether ohe harmony which these poems the several frjgmentfi or detachctl pieces of those poems which they were able to repeat. might derive from rhime, even in much This done, I compared with great care the better hands than those of the ' Transki- pieces rehearsed by tbem, with Macpherson's tor,' could atone for the simplicity and translations. These pieces or fragments are energy which they would lose "— as follows : — further proof of his considering himself a (1) The description of CuchnlUn's chariot Fingal, Book I., p. 11. The rehearsers are translator only. Jolni MacDonald of Breakish, in Strath, Isle Further " confounding pi'oofs " in of Skye, gentleman ; Martin MaoGillivray, " favour of Macpherson's Ossian," and tenant in Sleat ; and Allan Macaskie, farmer, against its having been compiled from the in Glenelg. (2) The episode relating to Fairveasalisr— ballads, are the following : — Fingal, Book HI., p. 45. The rehearsers are, Tlie Dr. >}i Rev. John Macpherson, among many more, John MacDonald of " Sleat, Isle of Skye, author of Critical Breackish ; Alex. MacDonald, merchant in Disseilations on the Origin, Language, Sleat; John Down, cowherd there; and John carpenter the of Strath. Government, Manners, and Religion of MacLean, in parish The actions of Ossian at the lake of Lego, the Ancient Caledonians," etc., published (3) and his courtship of Everallin—Fingal, Book in London in the year 1768, evidently a IV., p. 50. The rehearsers are Alexander very competent authority and master of MacDonald, merchant in Sleat; Nicol Mac- the Celtic in all its branches, writing to Kenzie in the parish of Strath, gentleman Dr. Hugh Blair, professor of Literature and Ewan Macpherson, schoolmaster, Glenelg. and Belles Lettres in the University of (4) Fingal's combat with the King of Loch- lin^Fingal, Book V., p. 62. The rehearsers Edinbiu-gh, on the 27th of November, are Alex. MacDonald, merchant in Sleat 1763, says: Donald Robertson, tenant, there; and Nicol I Lave perused a Gaelic manuscript con- MacKenzic, just mentioned, together with taining all the poems translated by Mac- many more. pherson, and can honestly affirm that I have (5) The Battle of Lora, p. 111. The feeon a Gaelic manuscript in the hands of an rehearsers are Alex. MacDonald. merchant in old bard who travelled about the Highlands Sleat ; John MacLean, carpenter ui Strath and leleb about 30 years ago, out of which he and Neil MacKinnon, farmer, there. read in my hearing, and before thousands yet (6) Darthula, p. 155. The rehearsers are alive, exploits of Fingal, Oscar, the Ouchullm, Alex. Morrison, in the parish of DuriniKh Ossian, Gaul, Dermid, and other heroc

17

and they have the impress of truth Carthon to Mr John MacKenzie. —J. M. Carthon- stamped upon them. Besides these, the " not seen the Rev. Mr MacDiarmid, of Weem, Perth At the words have I fallen is the shire, got Ossian's Addresses to the Sun Balclutha," there marked on in Macpherson's handwriting. as they are in " Garthon " and " Carric- margin, " Thura," about 1770, from the recitation all before this given to Mr MacKenzie." of an old man in Glen lyon, who had (4) Delivered the whole of Oina Morul to Ml- John MacKenzie. —J.. M.—Oina Morul. LEAJINED THEM IN HIS YOUTH (5) Delivered the whole of Colna-Dona to from people in the same glen. These Mr John MacKenzie.—J. M.—Colna-Dona. beautiful addresses were particularly (6) Delivered the whole of Croma to Mr pointed out as glaring forgeries ! Several John MacKenzie.—J. M.—Croma. other clergymen, also verified pieces from (7) The original of Calchon and Colmal given to Mr John MacKenzie. J. M. Calthon and "Fingal," Books II., IV., and V., and — — Colmal. the Rev. Dr. Hugh MacLeod, professor (8) The original of the poem of Fingal given of Church Histoiy in the University of to Mr John MacKenzie.—J. M.—Fingal. Glasgow, assured Lord Bannatyne that The eight pieces rehearsed in the he had seen and examined several Gaelic presence of the Rev. Dr. John Macpher- manuscripts partly written upon vellum, son with the two Addresses to the Sun, aoid apparently of great antiquity, in the and the eight poems left by Macpherson possession of James Macpherson, contain- himseilf in a bona-fide manner, can't be ing poetry mixed with other compositions thrown over by simply denying the The Rev. Mr Anderson, minister of existence of such facts. There is nothing Kingussie—one of Macpherson's execu- in the world easier than to deny evidence tors—after informing the committee of of this kind in a few solitary instances. It the Highland Society that all Macpher- is the cumulative effect that tells when son's papers relating to Ossian were in conjoined with other evidence, and the London, transmitted as the only thing he putting of one and two together, includ- had in his possession, an exact copy of ing the discrepancies of self-constituted certain notes written in James Mac- expei-ts among themsehes, and the bias pherson's hand upon the margin of a copy and cast of their writings that enable us of the first edition of his translation of to separate the wheat from the chaff. " Ossian," which had been left at Mr When a man who does not know a word Macpherson's Highland residence, and of Gaelic, like the author of the last work which Mr Anderson found there. These on ' James Macpherson," published in are as follows, marked as under in April, 1905,1 remarks on the second page Macpherson's hand writing, and initialled : of his preface that Macpherson is " now (1) Delivered the 3 Duans of Oathloda to Mr a detect-ed impostor," and doubts the John MacKenzie as complete as the transla- bona fides of the Rev. Mr MacDiarmid, tion. —J. M.—Cathloda. of Weem, regarding the discovery of the (2) Delivered the whole of Carrick-Thura to Addresses to the Sun, impartiality is Mr John MacKenzie.—J. M.—Carrick-Thura. all (3) Delivered that could be found of J David Nutt, London, 1905. 18

THE I.AST THING Kennedy gives a list of 17 persons from whose dictation be procnrctl Gaelic poems, one would expect from sucli a person. whicli be sold to tlie Highland Society, and can anyone who is ignorant of a How which he collected between 1774 and 1783. language tell whether it is "unidiomatic" It is beyond all dispute that there were tradi- or not? I know of several individuals tional poems in plenty, written and un- who make use of the expression, and yet written; attributed to Ossian, current in the Highlands and accessible to Macpherson, many can't read a word of the Gaelic of of which can still be traced in Ossian. "Ossian !" Some people seem to think If so, hei must have had originals, and that Macpherson had no right to reject did not get them from " legends written poems which he considered were not down in Scottish Gaelic, and existing in composed by Ossian. This power of Irish MSS.," as the Encyclopaedia selection and rejection belongs to the Britannica asserts. individual exercising his judgment. The "fragments" are believed to be per- For instance, I reject Mr J. F. Camp- fectly genuine, though very free translations, bell's statement that " Ossian is a and include a bit of Fingal. fiction," but I accept the following facts The Berlin critic. Dr. Stern, considers from his essay on Ossian : — them as bad, or Avorse, forgeries than tho It has been proved that there were old rest! Gaelic traditional poems, collectors of them, Tho fight is about the next and following and men who made English paraphrases from publications (Fingal and Temora), and the them under the name of translations, long evidence given by the men who set Mac- before. Macpherson's time. affidavit of The pherson to work is so strongly in favour of Archibald Fletcher, Januarv. IBOl, No. XVI. their general authenticity, so far as Mac- of the appendix of the Highland Society's pherson is concerned, that it is hard to be- report, gives a list of poems collected by lieve him to have been a mere forger ; he Fletcher himself, filling 194 pages, and de- must have had something more than we now posited with the Society, and he names men know anything about. witli wham Macpherson spoke, and who knew That is just what we contend for. Dr. such poems. Blair saw his papers, so did the Rev. Mr No. XV. of the same appendix gives 70 pages of comparison of the Society, and Mac- Gallie, Strathmashio, and Captain Mor- pherson's translation of Fingal, and these rison, and Professor Adam Ferguson, prove to demonstration that tlie poem, in who understood Gaelic, looked at them, some form, was known to the people, and that and compared them with the translations tho published poem is not the popular version, as they were made, and these appeared though like it.* to be exact and faithful in any part-s Captain Morrison's evidence, No. XIIL, is conclusive on that point, and proves that which were so read and compared.

Macpherson had in bis possession a great It is proved, then, that before 1760, when many such poems, orally collected in Scotland, Macpherson made bis tour, there were plenty and that they appear in his English works. of MS. and traditional poems current in the If they do, how can he be called a Highlands, and that he collected and used them. Mr Gallio, Lynedoch, Dr. Fer- forger, and " Ossian a fiction?" Lord guson, and others saw him engaged upon these * There was nothing to prevent Macpherson getting materials, and he had no respect for bis auth- the version he published. orities, new or old. 19

It is not esactly fair to say that he had does not wait to consider the gravity cf no respect for hia authorities. What his statement, for he can point out to Macpherson had no patience with was some of our countrymen who do the the spurioTis poems which he professed to same ! It will be borne in mind that this detect easily. These he had rejected with list consists almost entirely of Gaelic- scorn and contempt, as is well exempli- speaking clergymen and gentlemen who fied in the following passage from Mr believed iii James Macpherson's bona fidesi, seen Gallie's letter, dated 4th March,, 1801 : — many of whom had actually " I remember Mr Macpherson reading the and heard, the poems, or many of them, MSS. found in Clanranald's, execrating recited before and after Macpherson's the bard who dictated to the amannensis works were published. They are : —

' saying, d——n the scoundrel ; it is Rev. Andrew Gallie, Badenoch. himself that now speaks, not Ossian.' Rev. James MaoLagan, Amulrie and Blair This took place in my house in two or AthoU. three instances/' and is very good cir- Rev. Dr. ^ohn Smith, compiler of " Sean cumstantial evidence in favour of his Dana." Rev. Mr MaoDiarmid, Weem, Perthshire. anxiety to produce the pure works of Rev. Mr Anderson, Kingussie. Ossian, and corroborates Hugh Mac- Rev. Dr. John Macpherson, Sleat, Isle of Donald's declaration in Gaelic, signed at Skye; Rev. Donald MacLeod, Glenelg. Tigheary, in North Uist, on the 12th Re/v. Donald MaoQueen, Kilmuir, Skye. August, 1800. Rev. Mr Sage, Kildonan, Sutherland. Rev. Alex. Pope, Reay, Sutherland. Many poets after Ossian endeavoured to Rev. J. Wodrow, Islav. copy or imitate him; but there is no man Rev. Malcolm MacDonald, Tarbert, Oantyre. that understands our tongue, or the nature Rev. Mr Stewart, Oi-aignish. of the poetry, but will, on the first hearing Rev. Dr. Stewart, Luss ^Gaelic scholar). of the first verses, easily distinguish their Rev. Dr. Kemp (friend of Andrew Gallie). poems from his. Rev. Dr. Adam Ferguson, Pl'ofessor of Moral That's just what Macpherson did. Philosophy, Edinburgh. James Macpherson't? name is not the Rev. Dr. Graham, Aberfoyle, author of essay 0.s>sian Bishop MacDonell. only one implicated in this affair. The on ; Rev. Rev. Alex. Macfarlane, scholar, Arrochar, reputations of the following list of clergy- Dumbarton.shire ; Rev. Mr M'Leod, Harris. men, noblemen, and gentlemen must Rev. Dr. Hugh MacLeod, Professor of Church stand or fall with Macpherson. There History, Glasgow. can b© no doubt at all about that, and Rev. Lewis Grant, Duthil, Inverness-shire. MacNeill, Howmore, South Uist. those whu give away the reputations or Rev. Angus Rev. Neil MacLeod, Ross of Mull. their countrymen without a thorough Rev. Alex. MacAulay, chaplain, 88th Regi- conviction and proof have little idea how ment, Edinburgh. they play into the hands of the enemies Rev. Edmund MacQueen, Barra. of their country and the appearance they Rev. James MacQueen, missionary, N. Uist. Rev. Alex. Nioolson, Thurso. will make in future Ossianic history. The Rev. Dr. Carlyle, Musselburgh. man who could denounce "the pious and Rev. Dr. Hugh Blair (non Gaelic) Professor learned' Dr. John Smith, Campbeltown, of Literature and Belles Lettres, Edinburgh. ;

20

Rev. John Farquharson, Strathglass, after of Peter Macfarlane, scholar and translator. Douay, France; Rev. Dr. Lvine, Dunkeld. John MacKenzie, Temple, London. Rev. Mr MacDonald, Anstruther. Alex. MacNab, blacksmith, Dalmally. Rev. Mr Macfarlane, London. Archibald Menzies, J. P., Edinburgh.

Rev. Donald MacNicol, Lisraore. Henry MacKenzie, London ; Xeil IVLicVurich. Rev. Peter MacDonald, chaplain to Glengarry. Dr. Donald Smith, surgeon, Breadalbanc

Rev. Dr. Macintyre, Glenorchy, to whom Fencibles ; Major MacLachlan, Kilbride. James Macpherson offered to show his Sir Duncan Campbell. Glenorchay. MSS. at his house, Putney Heath, London. Donald Campbell of Airds, Argyllshire. Rev. James Nicolson, Portree, Skye. .i^neas Macintosh of Macintosh. Rev. Charles Smith, native of Mull. James Grant. Rothiemurchus. Rev. Dr. Fraser, Inveraray. Mrs Fraser, Culbokie, Gaelic scholar and col-

lector ; Sir James Murray MacGregor. Rev. Alex. Fraser ; Rev. Mr MacGillivray.

Lord Lyndoch ; MacLean of Coll. Rev. Mr MaoLaurin, Cowal ; Rev. Jas. Calder. Lord Kames, autlior of " Sketches of the Rev. Messrs Stewart, translators of the Bible ; and many others. History of Man," and works on morality and religion; and Lord Bannatyne, both -^^ Amongst tlie were : laymen non-Gaelic, but strong supporters of Ossian. Sir John Sinclair, Caithness (non Gaelic). Alex. MacMillan, deputy keeper of H.M.

Sir James Foulis, Colinton, Gaelic scholar. Signet ; Mr John Clark, Badenoch. Lachlan Macpherson, Strathmashie, scholar Alex. Fraser, Governor to Francis Stewart. Lieut. -Col. Arch. of 88th Regiment. and poet ; Sir George MacKenzie of OouU. MacNab General ]\IacKay, of Big House. Kenneth Macpherson, merchant, Stornoway Archibald Fletcher, Glenorchy collector and and many more. reciter; the Fletchers, Glenforea, Mull. These men ccmld not all have been fools Captain John MacDonald, Breakish, Skye liars. It is absurd nonsense to tell (collector and recit-?r). and Sir James MacDonald of Sleat any sensible man that this host of highly

The Clanronald ; Hugh MacLeod, Barra. respectable Gaelic-speaking clergymen MacLeod of Maclieod, Dunvegan, Skye. and gentlemen and some sworn witnesses Lachlan MacVurich, bard and reciter. did not hear the poems they mention Lieut. Duncan MacNicol, 88th Regiment. being recited, as some of them specially Hugh MacDonald, Kolpheder, South TJist. Captain Morrison, Skinnidin, Skye. stated they were the same as those pub- Ewan Macpherson, Badenoch (collector of lished by Macpherson. MS.); Donald Martin, Skye. If the adverse critics were tinanimcms, Major Alex. MaeDonald, Vallay, North TJist. Roderick MacNeill, younger of St. Kilda. their statements would be more difl&cult Captain Ewan MacDonald, Griminish, North to deal with; but they are not, and TJist; MacLeod of Talisker, Skye. some of them make the most glaring con- Alex, and Malcolm Macpherson, Portree, tradictions. I have a melancholy satis- Skye ; Neil MacKinnon, reciter. faction, therefore, in placing them upon Donald Kennedy (collector of poems). Mrs Grant of Laggan, authoress of "Letters the horns of the following dilemma : —

from the Hills." ; Alex. Grant. Dalrachny. If famous Gaelic scholars like the Rev. Hugh Campbell, translator of Ossian. Dr. Thomas Ross, of Lochbroom; Dr. Captain Ranald MacDonald, Keppoch. Stewart, Dingwall ; and Lachlan Mac- Sir John Macpherson, Lanriston, Edinburgh. pherson, Strathmashie, had been the Mr Campbell, brother to Dunstaffnage. " Mr Nicolson, Scorrybreck, vSkye. authors of the Gaelic of "Ossian —as the —

German school asserts—they would have accoiunt of lofty flights of imagination; had the langxiage in every respect correct but as they stand, they are such poems so far as the grajumar and diction were as almost anyone could string together. concerned. If, on the other hand, The genius who could have produced Macpherson's knowledge of " Fingal " and " Temora" under the age

THE WRITTEN l-ANGI-TJAGE of twenty-five would nieither borrow from " ai third-class poem, like Manus " nor was so deficient as to altogether preclude stop suddeoily where Macpherson did. Of the possibility of his being able to pro- course, it is rather irritating that the duce them, as alleged by his contempor- poems of "Ossian" ajre "involved" in, the aries; and if the Gaelic—according to " obscurity " of the historians, but unfair such eminent scholars and philologists as and destructive critics have only them- the late Rev. Dr. Aleixander Cameron, of selves to blame for it. The gross abnse Brodick, Dr. Clerk, of Kilmallie, Prof. with which Macpherson was assailed Blackie, and others—^was " unquestion- hurt his proud spirit to such an extent ably the original," Macpherson could not after leaving his originals at his publish- ha.ve beien the sole author of both the ers for upwards of a year for inspection English and Gaelic, as some of our own without their having been examined by scholars aver, and it is equally clear that anyone that he determined they shonld these latter critics can't be right. So far as — never again be seen hu,man eye, thus they are concerned,the question can never by leaving us be settled. It has been said that'Tingal'' was woven out of "Manus." The converse A NUT TO CRACK is much more likely, viz., that "Manus" that will cause a goo'd deal more ink to is a corruption from " Fingal," for, bo wasted before the question is settled. barring a similarity of name®, and an I would have rejected all the ballads invasion of Ireland by the King of exactly as Macpherson did. They are not Denmark to take away Fingal's wife* the true type of Ossian's poems, and can't and his dog by force, there is no resem- for a moment be compared with them or blance between them,. "Manus " as it thrust upon them. The truth is that as exists in " Leabhar na Feinne," is a poem the literature of the people was nearly —if it can be called a poem at all— of all absorbed in Ossianic lore, there were irregular quatrains without a single strik- minor poets and others in abundance who ing passage, and manifestly very poor wonld continue reciting the poems and poetry, with a strong Irish colouring of mixing them up with legends, while the pure romance. There is too much about true Ossianic poetry was preserved by Patrick and Peter in these ballads, and the bards ozily, and those who had real their whole groundwork is too outrageous poetical instinct. to be placed alongside the real "Ossian." It is probable that a gradual change If they had striking passages, their was coming over the people since the weakness could be overlooked on Reformation, and those ballads which

* There i» Action on the face of this causus belli. alluded to Christianity would be more in — |

favour with the Church, and the best of passages accurately, he certainly could the heroic poetry left to the strongest not have composed them. intellects—^and they were the minority "Another point, his English compositions and the bards up to the extinction of the are certainly nothing remarkable. How, latter. Howevei' disappointing it may be then, could it be believed that while he to the educational encyclopaedias and writes thus in the language which he their supporters, I can promise them that knew best, he would rise to time the Ossianic controversy is far from being sublimity and pathos in the language settled. In each succeeding generation which he knew least?" for a long time to come—until passion Ask any poet and see what answer you and partisanship have subsided—^men will get? Notwithstanding all this, there will arise who will say, " this poetiy was are passages here and there utterly in- not by Jajnes Macpherson, nor by any consistent with Ossian's manner. There modera poet."' As we shall presently are lines obscure and ill-arranged that discuss Macpherson's fitness for the Gaelic it is difficult to make any meaning out task—one which he never pretended to of them, and there are vai'ious blanks in assume—^having called himself the "trans- the middle of lines here and there which lator" only, we may predict that it is can't be accounted for. This can only be there he will ultimately be left. got over by supposing him, with his Since we have got snfiicient evideince imperfect knowledge of Gaelic, to have that the Gaelic of Ossian was the original taken what he got from ignorant language, we shall now proceed to con- transcribersf or reciters just as they gave sider the ability of James Macpherson to it, and is only similar to what we meet in other ancient poets. PRODUCE THE GAELIC. As to his having constructed his work out The committee of the Highland Society of the O&sianic ballads, wliicli are so numerous which investigated the matter, and were in the Highlands, the history of the Honieri- competent judges, state in their report dac, and of other imitators of gi-eat poets, that, " considering that he left the leads to the px'osumption that the authoi-s of the Gaelic ballads were slso imitators; and Highlands when young, and was busily if any man takes the trouble of comparing affairs in England occupied with public them with Macpherson's Ossian he will not be and elsewhere, it was scarcely possible long in doubt as to wliich is the original, and that he conld be familiar with the Gaelic which the copy, which the toxt, and which the language. There are several Gaelic oft-disjoint€d and dreary commentary. They are frequently verbose amplifications of the passages which, confessedly, he misunder- concise and painted narratives of Ossian, and stands, and these not the most obscm-e. some show their modern origin by allusion to He fails glaringly in the sea pieces (being the Christian religion. an inla-nd Highlander), sometimes making Those who maintain that if Macpherson produce the poems his namesake, the most graphic and stirring descriptions did not IMacpherson of Stratlimashie a well-known almost meaningless in his translation." Which, of course, exonerates Strathmashie and "I think it will be admitted." says Dr. t his assistant!^, " Clerk, "that if he' could not translate these t Dr Clerk's Ossian," —

•23 poet, did it for him. There is as much known Greek, matheimatics, and other subjects of Stratlnnasbie's pt>fciry aa is qnito enough which he possesaeBi, completely upset his to dispose of this theory. He compcsed five or judgment. The siciemtific accuracy wliich .>ix songs, which hav-e been printed in various he erxpeicts, and has been led to expect collections. They show familiarity with ver- nacular Gaelic, and considerable facility in from books, he cannot find. The angles rhyming, but no appi-oaoh to Ossian's grand of Cuchullinj, Fingal, and Sti. Patrick, and lofty style. and thei immense amount of rubbish

Strathmashie was niorei of a. humorous which has grown round those prominenti and siatrical poet than anything ©Isei. fig-ures can't be reconqiled by him, aiud The only man of that period—1760-1780— he collapses, utteiring all sorts of curses who could havo been supposed capable of pro- against Fingal and hisi heroes! ducing Ossianic poeti-y was Alexander Mac- The calm-minded aiitiquariani, on the Donald, "Alistair MacMhaighstir Ala-stair," other hand, rejoioes in the difficulty. It but though his poetic nowers were great, he is as pleiaslant to him as " the joy of never came in contact with James Macphea-- " grief to- ! doeia ison. It cannot be too often repeated and im- was Ossian He not expect pressed upon evei-y rational man who under- to find stands both the Gaelic and the English Ian- ABSOLUTE TRUTH suages that the Gaelic is the original and the or any perfection iui histories, and he just English the translation. There is a living takes them for what they are worth. freshness, a richness, a minuteness; of colour- There is no^ absolute certainty that ing: and detail in the similes of the Gaelic, of which not a trace is to be found in tlie in- Ossian erver spokel tO' Sti. Patrick, who definite generalities of Macpher.son's trans- estabKshed Christiainity in Ireiland: lation, and which could not by any law of " Padruig nan Salm " was not neicesarily tliought b? learned from it. It would be as St. Patrick. Wei have as much evidence possible to construct Homer from Pope's that hei was. onei of the early Christian translation, a.^ Ossian from Macpherson's, and for anyone who doe? not understand Gaelic missionaries as that he waiS the patron pronouncing an adver.se opinion on the sub- Saint of Ireland. Neither need we be- ject is utterly unreasonable. lieve that the said " Padniig " got screwed

What would be' thought of a. man who dog- in Ossian's house! matised on the genuineness of tlie Homeric Thei authors of most> of the ballads are poems, who knew them only througb Pipe's translation, and did not understand a single unknown, and it is. just as well that they syllable of Greek? Yet Pope's translation is are\ as they left nothing very greiat to truer to Homer than Macphei-.son is to Ossian. perpetuatei their memories. In thei Deian

It is quite concedvablei that a. Gaelic of Lismorei's Book about nine poems are speaking man who' leiavesi his native gleai attributed toi Ossian. The apparent early in life, and takes toi other pursuitsi discreipancy between thei times of C'uchul- and studies, anid prerservesi hisi knoiwledge lin and Fingal is not admitted by of Gaelic from books only, beicoTning a Scottish tradition. They have always crank on thid subject^, becausei hei has lost been placed in thei samei era by thei latter, touch with thei sentiments of his and so they are in the poems of Ossian. countrymem—if hei ever knew much about The Irish had no chronological history them—and thei smattering of Latin, in reality prior to the 5th ceatury. ;

24

Legends like tliei "Tain Boi Cuailgnie" and langnage, and it remains to be proved

the " Chronicle of Ireland '"§ are not. how the change, if anjj^ came about. Tbe authentic history. Both these are not emigrants who originally crossed over to only marvellous!, bxifc absurd nonsense. A Ireland were the smaller number and

poetical genius arising from ai hillside, left the larger number behind. There isi like the Ayrsihire ploughman,|| is much a lot here that will test the ingenuity of more probable than that Scotland is the historians and fable-mongers. I may " derived from, Scotia," daughter of assist or perplex them by asking a. simple

Pharaoh, King of Egypt. question—.What people, if any, inhabited The great mistake Celtic scholars com- Skye, Lewis, and Mull in the 1st century mit ig in forcing things into the early of the Christian era? No' one' can tell centuriesi of the Christian era that won't for certain.. go intoi them. To. hold thati the present It is presumed they were Picts. Why, Gaelic-speiaking inhabitants of the High- then, should we be bound down to' these lands are the deiscendantsi of an Irish hard and fast dogmas concerning the colony of Celts that came over to Dalriadic colony as being the fonntain Argyllshire in the 6th century requires head of the Gaelic language and people of the West Highlands? I don't believe STRONGER CONFIRMATION one word of it. If theislandsi above- than the opinion of self-constitnfced mentioned werei inhabited in philologists, whoi wish history to agree • THE FIRST CENTURY with their theiorieBi. They forget that the original inhabitants of Britain ca,mei overr of onr era, what, langxiage did they speak ? from Gaul. That, thesei spread gradu- Cumbro -British, or what? A mixture of ally northwards into Scotland and Welsh and something else? My belief is westwards into Wales'. Somei adventurous that they spoke Gaelic, and nothing else. parties from these' parts of Wales and Of course, it would be a dialect somewhat Scotland in sight of Ireland crossed over different from thati of thei present day biut and settled there. Now, it is against all I have' no doubti they used the phrase — ?" probability that these preJimina.ry scoiuts " Cia.mar tha thu 'n diugh how are alone carried their customs, habitsi, and you to-day?" prett'y much as we do. We language along with them, and preserved wo'uld require toi go back two thousand especially their langaage, and that those years before the Christian era to get at left behind in Cantyre anid the West the reial trnth. Highlands lost theirs, or let it become In the year 80 A.D., or thereabouts, extinct, until the descendants of the first when Agricola advanced as far north a.s emigrants in the shape of the Dalriadic the T'ay, the Caledonians co'iisisted of colony came over from Ireland, and twenty-one Gaelic clans.* Now, what are " established the Gaelic language' in Scot- we to understand by the phrase Gaelic " land. Originally, they spoke the same. clans here? We surely must infer from it that it was the Gaelic language they § Collected by Meredith Hammer, D.D. (1571). " II Who was of Highland descent. Chalmers' Caledonia." : —

25

spoke. In 306 A.D., Constance came to kingdom -with that of the Scots. The reply generally given that that Britain to repel the Caledonians and to is certain chartularies s,how that the Scoto-Irish did "other Picts." This is the first time the in some respects change words in the Britisli Picts appear in history, though the speech for their own. For instance, changed Caledonians had before been mentioned " aber " into " inver."t

under other names. The year 360 A.D. The evidence is neither very satisfac- ig the epoch of the first appearance of the tory nor convincing. Chalmers, in his Scottish people in the pages of Roman " Caledonia," remarks thus—" Whether annals. The Picts were Celts and the Caracalla, the son of Severus, ever fought Caledonians -were Celts, ond the difficulty with the heroes of Ossian on the river is in getting at the root of the business. Carron, admits of a doubt similar to The "History and Traditions of the Isle that regarding certain roads, whether of Skye "t says that the early inhabitants they were made by Agricola, Severus, or of of Scotland were probably a colony Urbicus," it is demonstrablei, however, Celts from Gaul, a few centuries before that the language of the Caledonian bard the Christian era, who, on landing in was not spoken within the Caledonian " " Scotland, gave it its rjame of Alba or region for three centuries after the mountainous, and "Albin," signifying compaign of Severus had ceased with were themselves styled " Albanaich," who fruitless efforts. We deny that in totolf but alsc retained their original name of There is no proof whatever that the Gaelic Gauil or Gael. These spread over the language was not spoken in the West Western Isles, and would in all probabil- Highlands before the 6th century. The ity be subject is as hazy as the maker of the THE ABOEIGINAL INHABITANTS roads above alluded to. In MacKenzie's of Skye. Towards the Christian era a. " History of the Outer Hebrides," he colony of Goths or Scythians, from says—" We have the assertions of John Scandinavia, appear to have invaded and of Fordun, reiterated by later Scottish settled in the Western Isles, which they historians, that the Hebrides were in the called " Hebudee," corrupted into Heb- possession of the Scoto-Irish for many their leader ' rides," in honour of "Hubba. centuries before the Norse settlements were called Gall, or strangers, They took place." hence the Western Isles were also styled " But," continues Chalmers " Innse-Gall," Islands of the Strangers. heroic poetry requires not authentic history The famous Rev. Dr. John Macpherson, to support its elegant narratives, nor to of Sleat, Sky©, already alluded to as a justify its ingenious fictions. The language powerful advocate in favour of Ossian, of Ossian became the vernacular dialect of and an authority on Celtic matters, says North Britain at a subsequent period, and the bard may have praised the valour, or It is impossible to prove from any faith- deplored the misfortunes of his countrymen ful record tha.t Kenneth MacAlpine intro- is corresponding exactly duced a, new language among his new t "Aber" a Welsh word with the Gaelic "inver" and used synonymously in subjects after he had united the Pictish -'cotland." " t "History and Traditions of the Isle of Skye," 1871. H See Skene's Highlanders of Scotland." !

26 in Gaelic verses, which, as they delighted a As to the difficulty of transmitting rude people, were transmitted by tradition these poems from age to age, the to their children, and the young repeated in institution of the bards is quite sufficient pleasing episodes, what were thus delivered to account for it, as we shall presently to them by the old as th© oral communica- tions of their ancestors. see. It was a principle with the early to anything Of course, if it could bo proved that Celtic people never commit Ossian did not speak Gaelic in the 3rd to writing, according to the settled century—there being none to speak— it maxim that it was more glorious to per- would settle at once that he could not form gi-eat actions than to write in good have lived at the time claimed for him language, and the observance of this rule One of the reasons given that the langu- enabled the people to age of the Picts DEVELOP THEIR MEMORIES WAS NOT GAELIC to an extraordinary extent. And what Muller says of the great Epic of the is suggested by the fact that St. Columba Max " wag compelled to employ the services of Finns, the Kalewala," more than an interpreter when seeking to convert merits it. Muller, speaking of this race, " of only about a million and a half the ancient Pictish (?) chieftain, Artb- whom ranan," in the island of Skye. Adamnan, remain in Finland, Olmetz, and Archan-

gel, rema^rksi : — in his life of the Saint, mentions this incident (among other improbable things, Tlieir literature and, above all, their popu- lar poetry bears witness to a high intellectu- including miracles). al development in times which we may call The argument drawn from Adamnan mythical. The epic songs still live among that the Picts and the Scots spoke diflFer- the poorest, recorded by tradition alone, and ent languages rests on the assertion that preserving all the features of a perfect when Columba, who was an Irish Scot, metre, and of a more ancient language. From the mouths of the aged an addressed the Picts, he is described as epic poem has been collected, equalling the interpreter. Although Columba using an Iliad in length and completeness and frequently conversed with the Picts, there beauty are but two occasions on which any such James Macpherson collected the poems expression is used, and in both passages of Ossian from oral recitation and partly the expression of Adamnan is exactly the from MSS., the oral portion having been same, viz., "Verbo Dei p'cr interpretatorem transferred to paper, and when these recepto," so that it was the Word of God, originals were lost or destroyed, all trace that is the Bible, which, being written of their contents could not be recovered required interpreter, and the in Latin, an 40 years after. We know that even very distinction which is made by printed books have perished. Adamnan, who never uses the expression Professor OCuri'y proves that several when Columba addresses the Picts, but the last only when he reads the Word of God io Irish MSS. have been lost within them, proves clearly that they must have 200 years. In Germany the "Lay of the understood each other without difficulty.* Neibelungs" had been long utterly for- in century it was * Skene's " Highlanders of Scotland.' gotten, when the 18th "

27

for the first timo printed from a MS. in 2nd. It shows that more than three the old library of a noble family. hundred years ago Ossian was held One hundred years ago England possessed to be the " King of Song," and Fingal " only one tattered copy of Childe Waters " the hero of heroes." and "Sir Cauline," Spain only one tattered 3rd. It shows that several of the copy of the noble poem of the "Oid." The snuff events of a oamcUe or a mischievous dog might in a mentioned by Macpherson were moment have deprived the world for ever of the subject of popular poetry at that any of these fine compositions.t period. Aye, or the depre'dations of a mouse, 4th. In the close similarity of several vide the old Gaelic MSS. in the Advocates' ballads collected by Stone, Kennedy, and Library, Edinburgh. others to the versions in the Dean's Book, When we consider that the archives of a very remarkable proof of the fidelity of the poorer people in the Highlands were tradition for a period of more than two generally kept in the same chest with the centuries is afforded. valuables and the whisky, it is surprising 5th. It shows, also, though very inferi- that MacPherson collected so much as he OT to other collectionsi—such as the Rev. did. The Finns were not subjected to Dr. Smith's " Sean Dana "—that Gaelic half as many political and religious poeti-y was " carefully cultivated in the disturbances as the Highlanders of Highlands for nearly four centuries." Scotland were. Another important fact to remember is In connection with the orthography of that " Macpherson's " Gaelic was not the Dean of Lismore's Book, the famous published until 1807, and that the men Dr. Ewen MacLachlan says of it: — who Our language exhibited in the ancient garb REPEATED THESE POEMS of Anglo-Monkish orthography is so disfig- ured and caricatured that hardly a vestige in Inverness-shire, Argyllshire, and in of its grammar or philosophy can be traced. Perthshire, some as early as 1763, and all The stainless purity of Ossian's poems before 1806, could not by any possibility in comparison with the Dean's coarse have had access to it, and it will be seen pieces is in itself proof that he lived in that we hawe various pieces amount^' ng " A DIFFERENT ERA in all to 900 lines (if we include the fragments," to 1700 lines) of Macpherson's from him or Macpherson. Whate'ver may poetry, clearly proved to be known among be the value of the Dean of Lismore's Highlanders independently of him and poems in a linguistic point of view, it is hi.5 companions. interesting and important as throwing fact acquires additional clear light on some of the questions raised This much that among the in the Ossianic contiroversy. weight when we observe pieces thus verified are some of the minor 1st. It eflfectually disposes of the poems, the Gaelic of which Macpherson ignorant assertion that there is no Gaelic never published. It is also of great writing one hundi'ed years old. importance to observe that among those t Lord Macaulay's preface to " Lays of Ancient the very gems Rome," 1866. pieces thei*e are many of 28 of the Ossianic poetry. Tlie sun hymns, Druidical order in Scotland, Columba is '' Malvina's Dream," etc., were among said to have burned a heap of their books, the finest of Ossian's compositions. Two and in Ireland St. Patrick was no less things are thus undeniable, viz., that the severe, committing, according to the power of producing poeti-y of the highest Leccan records, no less than 180 tracts order must be conceded to the Caledoni- to t/he flames. The assertion so often ans before the days of Macpherson; and repeated in the Ossianic controversy that that there are several portions of the no Gaelic MSS. wei-e in existence, was Gaelic " Ossian" which are unquestion- n;enerally believed until the investigations ably genuine.! of the Highland Society proved its falsity. Tlie bards occasionally wrote in the A question frequently asked is—how could such poems be carried down FIRST AGES OF CHRISTIANITY, through so many ages by oral tradition but we are told that they did not make it only? In order to answer this objection, a practice to commit their poems to it will be necessaiy to consider again the literary record before the 5th century, influence of the bards at greater length, and the distractions which so long afflic- and how poems were preserved in other ted the country occasioned the loss, countries. either by destiniction or removal, of most bardic order was very ancient The a of their productions. institution among the Celts. They were originally members of the priesthood A fragment of Strathclyde Gaelic and no class of society has been more cele- which Lhuyd found, and pronounced of brated. Whether we consider the influence the sixth century, shows that the people which they possessed, their learning, or of that district were equally educated poetic genius, they are one of the most interesting orders of antiquity, and worthy with their neighbours. Adamnan's "Life " df our entire admiration. It is generally of Columba was first written in Gaelic, believed that the Druids committed nothing so were most of the books known to have their profession to writing, and that, in fact, been preserved at lona, several of which forbade the I'.se of letters ; but while this is in 1525 were removed to Aberdeen, but true as far as respects their mythology and others for snuff paper at religious rites, there is every reason to were torn up believe that they composed books or tracts Inveraray.1I on other subjects.!] The respect paid to the bards who The bards, who were the professors and survived the fall of Druidism continued consei-vators of history, appear to have until comparatively recent times among been under no restraint in committing the Celtic inhabitajits of Scotland. Tliey their particular knowledge to writing, and are noticed as possessing a similar influ- it is reported that collections of the ence over the Irish in the 17th century, Brehon laws of high antiquity, and in as they did over the Gauls more than their peculiar language, still exist. At 2000 years ago. Their military duties " I," or lona, the chief seat of the

' fl Dr. Watson, author of Lives of Fletcher and of Ossian's Poems, t Dr. Clerk's Ossian. Gordon," discovered at Rome a MS. Logan's Scottish Gael, Vol. I. which had been taken away after the rebellion of 1715. II 29 were those which afterwards devolved on that traditional verse was the only medium by which the early Greeks tran'-mitted their the heralds, but their religious character most important statutes, and the memory oi taking a more did not prevent them from past transactions. The oral registers of the active part in the conflict. The bards Germans were ancient in the days of Tacitus, were certainly armed—as we find from and in sijit^e of the iiuctuations and reverses the Talliesen, who was himself of the order. of that people, they were not forgotten ui 8th century. The liUsitani had poems which Carrii, a bard of Fingal's time, appears they maintained were two thousand years fighting; and Ullin, another, is men- old.* tioned as carrying the spear. That poems of great antiquity existed But they were of most service in at the period when Ossian sang is evident animating the people by the "Prosnachadh from the frequent allusion he makes tx) 'cath," or incentive to battle, which was " the songs of old," and " bards of other either hereditary or extempore, and was years." " Thou sJialt endure," said tho chanted before the commencement and bard of ancient days, " after the moss of in the heat of battle. Diodorus Siculus time shall grow in Temora; after the informs us that the bards had power to blast of years shall roar in Selma." prevent an engagement, even when the " spears were levelled for immediate The Albanach. Duan,"t a Gaelic poem of the time of Malcolm III., 1056, which action. The ofiB.ce was hereditary, but a. LONG COUESE OF STUDY AN UNDISPUTED RELIC, and a life of continual practice were necessary for proper qualification and must have been composed from poems due success. much anterior to its own age, and this is The Irish bard, according to Walker, admitted by those who have been most was obliged to study for twelve years noted for thedr scepticism of Celtic before he was admitted to the order—the literature. " " Olamh —perfecting himself by a pro- So powerful was the influence of the bation of three years devoted to each oi bards that Cairbrei, the murderer of the four principal branches of poetry. Cormac, who could without remorse Campion says they spent 16 to 20 years imbrue his hands in the blood of kings and at their education. An important part princes, slu-ank from shedding the blood of the bardic duty was the preservation of the bards, their oonfinement being all of genealogies and descent of the chiefs he durst venture on, even when he knew and the tribe, which were solemnly them to be inimical to his ambitious repeated at marriages, baptisms, and burials. The last purpose for which they A Ohairbre, fuasgail-sa na baird. were retained by the Highlanders was to Is iadsan clann an am 'ohaidh sios, preserve a faithful history of their Cluinnear an guth-sa air ard, 'Nuair dh' lar ar siol, respective clans. aomas gu Siol riglu-ean Tighmora nan crann. The history of tlie Celts, their laws, and usages, were preserved in their poems, which * Logan's Scottish Uael. wtre their only registers. It has been shown t Ossian is not mentioned in it. : —

' Civirbar, orive freedom to the bards most authentic fi'agments of the "Iliad are the children of the bygone time " " They , or Odyssey before they were able to Their shall be heard on high, voices produce the works as they now appear.* When our race has fallen to the £,round Considering that they were not brought The kingly race of Temora of Woods. from Ionia until three hundred years after said Cafchmor to his brother Cairbre, who the death of Homer, and had been had lield the bards in durance through arranged by a hotch-potch of savants, fear of the influence they would exert on including Lycurgus, Pisistratus, Cicero, the minds of the people in causing them Diogenes Laertius, Solon, Plato, Hippar- to revolt against his unrighteous usurpa- chus, Zenodotus, Aristarchus, and the tion of the throne of Cormac, the young Alexandrian grammarians, it is strange King of Ireland.§ that no one doubts their authenticity. In fact, the bards were the teachers of Who can tell what additions and morality, the inspirers of heroic virtue, substractions have been made by all these and the historians of the community hands ? From the above it will be seen that the The warmest defenders of Homer admit Celtic bards were a very important class. that it contains many intei-polations. The and the function being a hereditary one, late Mr Gladstone held that in the 11th it can be readily understood how their Book alone there were 150 lines absol- important poems were handed most down utely irrelevant, and there are numerous oral tradition, even afteir writing be- ))y discrepancies far surpassing any blemish more or less general. seclusion came The in '"Ossian" between Books IV. V., of the Highlands and the habits of the VIII., and XIII. Notwithstanding all peopl? were conducive to the preserva- this, the Homeric poems were received tion of their poems, and the extraordinary by the Greeks and by the general public powers of memoi-y which they developed in ©very civilised country as the genuine together- the assisted greatly, with utterance of the ancient Grecian muse. flexibility of the language in fixing the Let the same broad common sense view poems upon their memories. Now, if we which pronounces this opinion in the face this contrast with how poems were of many difiiculties and objections be preserved in other countries, shall see we taken of Ossian s poems, and they will that the Celts also be received as truly " the voice of HAD THE ADVANTAGE Cona'"—the genuine utteranc*' of the in that respect, though they have never ancient Celtic muse.* got credit for it. It is said that the poems The "Edda," the mother of all of Homer were preserved in detached Scandinavian poetry, is said to have been parts called rhapsodies, long before the}- composed in the 6th century, carried to assumed their present form, and the Iceland in the 9th, and written down in Athenians found it necessary to offer the 11th century. All this rests on the rewards to those who could furnish the

§ "The Authenticity of the Poems of Obsian," by P. * The Homeric Dissertations of the late Prolessor MaoNaughtoD. Blackie. —" "

31

authority of Bishop Brynjulf, Swendsen, but some of them reject their own as being wiio discovered the " Codex Regius " in spurious, because they are not satisfied that 1643, and wrote on the copy of it with the language is sufficiently ancient in his own hand the title of " Edda appearance to " dumbfounder the under- Soemundar hinns froda." standing," and being ignorant of the Or take the "Niehelungen Lied." Prof. importance of the institution and func- Max MuUer traced it back to the "Edda/' tions of the bards in transmitting their and still fui-ther, to Grecian and Persian poems from generation to generation, myths about they follow in the wake of THE UNCEASING CONTEST non-Gaelic and prejudiced writers, between daxkness and light. f But taking who seem incompetent to take a impartial view of the subject. it in, the historical view generally given calm and Though " the Gaelic literature of the of it, it is said to refer to events of the 5th middle ages is now accessible to all," it century, to have been written down in does not affect the the end of the 12th century, and entirely forgotten, when a MS. of it was QUESTION OF OSSIAN's POEMS accidentally discovered, as already stated, in the slightest degree, as most of these ancient MSS. are Irish legends built upon in the library of a German noble in the the current belief in the existence of some 18th century. There is no countersigning of Ossian's heroes as early as the 12th of that MS. Yet the " Niebelungen Lied" century- or earlier. This subject shall be is received as an ancient poem, and " a later their pretentious very noble one." dealt with on, and character exposed. The " fragments Neither are there any ancient MSS. of are believed by J. F. Campbell and the works of Taliessin and other Welsh others to be perfectly genuine; yet no bai'ds. Yet Welshmen maintain that the one can produce originals to correspond " Four Ancient Books of Wales " were with Macpherson's translations. Neither composed about the 6th century, and .can anyone reproduce them nor fill up written down in the 12th. the gaps left in Macpherson's Gaelic text. Add to these ancient poems handed It is, therefore, just as likely that he had down by oral tradition the "Kalewala originals for all the poems as for the the great epic poem of the Finns " fragments." equalling the " Iliad " in length, beauty, When we recollect that James Mac- and completeness, brought down by oral pherson himself volunteers the statement tradition from mythical times, and we that he altered the "uncouth oi-thography" have sufficient proof that if all these of the bards in some instances, and joined are authentic, there is nothing to prevent portions of " Temora " together as the our claim for the antiquity of the poems poems reached him, and that the of Ossian. spelling was modernised considerably All Scotsmen don't demand a lawyer's before the poems were published in proof of the antiquity of these poems, Gaelic, the objections of the Celtic

t trofessor Max Muller, " Chips," Vol. II. scholars on this head — ;

32

FALL TO THE GROUND. " Although we are in exile there is not

The only difl&cnlty is to reconcile the in Ireland a warrior who is more wonder- following assertion, viz., that it was ful," said Fergus. What does that mean ? impossible Ossian could Lave lived in the 3rd The Ulster boys century, because lie ivould have liad to shake Threw three fifties of hurling clubs at him hands with Cuchullin,+ who is said by Irish he warded them off, so that they did not chroniclers to have lived in the fi-rsb century touch him, and he took a bundle of them on of our era, and with Saint Patrick, who lived lus back. Then contortion seized him. He in the 5th c-entury, 440-460 a.d.j and that he shut one of his eyes, so that it was not wider could not have composed Gaelic poems in the than the eye of a needle. He opened the 3rd century, because there was no Gaelic other so that it was as large as the mouth of spoken in Scotland for some centuiies after. a mead cup. He laid bare his jawbone to liis ear; he opened his his That would certainly be a poser if it mouth to jaw, so that his gulet was visible. The hero's light rose were true; but did Cuchullin actually from lus head. Then he strikes at the boys. live 1st centuiy? Irish tradition in the He overthrows fifty of them before they and Irish analysts say that he did ; but reached the door of Emain." Scottish tradition and Ossian's poems say "When the boys saw the dark, black men, that he did not, and they should be just they all took to flight except Cuchulaiiin iilone. He kills 9 of them, and they leave fifty wounds as reliable, if not more so. As previously on him." stated, Ireland had no chronological " A man who did these deeds, when his five history in reality prior to the 5th century, years were not full, it would be no wonder so it can't be proved, and if the " Taia tiiat he should have come to the edge of the Bo Cuailgne" (The cattle raid of Cualgne), boundary, and that he should have cut off the heads of yonder four. He overthrew three a MS. dating from about 1100 A.D., be fifties of boys by himself, and there did not regarded as evidence of Cuchullin being meet round liira a number that could over- an Irishman, it can easily be shown that throw him. C'honchobai- gave him a chariot. it rests on the wildest of legends. The He put his hand between the 2 poles so tliat " Tain Bo " proves one thing. It proves the chariot broke. He broke 12 chariots in this way. that a hero named Cuchullain was He kills 30 of them on Ath Duirn ; he slays a in Ireland as early as the 12th known hundred men of them every night of the three century, but when it begins to describe nights that they were there. Ten Kings over his " boyish days " in Ii eland, it launches seven fifties did Cucluilainn slay in BresHch Mor in jVLo^-Murthemne, and an innumerable into storieS'—as they are frequently men- number besides of doge :'.nd horses, and womcii tioned—as wide as the poles from any and boys, and people of no consequence, and probable truthful history. A quotation rabble. For tlure did not escape one or two will be quite enough to dispel the man out of the three of the men of Ii-eland delusion, but before doing so it may oe without a thigh-bone, or half his head, or one eye broken, or without being marked for over! mentioned that the " Tain Bo " also this leaves anything makes it clear that chariots were known Nonsense of kind as early as the 12th century. —From approaching authentic history far behind. " Cuchulainn's Boyish Deeds." As to whether Gaelic was spoken in Scotland in the 3rd century or not, there 5 Cuthullin, CuduUin, or Cuchulaiuu. is all § 432, according to the " Chronicle of Ireland," 1571. no subject in that relates to Ossian -

33 to whicli tlie historians and Celtic differing from that far less than the dialects of some Englivsh counties differ from each scholars held to " like grim death," than other. The second has been settled with very that there was not, nor for several cen- little help from language, by historical and turies after. So deeply rooted indeed had textual methods ; it has been made abundant- THIS STUMBLING BLOCK ly clear, I think, to any person of impartial and critical mind that the supposed conquest it become that anyone doubting would of the Picts by the Scots is an absurd myth. be scouted as an ignoramus, and the The Highlander, as we call him—the Albau- superior air of authority with which ach, ais he calls liimeelf in his own Gaelic—is indeed in tho vast majority of cases, simply Ireland was spoken of as " the mother- the modern Pict, and his language modern land " of the Gael and his language, can Pictish. To suppose that the great free be gathered from the following passage people from which he is descended were ever from a lecture delivered by the late conquered by a body of Irish colonists, and Professor O'Growney in Glasgow, in that the language he speaks is merely an Irish which, January, 1894: — colonial dialect, are delusions I hope, no one will regret to see finally dispelled. the end of the 5th century those des- At This not only proves that Pictish or cendants of Oairbre Riada who had remained Gaelic was spoken in the 3rd century, but in Ireland sent a great swarm of Irish Gaels to Scotland under the three brothers^ Lome, throws Professor O'Growney and all the Angus, and Fergus, etc Thus the Gaelic, or Celtic scholai-s completely overboard,' and Scotio people were introduced into Scotland. leaves Ossian triumphant singing the While musing over these dogmatic battle of the " Carron " against Caracalla, statements by an old scholar, the present the son of the Emperor Severus, in 211 writer stumbled upon "Keltic Researches,' A.D.* by Ed. W. B. Nicolson, of the Bodelian The above removes one of the greatest Library, at Oxford, and a passage from ohstacles to Ossian being the author of it may act as a counterblast to the these poems since the days of Malcolm professor's statement, and may open the Laing and Dr. Johnson. eyes of the dogmatic. Mr Nicolson's By a similar process of reasoning, the work, which seems an exceedingly able mythological and Cuchullin cycles, and and scholarly one, goes thoroughly into the Red Branch or heroic romances, may the Pictish questions and ogam inscrip- yet be tions with results unfavourable to REDUCED TO ASHES, previously held notions. In his preface, as these are based upon very dubious he says : — evidence of a legendary nature. Of course

The main historical result of this book is tradition would have handed down the the settlement of the Pictish question, or recollection of Fingal's wars in Ireland, rather, of the two Pictish questions. The and the names of his heroes and first of these is—"What kind of language did inteircommunication between the two the Picts speak?" The second is—"Were the Pictfi conquered by tlie Soots ?" The first has countries having been pretty frequent in been settled by linguistic and palaeographical " Ossian was not born at the time of Fingal's battle methods only ; it has been shown that Pictisli on the Carron, but his narrative has withstood the was a language virtually identical with Irish, f

34

early times, the legendary stories of both of them ; but to what extent interpolations countries might claim the same heroes. were introduced it ia impossible to say. Even Irishmen admit that Scotland was There are some abrupt and obscure known to prehistoric Ireland as the school passages, but that does not warrant the of poetry and learning. conclusion that he made any considerable But what are we to think of the histori- additions. ans and Celtic scholars who have been mis- Capt. Morrison's evidence is very clear leading us so long? They were all agreed on that point. He says that the poem of " " as to the influence of the said Irish Address to the Sun in the poem of " Cai'thon " wanted two lines in the colony, and they were all wrong ! In another century people may view the origina.1, which neither Macpherson nor Ossianic question with more justice and anybody else could supply, which supports greater impartiality; but the time has the opinion that he made few or no additions of his own. One of the strong- hardly come yet. There is such a deep- rooted prejudice against them, even at est facts in favour of his having collected is that he to work at the present day, that, as in religion an

35 son could have done; but it is a pity he over every line with marvellous minute- even did that, for the poems would have ness, and consulted scores of works, been more interesting had they been sacred and profane, ancient and modern, given just as they stood in the original for the purpose of proving the translatiori " bedaubed with Scots snuff," | as some to have been stolen from a hundred of them were. various sources which Macpherson had We shall soon get a little more into probably never read, and not one of the direct grips with the opposition by citing instances of plagiarism which he adduced the poetrj' itself as a witness against the agrees either with Macpherson's transla- most recent writer on the saibject, who tion or the original Gaelic. " " declares it to be modern ; and even as According to Dr. Clerk, the history of such, "rubbish" ; and to repel many other the Gaelic which we have actually got is to trivial objections. It is rather sad as follows : — think that for more than 140 years the par- The proposal of publishing the Gaehc by tisans on either side have fought each other subscription having failed, Macpherson with- over the Ossianic question with great drew from tbe controversy in sullen silence. After some time his friends urged him to the determination and bitterness, giving no pubUcation. He pleaded the great expense as quartei-, nor requiring any. In Fitz an insurmountable obstacle in the way, James and Rhoderick Dhu fashion whereupon Sir James MuiTay MacGregor and I hen each at once his falchion drew, other Highhind gentlemen then in tbe East sent Each on 't.he ground his scabbard threw, India Co)?ipany's service, subscribed and Each looked to sun, and stream, and plain, to him £1000 for the purpose. He now As what they ne'er might see again alleged want of leisure for the task, and al- Then foot and point and eyo opposed, lowed year afi;er year to pass without doing however, In dubious strife they darkly closed. what he had promised. He did not, wholly neglect the work. He sent to John Ignorance on the part of the non-Gaelic MacKenzie, Esq., of the Temple, London (left disputant, tinged with insolence, was as an executor under his will), the Gaelic mainly the cause of strife, for in reality poems which we now possess, and left the there was no attempt on the part of the £1000 for publisliing tkem. These Gaelic his own hand Saxon to view the subject impartially, so poems were all written either in or in those oi amanuenses employed by him. that helped to keep the blood boiling m No one can tell how the MSS. which had been the Highland camp. collected in the Highlands were disposed of, One who has not read the literature but not a leaf of them was left behind, or any of the subject can hardly believe the explanation given of their fate. AMOUNT OF ANIMOSITY Mr MacKenzie delayed tlie publication day, and finally handed over that was roused during the latter half from day to to the Highland Society of of the 18th century, and ever since, up the MSS. showed a noble liberality in to the present day. Malcolm Laing London, who enquiry regarding the alone wrote an elaborate essay on making the fullest and in publishing them in a very the subject of Ossian's poems. He went poems handsome form. The editing of the See Professor Adam Ferguson's evidence In the t to the Rev. Thos. Highland Society's committee report. Gaelic was committed 3G

Ross, subsequently known as Dr. Ross, strength and beauty to the rest of the minister of Lochbroom, the correcting of collection, and several of them were the press being entrusted to the Rev. Dr. recited by various persons throughovit Stewart, of Ding-wall, both men of talent the Highlands. But as Macpherson and scholarship. The Society ordered never published them in Gaelic, the proof them to conform the orthography of the of their genuineness is beyond contra- text to that of the Gaelic Scriptures, an diction. unfortunate injunction in many ways; One of the most remarkable things for it interesting, would be and might be about these poems is that there is no instructive to see the Gaelic which allusion whatever to the voice of singing Macpherson himself wrote down ; and the birds with which the woods of the High- 1801 edition of the Gaelic Scriptures, the lands must have been tuneful in the days model proposed, is an extremely faulty of old as they are now. There is one. Founded to some extent on Bishop mention made of the " hum of the Bedell's Irish version, it retains many mountain bee," and " droning dance of phrases and spellings which never be- the evening fly." In the 7th Duan of longed to Scottish Gaelic. " Temora," the birds of night are startled Dr. Ross did not obey the injunctions. by the loud sound of Fingal's shield, and

He did better ; still there is a great deal the flight of sea-birds; but no reference of looseness in his edition. His Gaelic, is ever made to lark or thrnsh or blackbird however, is all that w© have of —to any bird of song. Tlie eagle (the true THE ORIGINAL " OSSIAN," bird—according to its Gaelic name, fir- for with the fatality which has attended eun) is the only bird ever specially all dealings with these poems, even named. Of this omission Macpherson's Gaelic MS. has disappeared. NO EXPLANATION

It was at one time in the Advocates' can be given. Of all the dwellers in the Library, but every trace of it has been waters, the whale alone is mentioned, lost. whereas modern Gaelic poetry abounds Besides the Gaelic poems left by with descriptions of thnish and lark, Macpherson, and published by the game and the salmon, " the monarch of Highland Society, he published short the flood." In Dr. Smith's " Sean poems bearing the following titles : — Dana," there are frequent allusions "The Battle of Lora," " Darthula," "The to animals and birds. If any man were War of Caros," " The War of Innisthona," able to form a true, just, and candid '•' The Death of Cuthullin," " The Songs opinion of the poems of Ossian, that man of Selma," " Lathmon," " Oithona," and was the late Rev. Dr. Clerk, of Kilmallie, " Berathon," along with " Fingal," a true Highlander born and bred, wh(> " Cathlin of Clutha," and " Sulmallu of did not require to go out of his own " Lunnon," along with " Temora —ail country for information, a man who bearing, like the others, to be transla- knew the Gaelic language thoroughly, tions from Gaelic. These are equal in lived among the people, talked with — — - ;

them daily in their own language, and At line 14 of the same Duan, Carul preached to them in the same, while tells of Fingal's youthful exploits as — admitting that in some places the poems follows : are obscnre, and the text in other places ''Fhionnghail, fhir-comhnuidh 's a' chomhrag,," corrupt, much of which he attributed to Tbuii-t Carull, bu bhinne fonn, " 'S Honor do chleas agus dubh-bliuill imperfect recording, remarksi j Fo d' fheirg tliuit Lochlin nan long, Much has been said of the sublimity of the 'N uair bha d' aghaidh oho lorn ri oigh." poems, and they are deserving of it Ossianic James Macpherson translated the first all ; but tbey contain singularly faithful and line as "Fingal! thou dweller of battle,"" beautiful descriptions of Nature in her calm Berlin, and more genial moods, which are sometimes etc., which drove Dr. Stern, of used to illustrate the bright and gentie side wild, and he asks indignantly what it of human character. These have not been means. Tliei real translation is : — sufficiently appreciated- " Fingal, who iiii battle hast thy home," We shall put them to the test by calling Said Carul, of sweetest voice, " Many are thy feats and deadly strokes some of the passages as witnesses—from Beneath thine ire fell Lochlin of ships, Clerk's " III. of Dr. Ossian." In Duan When thy face was smooth as a maiden." " Fingal," 460, volume I, Cuchullin p. The last line Macpherson translated as praises the song of Carul, and says: — " When thy youth strove with the beauT>y 'S taitneach sgeul air am a dh' fhalbh, of maids." This is one of the many Caoin mar bhalbh-dhruchd madainn sheimh instances of where ignorance^ on the part Air dosan 'us tuim nan ruadhag. of non-Gaelic readers does a gross 'N uair a dh' eu'eas a' glirian gu mall Ossian. to Ail- slios samliach nan liath-bheann, injustice to the poems of But Loch gun bhruaillein fada thall proceed with the finerr passages. In the Caoin 'us gorm aii- urlar ghlcann. 1st Duan of " Temora," p. 210, the beautifully Literal translations throughout : — youthful prince of Ullin is

Pleasing the tale of the time which has gone, described : — Soothing as noiseless dew of morning mild, Sheas Cormac 'n am meadhon cho aillidh On the brake and knoll of roes Ri Qg-reull ag eirigh 's an speur

When slowly rises the sun 'N uair sheallus i 'an solas ciuin On uh© silent flank of hoary bens — chill nan sliabb mvigach 's an ear, The loch, unrufHed, far away, A h-ur dhealra a' glanadh o dhruchd Oalm and blue on the floor of glens. G un smuir a' siubhal o lear Gluaisidh a h-astar samhach suas In the above passage : — Gun nial a' ceileadh fo ghruaim a leois. The loch, unruffled, far away, Translation : — Calm and blue on the floor of glens," Stood Cormac in the midst, a,s bright is immensely inferior to the Gaelic As a young star, when rising in the sky, original of It looks in gentle gladness From tlie back of misty mountains in the east-, Loch gun bluaiaiUein fada thall Its fresli brightness shining through the dew Caoin 'us gonn air urlar ghleann, * That travels in pureness from ocean ; as anyone who understands Gaelic will at •Ossian evidenily thought thai dew came off the once perceive. — ; ; ;; — ; ; ::

38

In silence moves its path on liigh And opens to the shining of the sun Without a cloud in frown to dim its light. It shakes its branches all alone

The hum of the mountain bee is nigh ; Then, again, Fingal's joy in beholding The hunter, with joy, beholds it wave Fillan, the bravery of his young son, Amid the blight r-nd baldness of the crags. Duan III. of " Temora," p. 308, volume An evening scene at Dora, Duan I. of II., is thus spoken of the much-abused " Temora," p. 208, Vol Tlia solas, mar aiteal o ghleann, II., is also singularly beautiful: — A' tigh 'n a nail mu ghruaidh an righ a' plaosgadh Dhora Tha 'chuimhne mu chomhnag o shean, Grian bhuidhe mu a' toiseachadh thall Mu laithean beuma treun a shinns're An liath-fheasgar Chrith coille mu'n cuairb do Tighmora 'S e 'faicinn a mhio fo cliliii Fo gbaoith 'bha 'caochladh mu charn Mar sholas a ghrein gun uial, Thionail niula dubh, fuar 's au iar. 'S i coimhead sios ah- craoibh a ghluais Us dearg reul' fo 'n sgiathan ag eirigh Fo 'deari^sa suas air gruaidh nan sliabh Sheas mi 'm aonar air aomadh nan sliabh 'S i 'crathadh 'n a h-aonar a oeann Faicinn tanna^.s air ciar nan speur. thaobh nan gleann ; mar sin bha 'n righ Fo sholas mu Fhillean a mhac. The yellow sun shone dim on Dora, Grey eve began to descend,

Translation : — Trembled the wood around Temora, Joy, like a gentle breeze from the glen, Under the fitful wind of the cairn Comes on the countenance of the King Clouds cold and black thronged in the west. His is on the wars of old. And red starj beneath their wings memory rose ; On the days of tlie mighty blows of liis sires, Alone I stood on the slope of the hills. Willie he sees his son in renown Beholding a ghost on the dusk of the sky. Like the joy of the cloudless sun, In the first Duan of " Temora," Vol When he looks on a tree which gi-ew there is very striking con- Beneath his light on the brow of the hill, II., p. 170, a As alone it waves its head trast betweeii the peacefulness of outward tlie King On the side of the glen ; so was nature and the turmoil of a guilty mind. In .loy for Fillan, liis son. It opens with a description of a bright The description of Ossian's gladness m and peaceful scene in Erin, in the midst listening to " sweet voices from ths of which stood Cairbar, restless and march of the bards " is thus narrated, troubled as the image of the murdered II., 323: — Vol. p. Cormac rose before his mind : —

Mar sin fein a chluinneas a' chraobh Gorm thonna na h-Eiriun 'an soillsc An gleannau cumhann nam faoin bheaim Ard mhonadh fo bhoiUsge an la, Guth an earraich ag iadhadh m' a taobh, Craniia ciar-chcaun ag aomadli fo gbaoith, A duillo a' taomadh m' a ceann. Lidth shruithoan 'taomadh o charn ; a' fosgladh ghathan na greine 'S fo ; Da thom an uaine fo dharaig i 'n h-aonar, Orathaidh a geugan 's a Ag iadhadh 's a' tarruing mu chaol-rath, Toirm seillein an aonaich mu'n cuairt, Caoin shiubhal au uisge tro ghleannaibh Chi scalgair le solas a h-aoraadh, Air bruaicli an uilld an Cairbre fein, O sheargadh 's o mhaoilo nan cruach. A shleagh fo chomas an trein r'a thaobh, Even so heareth a tree A dhearg shhil fo ghiorrag 's e brbn. In the narrow gorge of desert bens Dh' eirich Cormac 'an anam an righ, The voice of spring approach its side 'S a lotan gun chli 'n a thaobh, Its foliage springs around its head, Leth-fhaicte bha 'n t-6g an dubhra. ; ; — ! ! !

39

"Fliuil chraobh-dhearg a' sruthadh o chliabh, poems of Ossian being turgid and Thilg Cairbre a shleagh tri chuairt absurd nonsense, are often men who fheusaig fo laimh, Tri ohuairt chuir e 'n cannot read a word of Gaelic, and are Chas e gu trie o arc! clieum. altogether devoid of poetic inspiration. Chrath e ruigli nam beud gu h-ard, " Mar nial 'am fasach am mor thriatb, Ossian may not have the wonderfully Caochladh fo ghaoith nan seaa a dhealbh, vivid and varied descriptive power lif Na gleannan am br.on fo'n fhireach, Homer, but he has much more of it than Mu seach fo gliiorrag nam braon. Virgil ; a.nd his heroes have more dis- The blue waves of Erin are gleaming, tinctive characteristics than the latter. The lofty hills In the brightness of day, Fingal, one of the noblest and best heroes Dark-crested trees bend in the wind. Hoary streams pour down from cairns described either in ancient or modern Two green hillocks clothed in oak, poetry, is not merely the resistless Stretch curving round a narrow plain, warrior or the great king. To the very Water wanders slowly through the glen; close of his life he manifests an unchang- By the river side was Cairbar, ing affection for Ag-anideca, his first love, His spear firm grasped by the side of the heroj a never-failing interest in the friends of His red eye was troubled and in grief. liis youth, a lively sympathy with the In the soul of the king rose Oormac, young, and a freshness of love for his And tbe deadly wounds in his side, sons, which are intensely human and Half seen in dimness was the youth, attractive." His bubbling blood red-gushing from his breast. In lameinting the fall of Ryno, Three times Gairbar flung his spear, "Fingal," Duan V., p. 66, Vol. II., he Three times grasped his beard in his hand, says : — Often he stayed Ms hurried step, Slan leat, a chetid fhir 's ajti raon, And tossed on high his deadly arm. Clia chum mi o chlaon do ghath, The mighty chief was like a cloud of the Thusa b'aille measg nan laoch, desert, Oha 'n fhaic mi thu ohaoidh—slan leat! Clianging its form under stormy wind ; While the glens by the mountain are sad. Farewell, thou foremost on the field As, by turns, they dread the coming showers. No more shall I keep your arrow from straying " Scenes of touching pathos in describ- Thou who wast fairest of the heroes, ing the softer emotions of the heart, I shall see thee no more—^farewell presenting tenderness beyond all tender- Or, when calling his sons to the chase, ness,'' will in passages of be found many " Fingal," Duan VI., p. 120, the familiar " Ossian," which completely belie the name of the dead comes as usual to his charges of exaggeration and bombast lips; he ecxclaims against them. which have been brought Fheillein, a Roinne—tha 's an uaigh, However applicable these may be to Tha mo mhac 'an suain a' bhais Macpherson's translations—and even they Fillan, Ryno^—he is in the grave, have been unfairly dealt with—they do My son is in the sleep of death! not lie against the original. Ossian's All throughout the poems, even the words do not overbalance his ideas. fiercest of his warriors occasionally show Tliose peopls who talk most about the a touch of nature, which prevents us ;; ; ;; ;

10 from abhorring them. Starno, savage as Deil-gel* a thorough specimen of female " ]io was, " trembled at the slaying of his perfidy and heartlessness — Fingal," son." Cairbar, the niui-dereT of CormaCi Duan II., p. 445, etc. The description of " always cherished love and fidelity to his Strinandona, Ca-Lodin," Duan II., p. nobl3 brother Cathmor. And Folda, 46, is very beautiful: — whosa joy in death was the prospect of Bu ghile ua 'n canach a cruth often descending from his cloud to view Ma 's ann air traigh nan .stuadh faoin 'n cobhar aii- nan sruth, the graves of those he had slain, yet Na aomadh Bha 'suilean soluis mar dha reul preserves in his heart one green spot in Mar bhoglia nan speur 'am braon his only which dwelt the image of A gnuis alainn fo 'ciabh fein. daughter Lerna (Duan V., p. 299-400, 'S diubhe na nial fo ghaoith tuinidh dhuit anam nan laoch, Vol. II.) : Bu A Stri-nan-daein' bu chaoine lanih. Dh' iso bha 'n deari-sa bu cIioit Whiter than Cana was her foi-m, 'anam 'an uair bu mhor stoii-m. If on the shore of restless -svaves, On her shone calmest liglit Than foam on the curling flood From his soul at the height of the storm. Her eyes of light were like two stars; So of his female characters—" all of Like bow of Heaven in mild shower Was her face of beauty, under locks them in purity, dignity, and tenderness, Blacker than cloud in storm immeasurably superior to the coarse, Tliy dwelling was the soul of heroes, scolding, fighting goddesses of Homer."' .';>tri-nan-dou't of smoothest hand. Many of them die in despair over their An.d of Aganideca (" Fingal," Duan lovers' graves; but we see Oi-nam-mor-hul HI., p. 466): — ha.ppily united to Tormod of the waves Thainig 'n a h-aille do 'n coir, generosity of Ossian, as Uha through the Mar ghealach 6g o neoil air sail is to Frohul (in Carrie Thura) by the Blia sgeinih mar sholus 'g a h-eideadh, kindness of Fingal. Golnandona secm*es Bha 'Ceuman mar cheol nan dan. Toscar by following him to the chase. Chunnaio i 'n righ, 'n oigh 'bu bheusach; Dh' eirich osna a cleibh gu mall The fate of Morna (" Fingal," Duan I.) Bha 'g orm-shuil ag iadh os iosal excite deepest is tragical enough to the Mu thriath Morbhoinn nan liath ciiarn. " interest. Sulvalla (in Tem.ora "), the She came forth from her retired abode, most queenly of thera all, closes her career And in her loveliness drew near them, in sadness, but the poet, with great art, Like a now mooa from clouds on sea, Beauty enrobed lier in light; throws a veil over it (" Temora," Duan Her steps were as the music of songs. VIII., — p. 524): The modest maid beheld the King Na biodh cuimhn' air a brbn gu 'thrian, Slowly rose the sigh of her breast; Chaitheas anam na h-aoise gu barr. Her blue eye in secret, turned To the King of gi-eat hills of hoai-y cairns. Let there be no remembrance of her grief, It sorely vv"ast€6 the soul of age. Golnandona, at the begiaming of the

With all his pure and noble chivalry * Ded Gel, "Deud Gheal," white teeth, wife of Calrhar, who forsook him for Ferde, whose death she towards women, he did not believe in their caused shortly after. " absolute perfection.; he presents to us in t Stri-nan-duoino, strife of men." —

poem beaa-iug- her name, is also very fine, sons, and they sorrow deeply when these and the following lines, too, regarding suffer, they warn them of impending

Roscrana (" Temora," Duan IV., line 87) . danger, and sooth them to sleep amid Cbuimaic mi a gorm-shtiil mliall anxiety. They are more etherealised IVLar ghlan tiiaibhs' 'an iomairt a' triall, human beings than thoroughly disembo- Leith-oheilte 'an cearb nan dubli nial. died spirits, and the descriptions of their I saw her mild blue eye constant presence produces a feeling of like pure playful spirit, Move a and eeriness such as is not produced by any Half bidden fringe of dai-k clouds. in other poetry—but eeriness entirely dis- The above few quotations are quite tinct from dread or horror." J enough to prove that Ossian's poems are Poets are gifted with an insight into not " rubbish," and those who say that each other's ideas and sentiments and they are are destitute of poetic souls, and powers of description far beyond that )f have no regard for well attested truths ordinary mortals, and can easily detect and facts. When men like Burns, blemishes and forced imagery which is Byron, Napoleon Bcnaparte, Goethe, not un,der the direction of true genius. Schillei', Caesarotti, Lamartine, Chateau- Bums was passionately fond of Ossian's briand, and ma

" Literature of the Histhlands," MacNeill, 1892. § Letter to Thomas Wharton, July, 17(iO. ll The ! § f —

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came the founder of a school of poetry greatest in Germany, where the younger there. Throug'hout the literary world the school of poets, having thrown off the power of Ossian's muse was felt. The classical tradition, lacked something to artificiality, hollowness, and convention- replace the classical models. Ossian came ality of the last quartei- of the 18th cen- to theim as dew upon the earth. tury rendei-ed the national echoes of the Sir Walter Scott, in particular, has gi-and old " Voice of Cona " a fresh music been pointed out as having followed and a welcome relief. Goethe, who ad- Ossian in the extreme localization given " mired them intensely, and introduced the by him on his beautiful poem, The Lady songs of Selma into his " Sorrows of of the Lake. "J One of the greatest Werther," and " niade them the com- admirers of Ossian was Napoleon Bona- panion of its hero," in whose affection parte, and it has been said that he carried they supplant Homer, and mentioned him his admiration of them so far as to make along with Shakespeare. From his the military tactics of Fingal (the leading father's house at Frankfort, he wrote to hero of the poems) the model of his own Herder, who had brought them to his generalship. notice, that he was r.ow preaching them Sismondi, in his "Literature of South- the earnestly among his friends. ern Europe," when treating of the translator of " O foolish Gaelatians," who hatli writings of Cesarotti, " " bewitclied you to despise the poetry of Ossian into Italian, says that vour own countiy, and could see no He was deeply penetrated with the spirit of the ancient Caletlonian, mucli of whose dim in it, after German, French, beauty even and gigantic grandeur he has preserved in his and Italian poets had proclaimed their translation. superiority over all other poets to the Amoug a host of other admirers on world the Continent were, besides Goethe, Before many years had passed, they Herder, and Klopstock—Schiller, Lessing, were translated into German, Italian Novalis, Burger, and Tieck. Fragments Spanish, French, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, of the ooems have been set to music by Polish, and Kussian, and even in modern Schubert and Brahms. Madame de Greek.* No English author before Stael was one of the first and greatesi: Macpherson, not even Shakespeare, Mil- enthusiasts. Chateaubriand was so devo- ton, Addison, or Pope, had found such a ted to Ossian that he would, he tells us, host of foreign admirers; no one after have sustained his existence against all him, except Byron, hardly even Sir men, lance in hand. " The harp of Walter Scott and Dickens, has had a Morveii is the emblem of my soul," wrote greater fame. Lamartine. Could all these great " To this day the belief that Ossian is one geniuses admire despicable fictions. "|| of the glories of English literature, a Ibid. t James Macpherson, &c.. lingers over of Ossian."- P. Mac- burning planet in our sky, t "Authenticity of the poems - aughtou, 1861. the Continent. But its influence was of § P. MacNaughtcn's lecture on authenticity Ossian's poems. ' James Macphei'son, an episode in literature.— S, Smart's James Macpherson, 1905. David Nutt, London, 19C5. II J. — —

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Against tlio cabove we put Dr. "Vetus et major Scotia," the true home of the Ossianic poetry, Ireland! .Tolin«.on's absurd dictum when asked I make no ob- jection. But there will still be left in the whether any modem man could have book a residue with che vei-y .scul of tlie Celtic written such poems— '"' Yes, sir," he re- coiuus in it, and Avhich lias the proud distinc- " replied, many men, many women, and tion of having bitjught the soul of tlie C-cltic tlie tlio many children " ; and to Sir John genius into contact with genius of nations of modern Europe, and enriched all Joshua Reynolds he replied—" Sir, a man (jur poetry by it, Woody Morven and echoing might write such stuff for ever, if lie l.ora, and Selma, Avith its silent lialls! Wo all would abandon his mind to it." William owe them a debt of gratitude, and when wo Hazlitt, one of the highest critics, was are unjust enough to forget it may the muse nearer the truth when he* mentions^- lorget us! Choose any one of the better pass- .'iges in Macpherson's Ossian, and you can see " four of the principal works of poetry in even at this time of day what an apparition the world at different periods of history, of newness and power sucli a strain must have Homer, the Bible, let Dante, and, mc Ijeen to the 18th centui-y. add, Ossian." think Some may he might The late Principal Shairp, Professor of have mentioned Shakespeare, his but Poetry at the University of St. Andrews enthusiasm went the length saying that of (a Perthshire man), whose k-iiowledge of — Ossian is feeling " a and a name that Gaelic and of Ossian's poems entitled him can never bo destroyed in the minds >.f to speak with confidence on the subject, his readers." What do renegade High- declared that the sadness of Ossian was landers " and brither Scots" say to that? the surest proof of its antiquity, and Macpherson had to erect a monument to argued that the fidelity of the descriptions himself, as he felt certain no one else of Highland scenery were also in favour would do it! Had he been a German or of that vein, and that the late Professor Frenchman, an Italian or a Turk, h.e Blackie, in his philological notes on the would have had homage in his own subject, had hit upon the true solution country ; but being a Highlander, neither of the controversy. The learned he nor Ossian deserved any notice from Principal goes on their countrymen! Matthew Arnold His poetry is full of natural images, taken Bays : straight from the wilderness ; tlin brown The Colts, with their vehement reaction lieath, tlie thistle down of the autumn air, against the despotism of fact, their advers© the dark mountain cairns, the sighing winds, destiny, their immense calamities, are prime the movement of the mist and cloud, silence, tiiis authors of vein of piercing regret and and solitude ; these are for ever recurring in passion—^of this Titanism in poetry. A famoius impressive monotone. Even to this day, wlien book, Macpherson's Ossian, carried in the last one is alone in the lonliest places of the High- ceatury this vein liko a flood of lava through lands, in the wilderness where no man is, on Europe. I am not sioing to critioiso Macpher- the desolate moor of Rannoch, or among the son's Ossian hero. Make the part of wliat is grey boulders of Badenoch, when at such a forged, modern, tawdry, spurious, in tlie book time, if one wished a language to express tlie as large as you please; strip Scotland if yon feeling that weiglis upon the heart, where likf* of every feather of borrowed plumes, would one tuni to find it? Not to Soott, not which are the strength of Macplierson's even to Wordsworth though the power of the

Os,siaii, and he may have sVjlcn from tliat liills was upon him, if upon any modern. Not -to in those, but in tlie voice of Cona alone woukl scuro, to remove the obscurity by some mani- the heart find a Lmguage that would relieve fest alteration of the phrase, or even by in- it. It is this fact, that there is something terj:olating a line or interlarding a commen- which is of the very essence of the Highland tary. This also occurs in Macpherson. glens and mountains, something unexpressed 4th. —It is not always that a translator by any modern poet, but which the old writes under the same vivid vision, or the

Ossian's poetry alone expresses ; this, if same fervid inspiration as the original poet. nothing else, would convince me that the The instancr* of failure to seize the most strik- poetry which conveys this feeling is no modern iiig features of the original, and the substi- fabrication, but is native to the hills, co- tution of generic for specific epithets are fre- natural, I had almost said, with the granite quent in Macpherson. mountaiiLs, among which it has survived.^ oth. —Most translators yield—^sometimes, The late Professor Blackie made a no doubt, wisely—to the temptation of im- proving on their originals, and Macpherson, special study of Ossian's poems, and hav- from what we know of him, was the last man knovsrledge of ing acquired a competent in the world to think of i-fesisting such a temp- the Gaelic langaiage, besides being one c£ tation.* philologists in Europe, tlie most eminent How much of the Gaelic, as we now after going through the whole of the have it—that is, his clean copy of his originals held in opposition to Mr J. F. originals—was subjected to this process Campbell, that the Gaelic is unquestion- of beautification, no one can tell ; but the ably the original, brings forward departures from the simplicity of the following tests by which a translator's — original can be traced in several instances. hand is clearly discoverable: He thinks that the English as a whole awkward, 1st.. —In the English version is a translation from the Gaelic, and that forced, and unidiomatic expressions frequently this can be accepted as one of the be-st occur, which can be clearly traced to the in- ascertained facts in the range of philo- fluence of a Gaelic original. 2nd. —In all poems of any antiquity handed logical investigation. Philological induc- down in MSS., diflaculties will occur, arising tion, combined with the amount of from obsolete words, errors in transci-iption, external evidence to be found in the, confused connection, and other causes. In Highland Society's report, produce ?v such cases it is a common practice with tra'is- cumulative proof which he was anxious latoi's to skip the diflicuity, gloss over the jnatter with .some decent commonplace, and to see how Mr J. F. Campbell could iomotimes to make positive blunders, which rebut. it is not difficult for a philologist to expose. We shall now ietra.ce our steps a little, All these signs of a translators hand are fre- and introduce a couple of witnesses whosa quent in Maopherson's English, and would be moi-e so had lie not indulged in such a names were omitted from the long list

babit of skipping generally ; that it is diincult already given of the supporters of to say in certain cases that the skip was made Macpherson's Ossian. The following is because the writer of the English wished to an extract from Dr. John MacArthur's skip a difficulty. " Dissertation on the Authenticity vi 3rd. —It is a common practice with trans- lators, when they find a passage a little ob- Ossian's Poems," published by the

* •1 James Macpherson, an episode in liier,*iuro.—J. There is hardly any warrant for the statemen-, C. Smart, 1905. Macpherson was no worse than other men.—Ed. — ;

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Highland Society of Loudon in 1807. bed-riddeii, deaf, and blind, who fre- Dr. MacArthur, in referring to Dr. quently amused himself Blairs "Dissertation on Ossian,"' men- REPEATING OSSIAN's POEMS tioned that for whole days, and Mr Downie had There is a respectable list of clergymen and heard him repeat many poems that had gentlemen who declare that they had a-ssisted never been translated, and in particular ]Mr Macpherson in collecting the poems ; that they h-id furnished him with particular the description of a battle by the j)oems, which they mention ; that they had Fingalians, in which cavalry were em- looked over his MSS. in both langirages, while ployed in crossing a river. Mr Fraser, of he was occupied in the translation ; that they Rellich, eight miles from Inverness, told liad been accustomed to hear those pieces re- him he had heard Captain MacDonald, peated from their infancy ; that they thom-

" ' selves could rejpeat several of them ; and that of Breakish, in Skye, repeat Temora they never entertained the least suspicion of and Mr MacDonald, St. Martins, in- a forgery. These are facts distinctly attested formed him that about thirty years before by one or more respectable charactei-s, who (1770), when at Airds, in Appin, he allow Dr. Blair to give their names to the " till public. Nay, more, five clergymen attest that heard an old man repeat Temora," they had taken the printed copy of Macpher- lie was weary with listening. And the son's translation in their hands, while per&ons, Rev. Mr MacLagan, of Blair Atholl, whose and places of abode they men- names showed him a gi-eab number of Gaelic tioii, repeated, in the original, the poems they poems in MSS., both ancient and modern, had received from tradition, and that the translations and those agi-eed exactly, except and printed, an,d many poems and in a few variations which must ever happen frag-ments published by Macpherson and in oral tradition. Dr. Smith, and about a dozen that had Dr. James Lyden, poet and Oriental never been translated scholar, in his "Tour in the Highlands,' The late Alexander Smith, who was an written in 1800, admitted that w^ith re- undoubted poetical genius, and frequent gard to Ossian's poems, he felt his visitor to the West Highlands and Skye,

" ' ' incredulity melting away before the was very much struck with the truth of calm dispassionate conversation of the the local colouring in the poems, which intelligent Rev. Donald MacNicol, of he considered a strong argument m Lismore." Mr MacNicol informed him favour of their antiquity. Now, James also that he knew the poems of Ossiar. Macpherson was an inland Highlander, l^eforo they wore translated by Mac- and knew little or nothing of coast pherson, and mentioned that the lattei- scenery, and probably was never in a boat !iad offered to show his MSS. to Rev. Mr until he went to Skye, and the time MacLagan, Blair Atholl, of but that Mr lie spent among the outer islands was f iir MacLagan had failed in the appointment too short for him to comprehend its real from accident. Tlie Rev. Mr Downie, the moaning, far less to describe it so accur- minister of a parish near Glenelg, ately and so graphically as in the Gaelic, informed him of an old man named and yet so true to nature as has been MacCraw, in his parish, 100 years of age. done in Ossian's poems. Something, 47

therefore in the way of bettei- eividence Is and that the person who retained on his me- mory the greatest of necessai-y before we can connect Mac- number tales and songis brightened the gatherings round the ancient pherson'si name with the authorship of the peat-fires as your Sydney Smith brightens the in poems. In "A Sun-mer Skye,"t modern dinner. And it is astonishing how Smith delivers his opinions, as follows: — much legendary material a single memory WaJidering up and doAvn the Western Is- may retain. In illustration. Dr. Brown in his " History of the " lands, onv3 is brought into contact with Ossian Highlanders informs us that "the late Captain John of and is launched inlo a sea of perplexities as MacDonald to the genuineness of Macj)lien3on's trans- Breakish, a native of the Island of Skye, de- clared lation. That fine poems shonld have been upon oath, at th© age of 78, that he could repeat, composed in the Higlilands so many centuries when a boy betAveen twelve and ago, and that these should have existed fifteen years of age (about the year 1740), through that immense period of time in the from one to two hundred Gaelic poems, dif- fering in memories and on the tongues of the common length and in number of vei-ses, and that he learned them from old people, is sufficiently startling. The Border an man about years of ballads are children in their bloom compared 80 age, who sang them for years to with the hoary Ossianic legends and songs. his father when he went to bed at night, and On the other hand, the theory that Mac- in the spring and winter before he rose in pherson, whose literary efforts, when he did the morning." The late Dr. Stewart, minis- not pretend to translate, are extremely poor ter of Luss, knew £.n old Highlander in the and meagre, should have, by sheer force of Isle of Skye, who repeated to him, for three imagination, created poems confessedly full successive days, and during several hours each of fine things, with strong local colouring, day, without hesitation and with the utmost not without a weird sense of remoteness, with rapidity, many thousand lines of ancient poetry, ajid heroes shadowy as if seen through Celtic would have continued his repeti- mists poems, too, which have been received tions much longer if the doctor had required ; by (most of) his countrymen as genuine, and him to do so." From such a raging torrent of which Dr. Johnson scornfully abused, and song the doctor doubtless fled for his life.+ which Dr. Blair enthusiastically praised, Without a doubt there was a vast quantity which have been translated into evei-y lan- of poetic mateirial existing in the Highlands. guage in Europe, which Goethe and Napoleon So these songs are in the original strong, admired, from which Oarlyle has drawn liis simple, picturesue, in decay ; in Macpherson's " red son of the furnace" and many a memor- English they are hybrids and mongrels. They able sentence besides, and over which, for resemble the Castle of Dunvegan, an amoi-p- more than a hundred years now, there has tous m-iss of masonry of every conceivable raged a critical and philological battle, with stylo of architecture, in which the ninth victory inclining to neither side—that the century jostles the nineteenth. poor Macpherson should have created these In these poems, not only do the char- poems is, if possible, more startling than their acter and habit smack of the primeval claim of antiquity. If Macpherson created time, but there is extraordinary truth of Ossian, he was an athlete v.'ho made one sur- " " prising leap, and was palsied local colouring. The Iliad is roofed ever afterwards ; a marksman who made a centre at his first by the liquid softness of an Ionian sky. shot, and who never afterwards hit could the In the versei of Chaucer there is eternal target. It is well enough known that the May and the smell of newly-blossomed Highlanders^ like tdl half-civilised nations, hawthorn hedges. In " Ossian," in like had their legends and their minstrelsy ; that they were fond of reciting poems and runes; manner,

t London, 1866, Alex. Strachan. i These repetitions are intended for short memories. 4S

glens themselves. THE SKIES ARE CLOUDY, I mists as the Hebridean Ossian seeks his images in the vapouring M\d there is s, tumult of waves on the wraiths. Take the following of two shore; the wind sings in the pine. This — chiefs parted by their King : truth of local colouring is a strong argu- They sink from their king on either sido, men in proof of authenticity. I, for one, like tAvo corumns of morning mist wlien the will neveir belieive that Macpherson was sun rises between them on his glittering somewhat free translator. moi-e than a rocks. Dark is their rolling on cither side, " Despite Gibbon's sneer, I do indulge each towards its reedy pool. the supposition that Ossian lived and You cannot help admiring the image: Fingal sang," and more than this, it is and I saw the misty circumstance this my belief that these misty phantasmal very morning, when " the kingly sun Ossianic fragments, with their car-borne stnick the earth with his golden spear, heroes that come and go like clouds on and the cloven mists rolled backwards to the wind, their frequent apparitions, the their pools like guilty things." " stars dim-twinkling through their That a large body of poetical MSS. forms," their maidens fair and pale as existed in the Highlands we know. We lunar rainbows, i^re in their own literary know also that when challenged to do so, place worthy of eivery recognition. If you Macpherson think these poems exaggerated, go out at PKODUCED HIS ORIGINALS Sligachan and see what wild work the by depositing them at his publishers, pencil of moonlight makes on a mass of and intimated by public advertisement shifting vapour. Does that seem Nature, that he had done so, stating that hU or a madman's drea.m? Look at the persons interested in the matter might l)illowy • clouds rolling off the brow of call and examine them. No one, how- Blavin all golden, and on fire with the ever, called; Macpherson's pride was rising sun. Wordsworth's verse does not hurt, and he became thereafter more more completely mirror the Lake coun- obstinately silent and uncommunicative try than do the poems of Ossian the than ever. Tlierei needed no such mighty ten-ible scenery of the Isles. Grim and pother about the production of manu- fierce and dreaxy as the night wind is the scripts. It might have been seen at a strain, for not with lose and nightingale glance that the Ossianic poems were not liad the old bard to do; but with the forgeries—at all events that Macpherson thistle waving on the ruin, the upright did not forge them. Even the English stones that mark the burying-places of translation, to a great extent, the seiiti- heroes, weeping female faces white as the monts, the habits, the modes of thought

sea foam in the moon, the breeze described, are entirely primeval ; in mourning alone m the desert, the battles reading it we seem to breathe the and friendships of his far-oflf youth, and morning air of the world. " the flight of the dark-brown yeai-s." "Reading the Ossianic fragments is like These poems are wonderful transcripts if visiting the skeleton of one of the South Hebridean scenery. They arc as full of American cities; like walking through - ;

49 tli9 streets of disinterred Pompeii or speaking critics may expect the same

Tlerculaneoim. These poems, if rude and consideration that a. bull shows towards formless, are toucliing and venerable as articles of vertue in a crockery shop. some ruin on tlie waste, the names of These people are no doubt very estimabla builders are unknown; whose towers and men individually, but they are incom- walls, although not erected in accordance petent to deal with Ossian. No one with the lights of modern architecture, ignorant of the Gaelic language can form affect the spirit and fire the imagination a just opinion between the disputants. far more than nobler and more recent What would be said about one who argued piles: its chambers, now rooflesis to the about Greek or Hindustani, or any day. were ages ago tenanted by life and other language, who knew nothing oj death, joy and sorrow ; its walls ha\^e either? and a translation can be little been worn by time; ita stones channelled better than a mere guide. tears winter and fretted by the fierce of How can any outsider tell whether rains; broken arch and battlement on the Gaelic or the English of Ossian 's eveiy April for centuries has kindled a poems was the original langniage? Does light of desert flowers, and it stands not that very fact prove his incompetence mosses, muffled with ivies, bearded with to try the case? Of this type of writer and stained with lichens by the suns of we find Mr J. W. Smart, who published forgotten summers. The question arises, a work in April, 1905, emtitled "James was Macpherson a competent and faithful Macpherson: An Episode in Literature. ' translator of these MSS1 Did he He screens himself under the shadows produce the original in all its strength of a few well-known Celtic scholars; but and sharpness? On the whole, perhaps, if we are to be bound by the opinions of Macpherson translated the ancient High- a few, we must also reject Christianity as land poems as faithfully as Pope translated being a "fiction," for one of the most Homer; but his version is in many eminent philosophersi in Europe says it is respects defective and untrue. The and in the fulness of his own arrogance English Ossian is Macpherson's just as asserts that every educated man thinks the most popular English Iliad ^s the same! Pope's."* On the first page of his preface, Mr These are the opinions of a true poet, Smart says that the poems of Ossian "are and one capable of judging, as he actually as full of lamentations as the Book of witnessed the bold sce^nery of the West Job." This probably alludes to a passage Highlands, and had many opportunities quoted by Dr. Hugh Blair in his of watching with an inspired eye the " Critical Dissertation " as follows, on various transformations described in the the appearance of Trenmor's ghost to poems of Ossian. Oscar : —

In charging the opposition camp at Trenmor came from hi.s hill at the voice of the point of the bayonet, all non -Gaelic .'lis mighty son. A cloud like the steed of the stranger supported hia airy limbs. Hi.s * A Summer in Skye.—By Alex. Smith, robe is of the mist of Lano. that brings death :

50 to tlie people. HLs sword is a green meteor, the field, and however much respect may linlr extmgiiLsliod. His face is without form, be due to his labours, we can't for one thrice over the hero and dnrk. He sighed moment accept his conclusions. His work and thrice the winds of tlie night roared was mainly done by his coadjutor, Hector around. Many were his words to Oscar. He clever grammarian and slowly vanislied liic a mist that meUc; on MacLean, a tlie sunny hill. schoolmaster, one of those destructive Dr. Blair remarks—"To appearances of critics who felt on safe ground so long as this kind we can find no parallel among Macpherson's originals could not be Greek or Koman poets. They bring to recovered. mind that noble description in the Book As regards those who want " of Job : — HISTORICAL PROOF In tlioiights from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon man, fear came of everything, word for word, and line upon me, and trembling, which made all my for line, copies of Macpherson's "Ossian,"' hones to shake. Tlien a spirit passed before though these have not been found, closely face. The hair of my flesh stood up. It my similar compositions were discovered, and stood still, but I could not discern the form thei'e was nothing to prevent Macpherson thereof. An image was before mine eyes. There was silence, and I heard a voice^- finding the poems which he translated. " Shall mortal roan be more just than He found the ballads also, and rejected God." t them, as being non-Ossianic. The resemblance between Job and The same argument applies with much Ossian ends there. stronger force to such a collection of The assertion is reiterated that the ancient ballads as " Scott's Minstrelsy of poems are Macpherson's own composition, the Scottish Border," which does not worked out of some ancient ballads. If suffer the disadvantage of being a trans- so, how is it that they are so infinitely lation. superior to the said ballads and to It is certain that no literal copy of any Macpherson's English? Even the late one of the ballads collected and published J. F. Campbell, who is so often Mr by Sir Walter Scott could have been found "the quoted as a successful adversary, and by Yarrow or among the Cheviot Hills. The gi-eatest Scottish authority on Ossianic printed versions were collected by Scott literature," says that " Ossian " is a from the recitals of various persons, and bear only part resemblance to the tradition structure " founded upon facts—a work of each. built mainly of Scotch materials, worked In the same way Macpherson collected the Scotch minds long ago," which, of by various copies of ancient poems which he course, takes it out of the hands of the managfd to procure. Such gaps in the Irish entirely. If Scotch minds " long poems as occur in " Golna-dona " and the " ago " produced the poems of Ossian, why first duan of Ca-Lodin " offer te.stimony hio style work. This fact, togethcT not Ossian himself? It must never be to of with the difiiculty translation inevitably forgotten that Mr J. F. Campbell was introduces, besides the altering of titles and one hundred years too late of entering phoneticising of names which Macpherson effected, was quite sufficient to preclude the t Job, iv., 13-17. — — — •

51

possibility of any of his transcripts being meddled with the subject. It has never found complete and exact in the original.* been proved, and never can be, that report The of the Highland Society Macpherson was the author of these alludes this circumstance. — to It says: poems. Mr Smart's capacity for the work advantage possessed, The he (Macpherson) he has undertaken is well seen on page which the conrmittee began its inquiries too 10 of his book : — late to enjoy, of collecting from the oral recitation of a number of persons, now no The burden of his songs can best be shown more, a very great number of the same by a citation. It is the "Address to the poems on the same subjects, and then Sun," the most famous passage of all. collating these different copies or editions, Will Mr Smart " be surprised to learn" if they may be so called, rejecting what was spurious or corrupted, in one copy, and that Maepherson did not publish a trans- adopting from another something more lation of the " Address to the Sun,'' genuine and excellent in its place, afforded though it was well known tO' be in his opportunity putting him an of together what possession? And the translation of the might fairly enough be called an original Gaelic is not whole of much more beauty^ and with much fewer blemishes than the committee believe O thou that roUest above, round as the it now possible for any person or combina- shield of my fathers I Whence are thy tion of persons to obtain. beams, sunl thy everlasting light? Thou the stars Regarding the Irish poeons concerning comest forth in thy awful beauty ; hide themselves in the sky, the moon, cold Fion, Macpherson says of them: —"They and pale, sinks in the western wave, etc. are so inconsistent and notoriously fabu- lous that they do not deserve to be men- But is tioned, for theiy efvidently bear along thou that travellest on high. with them the marks of late invention.'' Round as warriors' hard, full shield, Whence thy brightness without gloom, " Giants, enchanted castles, dwarfs, pal- Tliy light which lasts so long, O Sun? freys, witches on broomsticks hovering Thou comest in thy beauty strong, round him like crows!" That's the sort And the stars conceal their path. of literature that is " now accessible tx) The moon, all pale, forsakes the sky, etc. !" f all Mr Smart, in his book, says: If If we turn the taibles and ask some of the world be asked to choose between these persistent questioners as to original Macpherson and Samuel Johnson, it will MSS., what about Miss Brooke's " Reli- declare at for the latter." our once Not queis of Irish Poetry " ? What do we Ossian. It was Johnson who said there find? These ballads were published in was not in existence a Gaelic MS. 100 years 1788, long after Macpherson had pub- old, and that women and children could lished " Ossian." The translation is have composed these poems ! Mr Smart, poetical, but far more paraphrastic than by way of appearing impartial, quotes Macpherson's. Her Irish originals were from all and sundry; but there are so printed from the writing of Mr many of the passages against his own O'Haloran, who had no ancient manu- contention that I am surprised he scripts to show, and who was never asked

sliow them ! It was of this party that ' Poems of Ossian, George Eyre-Todd. to Mr Hugh Campbell, F.S.A.,t writing in —^"In his latcT years when he had come to

1882, remarked : — speak of Ossian with contempt, he ex-

Bating the fanciful assertions of the Irisli plained Worther's love of it was the sign historians, Keating, O'Flaherty, and CHalo- of a morbid mind. Werther," he said, ran, Tvliich have long since been prov<'d " had praised Homer while he retained fabulous, illusive, nugatory, and absurd by his senses, and Ossian when he was going the hand of Time, we find that the frequent descents of Fingal upon the coast of Ireland mad." No intelligent person will accept were wholly occasioned by the distress or that a genius like Goethe, who went wants of his kinsmen of the Caledonian race about " preaching them earnestly among of Irisli Kings, or, more properly speaking, liis friends," would e-ver admit after- Kings of Ulster. It is necessary for outsiders wards that they were v/orthy of contempt. to remember that Trenmor, the great gi-andfatiier of Fingal had two sons Traha^ Tlie assertion rests entirely on a passage the grandfather of Fingal, and Connor, from the diary of Henry Crabb Robinson, called by the bards " Connor the Great." an English barrister, who made the This Connor appears by O-ssian to have been acquaintance of Goethe at Jena, and was elected King or Chief of Ireland, and was incompetent to form a correct opinion. ancestor rif Cormac, who sat on the Irish as tlu'one, when Swaran, King of Norway or He probably knew as little of German Lochlinn, invaded Ireland, and Fingal held he did of Gaelic. the sceptre in Morbheinn (Morven). Fingal "In Temora, where his faults culminated man-ied Ros-Ci-ana, daughter of Cormac, the the reader midway in second Irish Eang, and she was the mother (p. 17), stoiDS of Ossian. It will thus be seen that the bewilderment, scarcely gi'asping even the Ulster and West Highland royal families outline of the story." That would depend other, has were nearly related to each which on the kind of reader, and his capacity oau.sed a great deal of confusion in regard for appreciating poetry when he saw it. to the Ossianic dispute, each claiming the Dr. Smith of blind poet as a countryman. The famous Rev. John of the best Gaelic The principal residence of the Irish Campbeltown, one monarchs, according to Ossian, was at scholars of his day, held a different opinion. declares that " a poet in his Temora, in Ulsiter. TTiis Temora was at He closet could no more compose like Ossian the foot of the hill of Mora, which rose could act like him in the field, near the bordeirs of the heath of Lena, or than he Moi Lena, near the mountain Cromla. or on the mountain." As, howeveir, the opposition deny the Ho goes on to say that "in existence of a Moi Lena in Ulster, the the 7th Book of Temora, the facts regarding it will be taken up a little languagxj as well as the ideas, the kind later on. Meantime Mr Smart has to be of verse, the whole texture of the com- further dealt with. position, the every thing about it, wears On page 14 of his book, Mr Smart, such an air of antiquity, and has so regarding Goethe and his adoption of venerable, so grave, and so uncommon a the songs of Selma in preference to cast that the first critics in the language Homer for the "Sorrows of Werth or," say& scruple not to affirm that a modem could compose it than ho could by I An Irishman. no more '

charms bring down the moon from and songs and music and some mysterious heaven.'"* liquor which they drank out of shells, That should convince Mr Smart that which seiem to have been the only the're are two sides to' the question, f crockery that the Fingalians possessed. Dr. Smith further observes that The beauty of Ossian is in the apparent to imitate with success the uxaninor of Ossiaii truth of his narratives. His descriptions wiU be found difficult, but to counterfeit his of the " wild and grand, with which he style, his verse, and very language, infinitely was familiar, and his own vast genius, more so. Within these^ 30 years one or two were the only resources to which he cared professed Gaelic poets have attempted it, but they had only gone through a few stanzas to be indebted for his ornaments. By when they discovered, what every competent this means his compositions are marked judge had discovered before they had gone with a signature which they could never through so many lines, how unable they were receive from the lamp or from the closet, to support the character which they per- a signature which he alone could impress, souated. They immediately throw aside the who saw before him in that apartment in mask which so ill befitted them, and never aftoi-tvards resumed it. One of these poets which he mused those objects which ho wais in Glendovan, Argyllsliire, and the other describes, who bore a part in those in Glenlochy, Pertlishii-e. expeditions which he oelebrates^ and who " The fidelity of the descriptions," says fought in, those battles which he sings." " Mr Smart, can prove nothing for the " The suppression of the '45 Rebel- date of the poems." Of course not, but lion " had nothing to do with the it proves that an inland Highlander like inspii-ation of Ossian. All it did was to Macpherson was not familiar with sea bring about the extinction of the bards, pieees and west coast scenery and and to change the climate. The person who composed HABITS OF THE PEOPLE, Ossian's poems must have been familiar which were formerly so conducive to the with preservation of the poems. We shall now THE WEST HIGHLANDS quote one of Mr Smart's contradictions of " from his infancy. The sadness " of himself. On p. 30, Madame de Stael, speak- which he complains so much is nothing ing of the melancholy of English poems, to Edward Young's " Night Thoughts,"' " propounds the question, why the and many other poems. Too much has English, who are happy in their govern- beetn made of the melancholy character ment and their manners, have a much of these poems. There is, of course, a more melancholy imagination than the great deal of fighting and slaying and French?"' This very problem of Engiisii sentimental love displayed; but "if they melancholy—^the gravity and dejection of always fell," they were generally victori- the English poets—^was also discussed by ous, after which they had their feasts, Goethe, who put forward his own " " solution. And it is true that about that * Smith's "Gaelio Autiquilies. poetry taken melancholy t Lord Kaims in his "£ ketches of Man" produces period our had a many direct and collateral proofs of the authenticity bent " ! Why, then, find fault with of Ossian's poems. I —

54

Ossian ? The above is something like all phorson made use of " Duan a Ghairb "[| the other objections, such as—'"It was all (The Lay of Garbh), and " Teanntachd " " Macphersou's own work ; figments of mhor na Feinne "|| (The gi'eat strait of " " " Macphersons brain ; "he borrowed his the Finns) for his Fingal," as ReliquEe

' ' Ossian from the ballads" ; "it's as much Cclticaj" assorts, hov/ is is that, according

' his own as Paradise Lost ' was Milton's" ; to Mr Smart, Macpherson regarded thein " the key to Macphersons secret is in as " modern, the work of a pretended " our hands," etc., etc. It is hardly Ossian ? Macpherson was the last man necessary to point out that all these and who w^ould accept of a modem composi- similar expressions are pure fictions. No tion for his collection. It is not likely one knows, and no one can ever know that he used either of these poems for his what Macpherson had; but one thing is " Fingal," because in his letter of 10th certain that he had a great deal mora January, 1761, thanking Mr MacLagaii, thaai we have, and that he was quite he says " It is true I have most of them inca-jDable of composing the poems of from, other hands; but the misfortune is " " Ossian. Similarly with Mor-bheann that I find none expert in the Irish

—not the district of Morvem—and orthography, so that an obscure poem is " Selma " and other royal place names. rendered doubly so by their uncouth Though there is no mention of a King of spelling." Now, it is quite clear from the great mountains, Fingal was known this that he could not read these poems, in the West Highlands as " Righ na especially the " Teautach mor na Feine," Feiun " (the King of the Feinne), and and that it was on a first partial perusal " Selma," where his palace was (in Upper he considered it " valuable for the Lorn), still bears that name^ ajid there ancient manner it contains." But, better axe more than a still, these critics conceal the fact —that THOUSAJMD PLACE NAMES in the same letter Macpherson says " I have been lucky enough to lay my hands throughout the Highlands relating to on a pretty complete poem, and truly epic, Fingal and his heroes. J With reference concerning Fingal." It is evident, there- to the MacLagan MSS., Mr Smart says fore that he did not require to use cither that the minister of Amulrie's MSS., of these poems for his " Fingal." which had beeai preserved by his family, were brought to light, edited, and pub- There is no evidence worthy of the " lished, but they were not in his own hand- name to prove that the ballads were the writing, and he omits to mention that only originals Macpherson ever had." Mr MacLagan's collection sent to the Ho rejected these entirely as being non- Highland Society has also been lost, Ossianic, that is, not composed by Ossian. though his family did the best they could Some might have been mixed up witli to make good the loss of the originals. Ossians poems, but the latter are quite a Now comes the crucial point. If Mac- separate and distinct style of poetry,

5 See A. Carmichael's "Deirdire," aud other works I! Macphersou'H fepelling—" Duan a Gbairibh," and on "Ossian." " Teautach mor an Feine." "

55

which auy truo Highlander with a know- on the part of the compiler of " James ledge of Gaelic can at once distinguish Macpherson " to believe in legends in pre-

from the other. The same would be ference to Ossian's poems, which is re-

Greek to a Cockney. The most extraor- markable, to say the least of it. dinary thing is that neither Englishmen " Macpherson then produced spurious

nor many non-Gaelic-speaking Scotsmen, Highland poetry from the first day of iiis v/ith a few Highlanders could see anything- appearance as a translator. Why did l^e striking in what delighted and charmed thus deceive John Home?" There is not " foreigners. Schiller, in his Essay on the a particle of evidence to prove that .lie " Sublime," declared that a truer inspira- deceived John Home, or anybody else. Mr tion lay in the misty mountains and wild J. F. Campbell, who figures sO' largely in cataracts of Scotland than in the fairest the Taook under consideration as " the of meadows and gardens." greatest authority on Ossianic literature,'" Regarding the existence of two Oscars, admits that the "fragments" were per- nothing is more natural than that there fectly genuine. How, then, could Mac- should be more than one under such a pherson have deceived John Home? famous name. The wonder is that there The doubt expressed as to " Caracalla were not a dozen of them. The period is being a nick-name invented later, and too remote for any of us to dogmatise on scarcely used by the Romans till after his the subject, but it may be remarked that death," can be easily explained. The ob- Macpherson explained how a more cor- jection is a very trivial one. Ossian was rect copy of the original reached his not born when the battle of the Carro7a hand, by which meaoas he hastened to was fought. He was old when these correct an error into which he had fallen poems were written, and the son of regarding Oscar, the son of Ossian, killed Severus was nicknamed " Caracalla by Caiibre, and Oscar, the son of Caruth, four years after the battle of the Carron who killed Dermid; besides, he was not was fought, so there was plenty of time positively certain whether the poem was for the name to by Ossian, or by one who closely imitated EEACtH THE CALEDONIANS. his style. The third Oscar mentioned in Macpherson translates Caracul by " fierce Fenian legend as son of Garry, or Gar- ®y®j ' " garg-shiiil," or of old, " Carg," or raidh, may have been the same as Caruth 's ' " Karg"-shiiil, pronounced " garachuil, son, and the legend may not have been and the transition is not far to " caracul." fact, and It might also be translated " short tunic,' THE poet's licence or "dress." The word now written " " must also be borne in mind. If Mac- gearr was of old written with a hard " " " " "—" " carr pherson did trip here, it was the only in- c or k kearr," or —and " " stance. Several Gaelic poets have thought signifies short," while culaidh," pro- " " that Ossian had close imitators, but all nounced kuli," signifies dress," or " modern ones who tried signally failed. covering." There is a tendency here, as elsewhere Thus the two names seem to be the 56 same, but "fierce eye" would have done Tara, in Ulster, whilst it is actually in just as well, as Covalla distinctly meu- Meath." We don't deny that there is a tions that her enemy was the son of the Moylena in King's County, but that does king of tlie world, as shall be afterwards not aflect the one in Ulster. The place i.s explained. Caracalla was a fierce looking mentioned three times in Tiernach under man, and no doubt suited the appellation the years 161, 565, and 682 a.d., as in given him by the Caledonians, or the Ulster. In Ossian the most marked dis- Romans might have adopted the nick- tinction is made between " Tura " and name from them. Another objection is Teamhar, or Temora. The former ap- the use of the bow and arrow in battle, pears in OssiaJi to have been a seat of the so frequently mentioned in Ossian, and Cruithne in Ulster,t while he places the the reason given is that " the bow was latter considerably to the south, without not often employed by the Celts of the marking out its real situation, and implies heroic age," an.d because " the Irish are that it was the seat of the Irish kings. silent on the subject." This is another Patrick MacGregor, M.A.,|: barrister, instance of ignorance warping the judg- ^^ says : — ment. Bows and arrows have been used It has been urged that Ossian places since jarehistoric times.. The Caledonians Mod-lena-tlie jjlain of Lena~in Ulster, wliei-©- who fought Agricola's legions at the as it is in Meatli. The objection w.ould be Grampians, and they were Celts, used inconclusive, even if we oould not now dis- cover any such in them, as historiaas record that bows were name Ulster ; because it is very possible, that sixteen hundred years in use. They were used, though per- ago, tliere may have been in that province in battle, haps not every from that period a Lena of which no trace could be found. down to the battle of Inverlochy in 1431, But the fact is that, as Mr Skeno observes, when " Alistair Carrach " with his archers every Ii-ish antiquary knows there is a plain made his famous charge at the head of the of Lena in Ulster as well as in Moath, fre- cxuently mentioned in the annals. Tigernach Lochaber men, and scattered the royal lias " Raitli mor Muighe Line," in Ulster. The troops. The firbolgs, quiver men, or objection, therefore, only proves tlio ignor- arrow men, must also have used them ance or disingenuousness of those who urge against the Irish, so if they are silent oi] it. the subject, it does not follow that these A great deal has been written, about wea-e not exteoisively used the Red Book of Clanranald to Mac- IN ANCIENT TIMES, phcrson's detriment. The facts seejn to until spears and other weapons superseded be that at one time it really did contain them. In any case, the silence of the some Ossianic poetry, but " its covei'3 Irish does not affect Ossian s poems. have been cut off, and it has lost One of the most flimsy objections is the first 32 pages. How much it has lost where it is pointed out that Macpherson at the end it is now impossible to say " had placed Moylena* in Ulster, instead t Skeue'd Uighiaiiders of c:cotlaud, 1837. of King's County, and Temora, that is, } Tho Genuine Kemains of Ostiau. By Patrick * Or Moikeoa. MacGregor, M.A., &c., 1811. 57

That it once contained Ossianic poetry is just reiterates the views of well-known certain; it now contains none."* Celtic writers, whoso opinions are quite familiar to readers of Ossian. As As to the doubt expressed regarding

says : — the veracity of the Rev. Mr M'Diarmid, Matthew Arnold Strip Soo bland, if you like, of every feather of Weem, and the two " Addresses to the of borrowed plumes, but there will still be Sun," nothing can be plainer or more left in the book (Ossian) a residue with the straightforward than the rev. gentleman's very soul of the Celtic genius in it, and which account of them : — has the proad distinction of having brought I got the copy of these poems about 30 this soul of the Celtic genius into contact year« ago, from an old man in Glenlyon. I with the genius cf the nations of modern took it and several other fragments, now I Europe, and enriohed all our poetry by it. fear irrecoverably lost, from the man's mouth. All the modern Gaelic poets put to- people He had learned them in his youth from gethei' could not have produced the Gaelic in the same glen, which must have been long " Ossian " as we have it from Macpherson's before Macpherson was born." English. The thing would be simply That i5 much liker the tnith than that impossible to make it passable, and any- Goetho, after adopting some of them for one who thinks otherwise can try it. his " Werther " should afterAvards speak There are eleven poems for which we have of them with contempt. Mr M'Diarmid no Gaelic, and if anyone can put one or further says : — all these into I had -it one time a considerable number ANCIENT GAELIC of old poems, some of them part of what Mac- phorson has translated; but by lending them and ideas without tripping, it will be a from hand to hand, I cannot now possibly good argument against Maepherson; but trace them out. it must bo poetry. Captain Morrisou^s copy of the Though the era of Fingal and Ossian "Address to the Sun " differs from Mr can't be proved to the satisfaction of all, MacDiarmids original " Address " in there is strong evidence of their having Carthon in the 7th, 14th, 26th, 33rd, lived at a very remote period, especially 34th, and 35th linos, clearly showing that as regards certain incidents which agree the one was not a copy of the other. with well ascertained facts in history. Upon the whole, Mr J. L. Smart's In Colville's " Whigg's Supplications," book, as a contribution to the Ossianic written about 1680, the author mentions controversy, ecxhibits great bias against Fingal, and makes him a native of the authenticity throughout, from the Scotland. Sir David Lindsay, in his very first page to the last. evidently He " Satyre of the Three Estates," and Wm. nothing the himself, but knew of subject Dunbar, in his poem called " Interlude capital library at his elbow like the had a of the Droichis," both speak of the same scholar. is almost Berlin Dr. Stem, and hero, the latter making him a Highlander. It is as violent in his denunciations. Johnston, in the preface to his " Scottish he perfectly transparent, however, that History," says that the ancient Scots had their " Homers and Moros," whom thev * Reliquse Celticse, vol. II., 1891. — ;

58 termed bards. They sang the acliieive- been received as authentic history, and ments of their brave men in heroic verses the truth in all likelihood is that they adapted to the harp, and roused tho were really chiefs famous in tradition, minds of that generation to virtue, and who were gi-adually arranged into a transmitted examples of valour to regular succession of Scottish kings by posterity. ill-informed prejudiced chroniclers. Tt

Buchanan, the historian, also, after is therefore highly probable that the mentioning the great respect paid to the prototype of this Findocus was no other bards and the privileges they enjoyed, than the Fin or Fingal of Ossian.f " says " they compose poems by no' means Moore, in his History of Ireland," rude, which the rhapsodists recite to the says that Ossian makes Cuchullin con- chiefs or to the common people, who are temporary with Fingal, while some Irish eager to hear them, and they sometimes bards and chroniclers, who go by their sing them to musical instruments." authority, assign him a more remote era the Ist gravely tells Speaking of the Hebrideans, he says — cenutry—but he knighted at the age of they sing poems by no means inelegant, us that he was seven, that these chronic- which generally contain the praises of and bards and valiant men., and their bards hardly ever NoTE. —Barbour, in his heroic poem " Tlio treat of any other subject—a further Bruce," written about 1380, makes tlip Lord proof in favour of the bards. of Lorn© compare the conduct of King Robort at the battle of Dalree to tliat of Ganl do-

Though old chroniclers make no men- fending himself against Fingal : — tion of Fingal, yet we find they place one " H© said, metliink Mactheoes son Fin Docus (Fin the Good) in the middle Right as Gow Macmoni was won To have frae Fyngal his menzie." of the third century, the very period at Colville's " Whiggs Supplications," 1680, which, according to the poems, Fingal says • — must have flourished, while the qiialities " One man (quoth he) ofttimes hath stood. ascribed to this prince exactly accord And put to fliglit a multitude Luiko Sampson, Wallace, and Sir Brewis, with And Fin MacKoul beside th© Lewis." THOSE OF FINGAL. Sir David Lindsay, in his " Satire of the Three Estates," — They tell us he was tall, strong, and fair, says: " Here is relict lang humane, faithful to his promises, and a and braid Of Fyn MacOoul. the richt cliaft blaid, equitable in the distribution of justice, Witli teeth and altogetber." and his contests with the islanders bear a Dimbar says — considerable resemblance to those of "My fore gi-and syr hccht Fyn MacOoid, Tliat dang the deil and gart him youle."+ Fingal with the Scandinavians and Irish And again Belgue. It is now unquestionable that "Five thousand ©His gard till his frog (kilt). the old systeon of Scottish history is Of Hi.tland ploddis and mair." incorrect, but that those kings called Two of these make liim out a Higlilander. fabulous were all mythic personages, is t The Genuine Remains! of Ossian by Patrick exceedingly improbable, because a system MacRregor, M.A., Barrister, 1841. t The thra«hing given to the Doil probably alludes to of pure fiction could hardly ever have Fingal's conflict with Cru Lodin. — ;

Icrs are mere romancers, and commit the He marched to stop the progress of the most egTOgious anachronisms, making enemy, and Covala attended him. He Ossian contemporary with Corniac in the left her on a hill within sight of Caracul's

third century, and with St. Patrick in the army, having previously promised, if he fifth century, and prolonging his existence survived, to return that night. One of

even till the 12th century ! One of the the dramatis personas, Melhul-covaJ de- best reasons for assigning the poems to scribes an ominous appearance she had the 3rd century is the internal evidence jiist witnesised—a stag with his antlers which they afford. wi'eathed in flame, and the forms of the In the dramatic poem of Covala dead, seen in light. Her sister, Darsa- (Caomh-mhala.—mild eye-brow) there are graine,§ intei-prets it as a sign of the incidents mentioned which place it in the death of Fingal. Melhul-cova noticing 3rd century with considerable probability, Covala as she sat alone intently gazing on

if not Math actual certainty, provided the plain, asked her where Fingal was? alwa.ys that the Roman historians are Covala, awakened from her reverie, speaks correct, as the " Caracul " mentioned in a;s follows: — it is the same with " Caracalla," the son Oarron, O Oairron of Streams! of the Emperor Seveirus, who in the year Why see I thy watere in blood, 211 A.D. commanded an expedition against and asks if Morven's king, the great one, the Caledonians. The passages are too had slept. She calls upon the daughter long to quote, but tradition has handed of the night (the moon) to look down " down the story that Covala or C'omala, from heavens' clouds, or thou blue the daughter of Sarno, King of Inistore lightning of death come with hissing or Orkney Islands, fell in love with flash " from Ardnen, to show her her " Fingal, the son of Cumhal, at a feast to brave one in light. Stretched on the which her father had invited him upon field, while I am full of tears," etc. his return from Lochlin, after the deatJi Hildallan now approaches and says that " leaderless on of Agandecca. Her passion was so vio- the chiefs of shields are lent that she followed him disguised like the field." a youth who' wanted to be employed in Covala, recoiling from the belief— in the liis wars. She was soon discovered by reality of the dark vision, asks; " Who Hidallan,* the son of Lamor,t one of has fallen at Carron of banks, son of the " Fingal's heroes, whcse love she had darkness of night which is cold ? slighted before. Hetr romantic passion Hildallan aigain declares that he is and beauty recommended her so much indeed dead, and she breaks forth to the King that he had resolved to make Trouble track thee on the field, her his wife, when the news was brought May danger aye be thine, Great King Unto the gi-ave not many be thy steps, him of One maid be left behind in sorrow; caracalla's expedition. Be she as Covala under gloom, etc

" " * Hildallan signifies " lightiiiug." X Meallshtiil-Chaomh," winning and mild eye." "^Dearrea-Greine," "sunshine" or "sunbeam." t Lamor—L^mh Mhor—"large hand." S —— ; — ,

GO

After beseeching those who are to REMAEK^^LE COINCIDENCE huilcl his tomb not to .place him out oF of the description of the battle at Carron, her sight, Melhul-Cova, hearing the voice corresponding with historical facts, can t of joeople advancing towards them, asks be explained away by saying that who tliey are ? Covala, anticipating every " Caracul " might not have been Cara- woe, says : — calla, the son of the Emperor Severus, for Co ach an namhaid aig caomh-nilial Covala distinctly states that her enemies Mac righ an domhain 's a shhiagh. are Wlio he that is Oovala's foe, but Mac righ an domliaiu 's a sliluagli, The world King's son, and bis hiost, etc. Tb© son of the King of tbo world and bis Fingal, ignorant of all that had taken host. place, calls on his bards to celebrate his The victory must have been pretty victory at Carron. complete, as the bards talk of a long peace,

B-aise ye, ye mouths of song, and say that the sounding shields will hang Raise on high the war at OaiTon! against the wall, that their future foes Fled Caracul and bis hosts f]-om my arras, will be strangers that come from the Fled he across the fields of pride. If north, and that their hands shall redden Darsa-graine now infonns Fingal that in the blood of Lochlin. Covala had killed three deer, and invites From this it is evident that the Norse- him to the feast which she had prepared men must have been troublesome prior for him. Again, charging his bards to to the time of the battle on the Carron, express his joy in going to her feast, he and the latter being the well-known river says : CaiTon, or winding river, near Stirling, Raise a voice, yo race of times, in the vicinity of the Roman wall and On the conflict of strong ones at Carron! camp, it is clear that the Caledonians Be joy to the wbite-baiiid of bills, made a distinction between the two 'When I behold ber fea.st on Ai-dven. hostile peoples. Then the bards sing: — The frequent allusion by many writers Roll, Carron, roll thy stream. to Ossian St. Patrick for the purpose In joy to-day do thou flow onward and Fled have the strangers of the haughtiest of confusing issues demands some further voice, notice here. The persecution begun by No more shall their war horse be seen on the Dioclesian in the year 303 A.D. is the biU. most probable time in which the first In the beginning of Carric-Thura there dawning of Christianity in the north of is also mention of the battle of the Britain can be fixed. The humane and Carron mild character of Constantius Chlorus. The conflict of Carron is far away. then in Britain, induced the persecuted Taking the whole poem of Covala, it Christians to take refuge under him. supplies vei-y strong evidence in favour of These missionaries took possession of the the antiquity of Ossian's poems. The cells and groves of the Druids, and it rotii'od life they tlie ^ Or " The fields of the height." was from this had 61 name of Culdees (Cviklich or Cuiltich). that it was in 252, others in 283. Ac- Be that as it may, it was with one of cording to the 4 masters, Oscar and these Cairber wei-e killed at the battle of

EARLY MISSIONARIES Gabhra in 284 ; others say it was in 296 ! that Ossian, in his old age, disputed Ossian does not say how or when his concerning the Christian religion. If father, Fingal, died ; but we have some 0=!siaii then lived at the introduction of evidence concerning it from the poems Christianity, his epoch would be the lat- themselves " Fingal," Duan V., line ter end of the 3rd century and beg-inning 420, where he tells us how for days and of the 4th cerntury. nights he sits on the hill by his tomb, The exploits of Fingal against Caracalla, touching it with his hands, as he can no " the son of the King of the World," are longer see it, and as tradition points to among the first brave actions of his youth. Glenalmond and Killiu as being tho In the yeai- 210 A.D. the Emperor localities where both were buried, we Severus, after returning from his expe- accept this locality as the most likely, in dition against the Caledonians, took iil absence of better evidence. at Yoi'k and died there. So it was in 211 In ancient times, v, hen people lived so that the battle of the Carron alluded to much in the open air, it is quite possible in the poem was fought against his son that some might still be vigorous at tho Caracalla. space of time between The age of 100 years. The writer saw a 211 and the beginning of the 4tli century man in Skye in 1894 hale and hearty and is not so great but Ossian might have able to run at the age of 107.* At that seen the Christians the peTsecutions whom age he could walk many miles. Iain Lorn of Dioclesian had driven beyond the pale is said to have composed a song at the of the Roman Empire. age of 100. This has been denied; but In one of the many lamentations on the the evidence in its favour is strong. It death of Oscar, a battle which he fought is no use therefore fighting about dates against " Caros " on the banks of the in the early centuries. The main point Carron is mentioned among his great is the poeims are there, and we know actions. This or not have been may may from their character, their vigorous and Caransius, " King of ships," who assumed figurative language and sublime ideas that the pnrple in ; but since he repaired 287 James Macpherson, though clever, was Agricola's wall in the neighbourhood of not equal to the task of conceiving or tho Carron to obstruct the composing them, which could only have INCURSIONS OF THE CALKDONIANS, been done by some untrained natural it was probably the same. Too much, * shepherd of Glenquaich, Glen- bv James Grieve, a howeiver, is made of the dates given garry, is still living at W histlefleld, Loch Long side, of and in possession of all his faculiies, historians. at the age 107, the Irish writers and atid able to do a fair day's work; and James Mac- iN'ally, a native of King's County, ased 109, still There is no certainty that Fingal died living in the Home of the Little Sisters, South Lam- in 283 A.D. Some of the historical beth, is in tho po.ses^^icn of all his faculties, and is a moderate smoker and drinker of spirits, especially writers of the 10th and 11th centuries sav rum. !

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gcinius long before Macphersou's time, The Irish call their own language and we have the best evidence of that in " Gaelic Eirinach," that is Caledonian his own published writings and the Irish, and the dialect of North Britain opinions of cont-emporaries capable they call "A Ghaelic," or the Caledonian of judging after being in contact with tongue. him, and of most impartial and modern The traditional poems of the Irish poets. concerning the Fiona, or the heroes of "Fion MacComnal," say that Fion was a Though of course the question could General of the militia of Ireland in the be argued, the dialect of the Celtic tongue reign of Cormac the 3rd century; but spoken in the north and west of Scotland m where Keating and O'Flaherty learned seems much more full, more agreeable to that Ireland had an embodied militia so its mother language—the writer is aware early has not transpired. of treading upon tender toes here^—and more abounding in primitives than that The bard who describes Fion's gigan- now spoken, or which has been written tic size cede® him to Scotland in the for centuries among the most ujimixed following lines: — part—if there is any such part'—of the Fion Albin, Siol nan laoich! Fion from Albion, of heroes Irish nation. The wretched writing and race contractions of ancient Irish MSS., and The Irish poems concerning the Fiona fix no doubt their equally bad spelling, per- the death of Fingal in 286 A.D. ; yet haps done phonetically by uneducated his son, Ossian, is made contemporary joersons, can never settle the superiority with St. Patrick, who preached the or jjriority of Irish Gaelic. From the time Gospel in IreJand about the middle of

of the Dananns and Firbolgs, they have the fifth age ! Ossian, though at that been more or less mixed with other races, time he must have been two hundred and and these must have influenced their fifty years of age, had a daughter young language considerably. Though the enough to become wife to the Saint. On

Norsemen left their mark in the way (jf this account he was frequently in Ossian's place-names in the West Highlands, they bouse, and drunk freely. f Tliis is in did not destroy the language. A Pligh- "Teantach mor na Fiona,' "founded on "The lander conversant with his own language Battle of Lora." The circumstances and understands Irish compositions. An catastrophe in both ai'e much the same, Irishman, on the other hand, without the but the Irish Ossian discovers the age ju aid of study,, cant understand a compo- which ho lived by an unlucky anachron- sition in the Gaelic tongue, affording ism. After describing the total route of some proofs that Erragon, ho concludes with this remarkable anecdote, that none of the foe escaped THE SCOTCH GAELIC but a few who were permitted to go on is the most original, and cdnsequently t"Lo don rabh Padric na mhor. the language of a more ancient and Gun Sailni air uidh, ach a gol' unmixed people. Ghluais o thigh Ossian nihic Khion, O san leis bu bhiun a ghloir," — — — — — §

63

a pilgrimagG to the Holy Land ! Tliis DIFFEES FEOM OSSIAN. circumstance fixes the date of the compo- After Oscar was mortally w^ounded by piece centuries after sition of the some Cairbar, he was carried by his people r,o the famous Criisade, for it is evident the a neighbouring hill, which commanded a poet thought the time of the Crusade so prospect of the sea. A fleet appeared at ancient that he confounded it with the a distance, and tlie hero exclaims with age of Fin gal. joy— No wondei- should James Macpherson Loingeas mo shean-athair at an, reject " Teantach mor na Fiona " as Siad & tiachd le cabhlair chugain, spurious, though at first glaarce he con- O Albin na n' ioma stuagh. It is fleet grandfather, sidered it " interesting on account of the the of my Coming vnth aid to our field from ancient maruiers it contained." Erragon, Albion of many waves ! in the course of this poem, is often The testimony of the bard is sufiiciont called to confute the idle fi.ction of Keatingl K.igh Lochlin an da sbloigh. and O 'Flaherty, for though he is far King oi Denmark of two nations from being ancient, it is probable he which alludes to the union of the king- flourished full century before the doms of Norway and Denmark, which s, liistorians. From the instances given, the happemed under Margaret de Waldemar reader may form a complete idea of the at tiho close of the 14th century. Modern, Irish compositions concerning the Fiona. however, as this pretended Ossian was, The greatest part of them make the it is certain he lived before the Irish had heroes of Fion dreamed of appropriating Fion or Fingal Siol Albin a n' nionia caoile. to themselves. He concludes the poem The race of Albion of many firths. with this reflection On the 30th of January, 1894, the late Had Erragon, son of Annir of gleaming Professor of swords, avoided the equal contest of arms Rev. Eugene O'Growney, (single combat), no Chief should have after- Gaelic, Maynooth College, Ireland, lec- wards been numbered in Albion, and the tured in Glasgow, on " Scotland in Irish named. heroes of Fion should no mor© be Literature." As this learned scholar " The next poeim is Cath-cabhra," or must have had his fmbject at his finger the death of Oscar. This piece is ends, it will no doubt be interesting to tlie story which have founded on same we many who have heard so much about the " in the first book of Temora." So little " mother land " of the Scottish Gael to " " cf thought the author of Cath-cabhra follow his evidence concerning all things making Oscar his countryman, that in ancient from an Irish standpoint. The the course of 200 lines of which the poem Professor remarked that " at the consists, he puts the following expression present ' day, although we have no good the hero three times in the mouth of history of the Irish literature, we can Albin an sa d'roina m'arach. Albion, where I was born and bred t"The Livy of Irish Literature." § "Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian" by Hugh In one circumstance, the bard Campbell, 1822, 64 study its extent and character in O'Ctxrry's the Christian era the most intimate

' Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish connection with Alban." So much for History,' eic, and that the older Gaelic Mr Mael-Muras opinion. If the two literature is to a great extent a common countries had such intimate relations inheritance of Irishmen and Scotsmen, about the first century they mvist have for it belongs to the time when the spoken the same language, therefore it two countries formed one Gaelic nation could not have died out in the third — ' with common language and literature. century—the era of Ossian " Deirdire, From his remarks the following may be Macpherson's " Darthula," he makes out gathered : — a princess and a ward of King Conor Mac ' In the beginning there were no Gaels Nessa, b}' whom she was carefully guar- in Scotland, at least none known by that ded, but she eloped with one"'^ of the three name." " Possibly the eai'lier tribes that sons of Usna, who, with his two peopled Scotland before the second brothers, made his way to Scotland. century A.D. were also Gaelic or Celtic, Here they dwelt for some time, and re- relying the promises of but we have no certain knowledge of it.'' tm-ned, upon

" Then, again, the name ' Scotland ' did Conor, who afterwards murdered them. not belong to this country until the 10th Mr Alexander Carmichael, in his the century, so I shall call it by its old name interesting work, "Deirdire and Lay Uisne," this of 'Alban.' " " We shall never know the of the Children of makes true story of the ancient races that, Irish beauty out to have been a daughter coming from the East, populated Europe of Colum Cruitire (Colum the Harper), and these countries." m the time of King Conachar, King of Uisne. " Even in the earliest Irish traditions Ulster, and the three sons of Aillean, Scotsmen of which we have any knowledge, Ireland Naos, and Ardan, the side of Etive. Though is represented as intimately connected from Loch versions of the legend, with Scotland." Mael-Mura, of Donegal, there are many Cai-michael seems to have successfully who is said to have been the author of the Mr Uisne on the shores of Loch " Duan Albannach," in describing the located Clann Milesian and Queen Scota who ruled Etive. The place-names are too numeroiis to have resulted from temporary resi- over them before they came to Ireland, a interlopers. The district of says she bare a son named " Gaedhal dence of Etive, says Carmichael, is Glas," and from Loch Mr deeply identified with Deirdire (Darthula) THESE TWO PERSONAGES and the sons of Uisne. " The old people came the name of Scoti or Scots, and who lived on the sides and at the head Scotia or Scotland, and Gaedhil or of Etive, the glens and " Loch and among Gaelic jieople ! Whence or when this mountains in the vicinity, spoke much of powerful race arrived in Ireland we do

' Deirdire ' and the sons of Uisne, and not kr.ow ; but as to its connection with an old man named Duncan Macniven, Scotland, Irish legends depict them as

having had from the first century before * But docs not give his name. ! ! ;

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traditional story in an itinerant teacher, who spent a long There— is a better life amongst them, related that the Skye: Skye, hear- people were full of old stories and old Targlas, a bard in the north of ing of Cuchullin's expedition to Ireland, rhymes. The stories and poems were comes to recite an ode he composed in his everything the sun and moon and about — honour, but the fleet was under sail as he stars, old feuds, battles, cattle raids, appeared upon tlwj coast, and he I'ecited the poems about Ossian, Oscar, Fion, and following fragment to Bragela, whom he

on the sea. shore : — Cumhal and Ctichullin, etc., and that found weeping chill cuairt mo shiuhhail 's an trath they were a grand people with all their Air maidne, old faults and beliefs." Tharnail mo cheum ri aodann chuain, Professor O'Growney says that Cuchul- Fa m' diomair san aird bhoisg hhriste shixil oruinn seolaidh, liu, the Achilles of the Irish poets, was Thog air mo Mar earb a thogas a cas ri ard leaoan almost a Scotsman, and that all old Irish 'N am sgath 's nam chlisgeadh 'nam chom traditions make him out a nephew of Ghrad ghlaodh mo mhacmeanmu an caithream Conor, and after preparatory training at Sud luingeas ard laoich Eilean a' Cheo, home, he was sent toi the Isle of Skye to Cuchullann an train fhear finish his military education at the Following the course of my journey in the early morning, my footsteps rested in view college of arms at Dunsgaich, which was of the sea. Opposite me in the heaven in these days open to the Gaelic world. effulgent there rose to my vision the masts This is one of the most surprising bits of sailing ships going like the roe when she of Irish legend. One would think that lifts her foot to climb the steep hillside. startling of my frame the hero described in the " Tain Bo From the fear and the my imaginative instinct caused me instantly Cuailgne," who slew "ten kings over to shout aloud—Yonder is the fleet of the seven fifties," etc., in his boyhood, and illustrious hero of the Isle of Mist,' CuchuUin was knighted at the age of seven, would the mighty not require to travel as far as remote Na thalla togaidh mi chliii le bii-iathaibh Skye to learn the use of arms. There is deas dileas gu'n ruig e. in something suspicious and superfluous here. In his halls I shall sound his praise words effectual and loyal that he may arrive It looks as if the Irish were determined in safety. to appropriate the chief of the " Isle of is admitted by Professor O'Growney Mist," and It that there is strong traditional evidence MAKE AN IRISHMAN that even before the Christian era. Ireland Scotland by of him. Even the etymology they give was closely connected with chiefs the reputatioii of the name is not satisfactory, viz., the marriage of and for " Cu-Chulain " (Culan's dog). The name of Scotland as a training ground given him by Cathbad, the Druid, warriors; but a more interesting fact is prehistoric " Guth-Ullin " (the voice of Ulstei'), that Scotland was known to poetry and learn- would be better, determined by his Ireland as the school of is in favour of Ossian 's function as regent of the north of ing, all of which foundation in fact. Ireland. poems having some GG

At the end of represented as having lived in the fourth century in Ireland, but had offshoots in THE HEROIC PERIOD, Scotland." which, h© says, coincided with thei "open- Similarly, when he says that " almost ing of the Christian era, Ireland and all the literature preserved in Scottish Scotland were practically Pagan for four MSS. is poetic," it is another point '"n " first entry in the centuries. The very favour of Ossian. Though the whole of Irish annals of this period has reference the poetic literature is in modern Gaelic, to Scotland The population was divided " no doubt the text was modcTnised, as into classes the warrior or noble class — every text is, century after centurj'," class, hewers of and the bond the wood " but we may assume with moral cei'tainty and drawers of water. The result of that the Ossianic literature was begun in much oppression was that the bond people those days when rose and almost annihilated the nobles." THE BARDIC SCHOOLS Amongst those who escaped was Queen Baine, who was of Scottish descent, and flourished throughout the country to- who fled into Scotland, where she gave wards the end of the sixth and seventh birth to a son, who afterwards was centuries." We are thankful for even restored to his throne in Ireland. This this admission; but we squirm at the was at the beginning of the 1st century. possibility of little of it having siirvived, " except an little poem written in Soon afterwards wo have three Irish mon- odd archs, Conn, Ai-t, and Cormac Conn the severe old Gaelic metre." first half the second century, reigned in the of Popular literature would grow from and his successor Conry was the father of generation to generation, and it is not at Oairbre, Riada, from whom sprang tlie first Scots who came to Scotland, and who brought all likely to have been allowed to die out, there the common use of the Gaelic language. though ecclesiastics, at different times, killed as much as they could of it. " The Let us see now how we stand. If the Irish Ossianic ballads are productions of " migi'ation into Scotland was continued the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, for three centuries after the second written in the spoken Gaelic of the period. century," thei'e was no necessity for Many of the Scottish Ossianic ballads introducing them again at the end of the given in the Dean of Lismore's Book fifth century, for, according to E. W. B. appear to be much older." Nicholson, the language of the Picts was identical with the Irish, differing far less One objection to the Dean of Lismore's from it than the dialects of some English Book is that it can prove nothing. It counties from each other, which complete- was written at the beginning of the ly undennines all this Dalriadic theory Reformation, and is in phonetic Gaelic, and the " motherland " of the Gael. and the dialogues with St. Patrick arc Coming down to Ossian, the learned Irish, not Scotch. Anyhow, the " early Professor speaks with equal confidence proso Ossianic literature has been when he says that " the Fiann are influencrd to some extent by Scotland." " In the 7th century a Scottish chief NAVIGATE THE OCEAN.

was obliged to fly into Ireland, and his In such curachs, accoiding to Solinus, it

paasagt? is thus mentioned (O'Curry, ii., was common to pass over from Ireland. 164-6)— Adamnan, in his life of St. Columba, describes one of these with all the parts "Well, now," said Cano, "we will go into of a ship with sails and oars, and with the land of Erin to a friend of ours." A curach is made by his orders. They went capacity for passengers, and adds that down to the sea shore. This was the order in this roomy currach St. Cbrmac sailed in which they went down to the sea. Fifty into the North Sea, where he remained warriors of them—^a crimson five-fold cloak fourteen days in perfect safety. The on each man, two flesh-seeking sfjiears in early Christians got as far as Iceland. hand a gold-rimmed shield at his back, a gold-hilted sword at his girdle, his gold- Claudius, the poet, in the 4th century yellow hair falling down his back. This was under Theodosius, says the Scottish the order in which their wives went with rowers made the se^a foam with their them—Each wore a green cloak with hostile oars. borders of silver, an inner garment inter- In Joyce's " Social History of Ancient woven with red gold thread, brooches of gold with earrings, and adorned with gems Ireland," it says that curachs intended of many colours, necklaces of highly for long voyages were made large and burnished gold, a diadem of gold on their strong, finished with masts and solid heads. The fifty servants who went with decks and seats. them wore tunics of yellow silk ; each bore on his back a chess board with gold and The knowledge of the ancient world silver set of chess-men. A bronze harp in was not shut up in compartments. The

the left hand of each servant ; two hounds Phoemicians, in 1260 B.C., landed m on a silver chain in his right hand. Spain, and from Spain and Gaul passed The curach which carried such an over into England and Ireland. imposing company of swells and their The Celts and Scandinavians had plenty retinue of servants must have been of opportunities of learning about GreeJv considerable, not the " frail " craft usually and Roman galleys. The " amber " route associated wit'h the name of " curagh." from the Adriatic to the Baltic is one of While on this subject it may be as well the oldest trade routes in the world, and to reply to the frequent objection made there is the voyage of Pytheas, a Greek of regarding ships being unknown to the Marseilles, contemporary with Alexander Caledonians in the 3rd century. Csesar the Great, 300 B.C., who sailed up the describes the curaehs as being accommo English Channel to the coast of Norway, dated with keels and masts of light wood. and heard of, if he did not reach the There is also evidence of the larger ones North Cape. containing sleeping berths, besides masts The Vikings had been infesting the and spars, the wicker work being covered Western Isles since the first century, and with hides or leather. Lucan calls them the Roman fleet liad sailed round the " little ships," and adds that the Britons coast of Britain, as did Ptolemy in the were wont to second centuiy. During the latter '

G8

period of the Roman rule in Britain, the unknown at the time James Macpherson's North Sea and the Channel were infested " Ossian " was first published. by Saxon pirates, who became such a The people who talk of Ossian's poems scourge that the Romans appointed a as being " unidiomatic Gaelic " are as special officer to look aftea- the east coast. often as not critics who do not know one These facts seem to point out that to single word of Gaelic ! When a Gaelic CROSS THE GERMAN OCEAN scholar like Patrick MacGregor, MA., who translated all Ossian's poems from in those early times was quite feasible. the Gaelic w.e have, speaks of them as Similarly, as regards the use of -chariots being " remai-kable for their idiomatic and arrows, Tacitus relates that both and concise style," his opinion is surely were used at the battle of the Grampians worth more that by the Caledonians, and javelins as well. than of a non-Gaelic speaking individual who can't go into the In April, 1904, a highly finished sun case, and better than of a Celtic scholar chariot was discovered in a moor of who goes entirely by artificial grammati- Seelaud, in Denmark. From the site cal rules. Who can tell what was where it was found, it is supposed to be considered idiomatic in the 3rd centuiy no less than 3000 years old ! It is now or much later, when the clerics of Deer, in the museum at Copenhagen, and an in the 12th century, misplaced nouns and Etruscan chariot of 500 B.C. has receoatly adjectives, and spelt the same word been received into the Metropolitan differently in the same page? We need Museum of Art of New York, for which, not go any further. Professor Blackic the smart AmeTican says, " the director held that the English of " Ossian " Is of every European museum would give " forced and unidiomatic." When phil- his eye teeth to possess it." And, to ologists differ, who is to decide the clinch the matter, Solomon had 1400 question ? chariots. The everlasting' objection made to these In Chalmers's " Caledonia," it is said poems is that they are sombre and melan- that the armouries of the Britons were " ^-^ choly, too full of sentiment, bombast," generally furnished with helmets, and "turgid nonsense!" The people shields, spears, daggers, swords, battle who can see no beauty in " " are axes, and bows and arrows, and the Ossian beyond arguing with. They are devoid common men fought on foot provided of the poetic soul. it is sentiment with shields, spears, swords, bows, and Why, that keeps us together as family. battle axes. These accoutrements have a human Life would not be worth living without been mostly found in the graves of the it. It is a sign of refined feelings. All warrior. Ossian speaks of stags' antlers poets it less. being buried with Oscar. Very strange the have more or It seems part and parcel of our existence, and tlio to say, this mode of ancient burial was more imaginative it is the higher the * Diodorus Siculus mentions that the Celts wore chord it strikes. A man who takes his helmets (frequently mentioned in "Ossian"). See " " Anderson's "Scotland in Pagan Times." Ossian from the " Encyclopnedin G9

Brittannicai." believes in. a chimera. prejudice aside and affirm tliat whoever com- That James Macpherson mixed the posed the poems attributed to Os:iian, Jameii

Macpherson was not the maai ; that supposed heroes of two supposed different and what- ever merit may belong to him as a translator, cycles that is no proof that he had no — or whatever claim he may have to be con- originals. These cycles of romance are en- sidered tlieir compiler, in their present form tirely legendary, and have no historical bas- lie has no legitimate title to be called their is, and are absolutely worthless to found author. Then the an argument upon ; whereas the poems of question comes, if James Ossian, whether founded on fact or fable, Macpherson was not the author, who was? are magnificeint relics of byegone ages. That is just what we are trying to get at Similarly with regard to the battle of by a process of synthesis and exclusion. " Gabhra," we do^ not know when it was Thei-e is no use m our breaking our fought, as Ireland had no authentic hearts over dates so far back as the " history at the time it is supposed to have early centuries. Whether in the War of happened. It behoves us, therefore, to Caros " Oscar fought, as already men- " approach datesi at such an early age with tioned, against Carausius, King of the greatest possible caution. The Ships," or against some other Caros, Roman historians axe far more reliable cannot be ascertained for certain. The than ours, as they wrote of us, not for us. poem describes Oscar as distinguishing himself in battle against Caros at the Among the poems of Ossian are many river Carron. The usurper Carausius, pieces of eixceeiding strength and beauty, who assumed the purple in 284 or 287, which oould only have been accomplished seized Britain, and defea.ted the Emperor by a man of Maximian Herculius in several naval IMMENSE NATURAL GENIUS, engagements. If this was the Cai'os of which Macpherson's best friends would the poem, it would would make Fingal, never dream of claiming for -him. who fought on the Carron in 211 A.D., Many able men and Gaelic scholars old, as he was still alive when Oscar was have criticised these poems from several killed by Cairbar in 284 or 296 (Book I. standpoints; but two of the most of " Temora ")• times were the Rev. competent in recent Irish histories place the death of Fingal, Dr. Clerk, of Kilmallie, already largely the son of Cumhal, in 283, and Oscar drawn upon, and the late Rev. Thomas and Cairbar in 296. If the Irish histories " " Gaelic Pattison, author of The Bards are true, Fingal could not have seen the (1866), an Islay man, an excellent death of Oscar in 284 or 296 ; but there Gaelic- scholar, and a man of exemplary is no reliance to be placed on bare dates piety judgment. His opinion and capable so far back as the 2nd or 3rd centuiy.

was : — Were it not for the Roman writers, the When we consider that the finest parts of thing would not be worth wasting ink ]\I;icpherson's Ossian are incontestaibly proved upon. to have been popular poetry long anterior great pertin- to hia appeai'ing. I think we should throw all Some writers argue with acity on the strength of these legendary part of the British Colonies, I have z-oad with tJie fullest appreciation tlie letter of Dr. dates, which can have no pre'tention to Keith MacDonald on the veracity of James REAL HISTORICAI. ACCURACY, Macpherson and on tae geaiuine quality of and of course create a great deal of our grand old Ossianic epics. In order to of from being ques- confusion. Some say Fingal died in 252, shield one his statements tioned by those Avho are puffed up with too others in 283, and others, again, in 286. little real knowledge, may I be allowed to battle of Gabhra was fought in That the state the fact as it was given to me fi'om tlie 284; others, again, say it was in 250 lips of my near relative, who found the Gaelic A.D. The strongest evidence we have is copy of Oseian, as quoted by Dr. Keith Mac- that the battle fought between Fingal Donald? It was not William Wliyto who found the book, but Daniel Johnston, his and Caracalla was in 211 A.D., but of wife's nephew, and aftenvards their son-in- even that event wo can't be certain. law. There might have been several battles. William Wh\i;e was a Lowlauder, and or Similarly with regard to Oscar, Caros, learned Gaelic alter coming to the Highlands. Carausius, it can only be guess work. Daniel Johnston knew Gaelic from his boy- To reduce all these dates and events hood, and was well able to i-ead it. When a bay he found tlie book in a field and took it into order requires the greatest possible home to his old grandfather, who was too caution, as it might land us in a plight blind to read it ; but the boy was able to do " similar to the Dalriadic delusion!" so, and his grandfather listened eagerly, in According to O'Grownoy, the Dannan's, order to judge whether the poems were or people of Danu—who was their chief worthily presented to the public. He was abundantly satisfied and delighted, and ex- goddess—are represented in legendary pressed himself to that effect, saying that they lore as having to Ireland from come were faithfully rendered, and were such as Scotland,* and the Firbolgs reached the lie had known them all his life. He was a Western Isles and erected their stone generation older than William Whyte. circles there and elsewhere. This grain of fact was repeated to me in As these remarks may be read at some youth by my uncle, the late Mr David John- ston, and kept my faith in the genuine char- future time after this generation has acter of our noble heritage of poetry firm passed away, the following letter written and unshaken. A grain of fact is worth any from New Zealand on the 25th January, amount of speculation. 1902, be of some interest as bearing may As regards the memories of tiieso old folks, upon the genuineness of Ossian's poems. I know many instances of people who could The incident referred to related to a go on endlessly repeating psalms and old Gaelic copy of the poems picked up in a songs. There were tlu-ee persons at one time living at Bonawc who could have restored field on the slopes of Ctuachan, near between them every verso of the Bible liad

Bonaw, in Argyllshire, many years ago : tlio book been lost. William Wliyte was one Ma.sterton, New Zealand, of thoso three. —I am, etc., 2.'5th January, 1902. A Granddaughter of Willum Whyte. [to the editor of " IHE OBAN TIMES."] Bearing on the same question is the Sir, —In your issue of the IGtIi December, 1901, whicli lia« just arrived in this remote following letter from a Skyo correspond- "

eiifc to "The Oban Times," of the 8tb genius far beyond anything else that Februaiy, 1902: — James Macpherson produced, and then " OSSIAN OR NO OSSIAN." to have suddenly stopped—though he lived years after never [to the editor of "the OBAN TIMES."] many —and again. Sir,-For the benofit of those of your readers courted the poetic muse wlio are interested in the above, I beg to I also produced the testimony of living you the following paragraph from the send witnesses of - the highest respectability ''Historical Sketch" of tiie parish of Kil- who had actually seen many MSS. in muir, Skye, in the " New Statistical Account James Macpherson's hands and who had of Scotland," VoL XIV. It was written in 1840 by the late learned enthusiastic High- assisted him in translating them ; and lander, Rev. Alexander MacGregor, M.A., showed that he did Inverness, who was the author of the " Life PRODUCE HIS ORIGINALS, of Flora MacDonald," etc., etc., and the well-known contributor (," Alasdair Ruadh and left them at his publishers* for u " ") periodi- and Sgiathanach to the Highland period of about twelve months, for the cals of liis day. He was at the time assistant inspection of the public, and that he to his father, Rev. Robert MacGregor, afterwards handed over all the Gaelic jninister of Kilmuir : — In the district of Stencliool a man died 12 yeai-s ago MSS. in his possession that had not been (1828) named John Nicolson, or MacCormaic at the lost or destroyed to Mr John MacKeuzie, very advanced age of 105 years. There is one circum- stance connected witli the old man's history worthy of of the Temple, London; that he was notice, which is, that he could repeat the mo!=t of incapable of composing them; and that Ossian's Fingal, Temora, &c., with great fluency and of but precision. The writer of this heard him say tliat lie he was not the author them, committed these beautiful poems to memory from merely the translator. hearing them repeated, when a boy, by his grand- reason the father. If this fact be not sufHcient to establish the I also pointed out the why authenticity of these unparalleled poems, it must philologists have no case, how they dis- surely establish the fact that they existed before the themselves, and give the time of Macpherson, who attempted to translate them agree among into the English language. The silly allegation by some most opposite and absurd reasons for their that Ossian's poems were Macpherson's own productions conclusions; that although able Celtic is palpably confuted by MacCormaic, and others who could repeat them before MacPherson was born. But scholars have condemned the poems, equal- should that not liave been the case, and should none ly great scholars have upheld and praised have been found who could rehearse them before Macpherson's time, the allegation that they were them; that one of the main contentions either by Macpherson, or any other in the age in which of the historians and Celtic scholars he lived, appears ridiculous in tlie sight of such as Icnow the construction and beauty of the Celtic regarding the introduction of Gaelic by language. an Irish colony into Scotland is, accord- I am. etc., — "recent researches," in a fairway AlEIDH UiGE. ing to of being proved a " myth " and a I have now gone over the salient points " delusion," ergo, that Ireland was act of the Ossianic controversy, and pointed the " mother land " of the Gael or of his out how improbable, nay, impossible it language, and that in consequence one of would have been for a young man under the greatest stumbling blocks against twenty-fiv3 to have produced such poems as Ossian's, displaying as they do vast * Beckett and De Hondt, Strand, London. 72

Ossian having been able to speak Gaelic subject to make long epics of them. To to extent interpolations in the 3rd century, is being smashed what may have been atoms; that there were other collections introduced, it is impossible to say, but it besides is very singular that missing lin;5s of Ossianic Gaelic poetry made the two " Macpherson's, wh^'ch agreed almost en- at the end of Garthon " were not substituted. tirely with them, and also that there was an immense amount of ancient Gaelic Upon the whole, we are justified iji poems floating all over the Highlands concluding that he did no more in that respect than any translator would have besides those published by Macpherson ; that the Bards who succeeded the Druids done, for whatever else is ancient about were the custodians of the annals of the them, the syntax is. people, and carried these poems down Any intelligent person who examines from generation to generation, assisted by the subject of the Ossianic poems impar- the powerful memories which were devel- tially, and with an open mind, goes over oped by the genius of the people them- the literature of the subject, and who understands Gaelic, read Gaelic selves, through their love of poetry, and can heroism, and gallantry, so that these poetry, and even if he can't, he can recitations formed their main occupation hardly fail to be struck with the cast of the poetry, its bold in the long winter nights, and conse- uncommon quently helped very much to preserve the and figurative language, its beautiful poems; that the supposed impossi- imagery, graphic word-painting, and to age bility of the Caledonians being able to intense pathos, and all relating an of little indeed. visit Norway (Lochlin) in the 3rd which we now know very in all this Mac-Fingal (Ossian) century is no more extraordinary than How that the Danes should be in Scotland in stuck to his text is clear enough ; but if the the 1st century, in the time of Agricola,t how James Macpherson, he were that in short author, adhered to an ANCIENT STATE OF EXISTENCE, ALL THE OBJECTIONS without once betraying himself and his answered, and all the difficultios liave been subject in his descriptions and allusions, overcome and explained ; and it has been is not so clear, and considering that clearly as anything can be that proved as iNIacpherson was never in Ireland and that Ossian sang and Fingal lived and never had any MSS. from that country, that James MacpheTSou was only a trans- it is singular, to say the least of it, how lator Ossian's poems. Further, that of he managed to portray battles that had all lie did in the way of -taking liberties occurred at a i-emote period in a locality with the poems was to join some of them of which ho knew little or nothing, the together when they lelated to the same conviction is forced upon us that no on© but a living actor, who had taken part I According to Boece, the Danes were in Scotland at the time of Agricola, and Saxo Grammaticus toll; usof in these contests could have done it. But iiicursions by the Northmen long before the 8th Macpherson's century,—" Hist, of Outer Hebrides," MacKenzic. what are we to think of 73

own counti-ymen who deaoixnced him as seanachies for having handed them down a forger and a liar for having brought to from light these beautiful relics of the pasf? GENERATION TO GEN:EiRATION, This patriotic Highlander, to whom the and to Ossian, Britain's first, and one of literary world will for all time be indebted her greatest poets, for having originated for much that is sublime and lofty in the langnage in which they are couched. human sentiment in an early state of When these things are admitted, as existence in this land of the " noble and assuredly they will be, the pedagogues of the free," certainly deserved a better the Encyclopajdias may well " creep to fate. There is no country in the world, their caves." It will then dawn upon a certainly no civilised co'untry ©specially misguided and ignorant public that the in modern times, that would have few Celts who have been renegades to the showered such obloquy upon a patriot literatur© of their own country and their of letters as fell to the lot of James people have done more harm in the past Macpherson. than a thousand patriots could do of good. It is a shamei arid a disgrace that he stands alone, and without a should have beien so treated by his own Ossian compeeir in his own line, and will continue countrymen Though there is much all time coming, for of all about these poems that will never be to be so in poets, ancient or modern, he is the most known beyond what we have got, it is pathetic, and sublime, with a futile to deny that he had any originals heroic, solemnity and radiance of except the ballads, which he rejected as depth of does not belong to James being non-Ossianic. The subject has been sublimity that nor to anyone else in the thrashed to depletion and xe-hashed, and Macpherson poetical arena of poets, and there he the outcome of the whole controversy up shall In each succeeding gener- to date has been to place these poems remain. arise to criticise the more and more upon a firm and perman- ation men will judgment of present-day theorists, ogam ent basis. And as lime passes, and as readers, and antagonists; but nothing passion, bias, and prejudice subside, due will ever dim the radiant splendour of credit will be given to James Macpherson poetical lustre of the poems of Ossian. for having rescued them from oblivion, the to the Highlanders and their bards and Finis. — : ; !

^a^PPENOlX

A S 1 consider a knowledge of Gaelic an Son of Semo, renowned in song His cheeli lilce the polished yew. Jv absolute necessity to any one avIio aspires His clear far-ranging eye. to judge correctly of the ijoenis of Ossian, or Under arclied, dark and slender brow, to arrive at a just conclusion regarding them, His yellow hair down streaming from Iiis head tlie following striking passages are appended to Flows round his glorious face illustrate the force of the language in contrast As he draws his spear from his back :

Flee, thou great ruler of ships ! (Swaran) witii the English text. Of all the non-Gaelic Flee from the hero who comes on commentators who have approached this subject, As a storm from the glen of torrents Di. Hugh Ijlair, Professor of Rhetoric and Belles The hosts of Swaran and Cuchullin engage in Lettres in the University of Edinburgh, and the battle—conflict described. late Dr, P. Hately Waddell were far and away Mar thoirm fhoghair o dhii bheinn, tlie ablest ; and amongst the Gaelic scholars Gu 'cheile tharruing na suinn. who made a thorough investigation into the Mar shruth laidir o dha chreig pros, and cons, of the controversy, the Rev. Dr. 'G aomadh, taoniadh, air an riiidh, Graham, Aberfojde; Archibald Clerk, Kilmallie; Fuaimear, dorcha, garbh 's a' bhlar

Thachair Innisfail 'us Lochlin ; Alexander Cameron, Brodick ; Rev. Thomas Ceannard a' spealt-chleas ri ceannard, Pattison, author of "The Gaelic Bards"; Pat- 'Us duine 'n aghaidh gach duinc : rick MacGregor, M.A., Barrister; and Professor Bha cruaidh a' screadan air cruaidh, Blackie have recorded facts in favour of Ossian Bha clogaidean shuas "g an sgoltadh, Fuil a' ddrtadh dldth "n cuairt, that have never been answered or refuted by mu Taifeid a' fuaim air min iuthar, adverse critics with any degree of satisfaction, Gathan a' sinbhal tro' 'n speur so that as far as absolute proof of the genuine- Sleaghan 'bualadh -tuiteam thall. ness of these poems is concerned, the balance of Like roar of autumn from two bens. competent and unprejudiced Gaelic thinkers is Against each other rushed the warriors. in favour of their authenticity as a Avhole, Like strong torrents from two crags Sweeping, flooding over the plain. though not exactly in the state they were Loud-sounding, dark (and) rough in battle collected : Encountered Innis-fail and Lochlin ; From Fingal, Duan I., line 383. Chief with chief at clearing sword play, " " Cuclmllin in his Chariot Man confronting man. Steel was griding on steel. 'S a' charbad chithear an triath, Helmets cloven on high. Sar mhac treun nan gcur lann, Blood quick-spilling all round. Cuchullin nan gorm-bhallach sgiath, Bow-string twanging on smooth yew, Mac Shexima, niu-n eircadh dkn ; Darts speeding through the sky. A ghruaidh mar an t-iuthar caoin, Spears clashing, men falling. A shuil nach b' fhaoin a' sgaoileadh ard Fo mhala chr6m, dhorcha, chaol, A description of the further progress of the battle. A chiabh bliuidhc 'n a caoir m 'a cheann, Fingal, Diian I., line 4SO. 'Taoniadh mu glindis iihiinn an fhir, Mar dh' aomas mile tonn gu triiigh, 'S c 'tarruing a slilcagh o 'chtil A ghluais fo Shuaran an daimh : Tcich-sa, 'shiir chcannaird nan long, Mar thacliras traigh ri mile tonn, Teich o 'n t-sonn, 's c 'tigh "n a nail Thachair Eirinn ri Suaran nan long. ghaillinn o ghlcann nan sruth ! Mur Sin far an robh guthan a bhais, Literal translation thronghont. Toirm gaire-cath, 'us cruaidh, In the chariot is seen the chief. Sgiathan "s uiailc brist' air liir, True brave son of the keen brands, I/inn 's gacli lainih, 'n a dhealan shuas. Cuclnilliii of bluc-si)otted shields. Fuaim a'blilairo lliaobligu (aobli. : : : " ; : ;

Cbinhrag beucach, creuchdach, tcth, " 'N diugh cuiream an comhrag air sliabh, Mar cheud ord a' bualadh baoth, 'S briseadhmaid an sgiath 'bu shiir Caoir o 'n teallach dhcarg mu seach 'Oisein, seas suas ri mo laimh, As come down a thousand waves on the shore. 'Ghaill, togsa do lann, fhir mhoir; Rushed the invaders Fhcarghuis, tarruing taifeid nach mall under Swaran ; As meets the shore a thousand waves, Tilgs', Fhillein, do chrann 'bu chorr. So Erin met Swaran of ships. Togaibhs' ur sgiathan gu hard, There were the voices of death. Mar ghealaich fo sgail 's an speur Biodh 'ur sleaghan mar theachdair' a' bhiis The noise of battle-shout, and crash of arms. ; Lcanaibh, leanaibh chliu 's f^in Shield and mail lay shivered on the field. mo mi ; In every hand a blade like lightning-flash on high. Bi 'bh coimeasdo cheud 's a' bhlar." The noise of battle spread from side to side. " " This very day," said Starno's son ; this very day Crashing, gashing, red-hot flght. Shall I break the spear on the hill ; Like hundred hammers madly striking. " To-morrow powerless shall be thy King, Spark-shower from ruddy fire by turns. Swaran and his strong ones shall feast." '• To-morrow let the hero feast," CuchHllin's stand against the victorious Swaran The King of great Bens, smiling said : on the second day of the battle. Finr/Sil, Duan " To-day I flght the battle on the hill II.,linc2Sl. And break we the shield so strong. Ossian, stand thou close to Dh' imich Suaran, righ nam buadh, ray hand ; Gaul, thou great one, lift thy brand Mar mhor-shruth fuar nam fas-bheann, Fergus, draw thy speeding bow-string 'Nuair thuiteas a'bhruach Ic 'luas, ;

Fillan, throw thy lance unmatched ; 'S na ciiirn a' gluasad 's a' ghleann ; Raise ye on high your shields Sheas Cuchullin treun 'n a chomhair Like a clouded moon in the sky : Mar chruaich mhoir mu-n sgaoil an nial Be your spears as messengers of death : Bhi cleasachd na gaoithe mu 'sc6rr, Follow, follow my renown and S a' ghiiibhsach chdrr air taobh nan sliabh me ; Match a hundred in the battle." 'S a' chlach-mheallain a' breabadh air creig Seasaidh creag 'n a neart gu h-ard, The conflict described, line 3G9. 'Cur fasgaidh air tlath-ghleann Ch6na. Mar cheud gaoth 'an daraig Mhoirbheinn, Swaran swept on, the conquering king. Mar cheud sruth o th6rr nan aonach. Like great, cold toi'rents of the desert bens. Mar neoil a' curradh gu ddbhlaidh. When falls the bank before its force, Mar chuan mor air traigh a' taomadh, And cairns are swept along the glen ; Cho leathann, beucach, dorcha, borb Cuchullin stood firm before him Thachair laoich fo cholg air Lena. Like cloud-dispersing massive crag : Bha gairm an tsluaigh air cruaich nam bcann. Raves the wind around its scoor. Mar thorrunn 'an oidhche nan sian And 'mid lofty pines on the mountain side. 'Nuair bhriseas nial Chona nan ghleann, While the hail rebounds against the rock : Us mile taibhs a' sgreadadh gu dian The crag in its strength stands on high Air gaoith fhaoin fhiar nan earn." Sheltering the warm glen of Cona. As hundred winds 'mid oaks of great mountains. Duan III., line So3. As himdred torrents from lofty hills, As clouds in darkness rushing on. Or let us take the passages when Fiugal and As the great ocean rolling on the shore, Swaran met after the repulse of Cuchullin. .So vast, so sounding, dark and stern, "When Fingal saw Swaran, the brother of Agan- Met the fierce warriors on Lena. The shout of the host on mountain height decca, his first love, he sent Ullin, his bard, to Was like thunder on a night of storms, invite to feast with him the him on the shore on When bursts the cloud in Cona of glens, day of his arrival, ofiering battle on the second. And thousand spirits wildly shriek Swaran refuses the invitation, and insists on On the waste wind that sweeps around the cairns. engaging immediately. Though Ossian mourns the death of his father " " still fighting 'N diugh f(5in, ' thuirt MacStairn, an diugh fiiin in the third book of Fingal, he is Briseam 's a' bheinn an t-sleagh. Swaran in Duan V. No doubt some of the ])oems 'Mtireach bi' dh do righ-sa gun ghleus, have been lost, and some misplaced, as there is Agus Suaran 's a threin aig fleagh." nothing to show how Fingal died, Avhether in " Am maireach biodh fleagh aig an triath," is clear, he Thuirt righ Mh6irbheinn fo fhiamh-ghaire. battle or of old age ; but one thing ; ; ;

(lied before Ossian, ami it is very remarkable winds lift his Haming locks, so terrible was tliat there is no special poem concerning his de.ath Cnchullin in the day of his fame." apart from the two short notices in Duan III., I shall now introduce a few ghost scenes which line 50S, and Duan V,, line 420. should be read about midnight, the hour at which 'S iomadh 1^ agus oidhch' fhuar uncaimy spirits visit mother-earth As the vast

A shuidhcam aig d'liaigh fo'ii chilrn ; majority of educated and uneducateil people are Dh' fliaircac'ham fo in' laiiiih i "s a chruaich. Many a dav and .h more or less sujierstitious, these passages should Havol^^ai'liy iIivl \ I bi-ncath the cair iiave special interest for tliem. Tiie following I touch it with my luls upon the hill. superstitious practices are exceedingly common One of the most powerful pieces of word- all over this country : — Hatiging a horse-shoe, painting in Ossian is the great combat between for luck, on the front door of a iiouse ; throwing tiie two kings, Fingal and S^'aran, wlien they salt over tiie left shoulder ; avoiding thirteen at engage single-handed. a meal ; and disinclination to marry in May.

Dvan V. , line 43. The tiiree latter are very prevalent in Edinburgh,

"S sin bha torrunn treun nan ^rin ; also belief in dreams and second-sights ; and even Gach buille bu gharbh agus benm ; Mar cheud 6rd ag 6irigh iird, the spell of the evil eye lias not yet died out Air cruaidh theallaich 's deirge caoir. amongst us. B' f huathasach comhrag an da righ ; 's an stri an tuar Bu ghruamach The engagement of Fingal with the spirit of An sgiath dhonn a' sgoltadh fo bheum, Lannan geur a' leum o chruaidh. Loda in Carric-Thura will first occupy our Thilg gach bail airm air an reidh, attention as being full of amazing and terrible Ghabh na laoich 's a' cheile luath. Bha gach ruighe fiiitheach mor majesty. Tliere is no passage more sublime in 'G jadh mu dhruira garbh nan sonn. A' tionndadh o thaobh gu taobh, tlie writings of any uninspired author. The Am nior chosan 'sgaoileadh air lorn. scene of this encounter is laid in Innistorc, or 'Nuair dh' eirich ardan neart nan treun Chrlth an c^thar f^in fo'n sail, the Orkney Islands. In confirmation of Ossian's Chriothnaich clach 'us cruach 'us c&rn, topography there are many pillars and circles of 'S coiir uaine fo spairn nan laoch. Mu 'dheireadh thuit neart nan tonn, stones still remaining known by the name of Chaidh Suaran nan long fo chis. the stones and circles of Loda, or Loden. Tiiese There was the loud thunder of arms. islands, until 1468, formed a part of the Danish He.avy each buffet and each cleaving blow— Ijike hundred hammers, rising high. dominions.* On steel from fire of ruddy flame. itya, Awful was the struggle of tlie kings Carrie-Tit line 23:2. Stern was their aspect in the fight. islich teine fada thall, The dark-brown shield was cleft beneath their Dh' blows. A Ghealach dearg 'us mall 's an car, Thainig osna nuas o 'n charn ; Sharp swords rebounded from the steel, sgiathau bha siinihla flr, They flung each piece of armour on the plain Air a Cruth-Loduinn 's an lear gun luar - Instant the heroes grappled ; Each great and sinewy arm Thainig e gu 'chuinliiinidli feiii, A dhubli-shlcagh gun fheuui n a laimli. Closed round the broad haik of n licro ; Thev winded from side \n >\,\r Tlieh- threat feet wide a pari (in ilir plain

When the slronnlli piidc ul 1 lie si iciim' arose, Tliog Kionnglud 's an oidlieh' a sldeagh, Shook I lie very iiiour Ijencalli llieir heels, C'luialas anus a' inhagh a ghairni. 'i"i-cnil)icd stonis and crags and cairns.

I lie tirccnwood under hero-struggle. And the A lire descended far away, At li-ni^tJL I lie si length of the waves fell down— The moon was red and dull in f he east. Swaian of ships was overpowered. Came down a blast from the lieight wings scmiilance of There is not much effemiriacy or melanclioly On its was a man, Cru-Lodin wan, iijion llie plain- displayed in tliese passages, nor in tlie following lie camiMinto his .,wn alwde, His black spear usck-ss in his hand; terribly sublime jjicture of Cnchullin's aspect in — His red v\v like tire of the skies; Avar : He ruslied in the .sound of iiis like the hill his voice " arms, Likelliundcron ; In darkness black and far away tlie dreadful spirit of Loda wiien lie comes in the Raised Fioim, amidst the night his spear, roar of a thousand storms, and scatters battles Heard on the plain was his shout, from iiis eyes. He sits on a cloud over Lochlin's * Critical Dissertation on the pocnvs of Ossian, by seas. His mighty hand is on his sword, Tlic Dr. Hugli Blair. Kdinburgh. ; : ; —

Fin<;al coinniands liim to depart and expresses Bha sleaghs gach laimh shuas's an t-sliabh. "C"a,ite 'bheil e?" 'S fearg fo ghruaim. his contempt for Iiis weakness. am Gach maile ri fuaim m' a thriath. Line Shrieked 244. the wraith of Cru-Lodin on the ben ;

Gathering himself into himself in the wind : mhic na h-oidhche, o mo thaobh A ; Heard- Innis-Torca the sound; a' ghaoth, agus bi falbh. Gabh Ceased the travel of the waves in fear; C uim' thigeadh tu 'm f hianuis, fhir fhaoin ; Arose the heroes of Cuhal's great son ; Do shiimhla cho baoth ri d' airm ? A spear was up in each hand on the hill. All ca^al (llidinhsa do cliruth donn, "Where is he?" their wrath darkening. l'"liii,'ili;ii- iiMii er6m 'th' aig Loduinii ? And each man's mail loud rattling round it's lord. 'S l,iu- do ~L;i,uli 's do nial nach trom, ])(! chlaullKMinb lorn mar theiii' air mor-tlininn. Better still is the appearance of the ghost of C'niridh osag iads' a>; a. clieile, Trenmor to Oscar in the " of Agus sgaoilear tliu ft-iii 141111 dail. War Caros," one of As m' fhianuis. a illiulih-iiihic nan speur the minor poems for which Macpherson left no Gairm d' osag dhuit fuin, '.s bi falbh ! Gaelic. Son of the night, from my side ! " Oscar slowly ascends the hill. Take the wind, and be thou gone ! The meteors of night Why to my presence come, thou shadowy one, set on the heath before him. A distant torrent faintly Thy si'inblanro vain a-i aiv tliiiie arms? roars! Unfrequent blasts rush through aged oaks. Is \h\ (In^kv fun 11 a Irrror unto me, The half-enlightened moon sinks dim and red behind Tlidu" plianlnni orili,- riivlc- at Lodin ? her hill. Feeble voices are heard on the hill. Oscar Weak is thy shield, weiglitless thy cloud. drew his sword. Thy bare sword like flre on the great waves, "'Come,' .said the hero, "O ye ghosts of my fathers, A blast will drive them asunder. ye that fought against the kings of the world ! Tell me And scattered thyself wilt be without delay. the deeds of future times; and your converse in your Out of my presence, dark son of the skies. caves, when you talk together, and behold your sons in the fields of the brave.' Call thy blast to thyself, and begone ! "Trenmor came from his hill at the voice of his Crn-Lodin remonstrates, boasts of his power mighty son. A cloud like the steed of the stranger, his airy limbs. is over men's lives, and over the tempests of the supported His robe of the mist of Lano, that brings death to the people. His sword is a air, Fingal again bids him begone, and defies green meteor half-extinguished. His face is without

form and dark. He sighed thrice over the hero ; thrice him ; the two engage. in combat ; Fingal's sword the winds of night roared around! Many were his llaslies through tlie spectre, and scatters liim on words to Oscar ; but they only came by h.alves to our

oars ; they were dark as the tales of other times before tlie wind. the light of song arose. He slowly vanished, like mist Line 294. that melts on the sunny hill." Thog e gn h-ard a shleagh dhorch' The poet's winding uj) of this poem is also very

I 'h' aom e gn borb a cheann ard ; fine Ghabh Fionnghal 'n a aghaidh le colg, " soul, A clilaidhcainli ij;laii gorm '11 a laimh, Darkness comes on my O fair daughter of :\fac-aii Liiiiiii. hu fliiar-dlnihli -riiaidh- Toscar! I behold not the form of my son at Carun, Gliluais solus na, cruaidlic troi 'ii tailihs', nor the figure of Oscar on Croma. The rustling winds Fualhas dona bhais fo ghruaim. have carried liim far away, and the heart of his father

is ! Thuit esan gun chruth, 's e thall. sad. But lead me, O Jlalvina to the sound of my Air gaoith nan dubh-charn mar smtiid woods ; to the roar of my mountain streams. Let the Bhriseas og 'usbioran 'n a liiimh, chase he heard on Cona ; let me think on the days of Mu theallach na spairn 's na mhig. other years. And bring me the harp, O maid ! that I may touch it, when the light of my soul shall arise. He raised aloft his spear of darkness Be thou near to learn the song: future times shall Stooped fiercely his lofty head : hear of me ! The sons of the feeble hereafter will lift Fingal went against bim in wrath. tlie \iiiee on Cona ; anil looking up to the rocks, say, His bright blue sword in his hand- 'Here (K-iaii dwrli; 'rhry .hall admire the chiefs of Sun of Luno of swarthiest cheek. old. the rare llial are no nmi-el while we ride on our Moved the light of the steel through the spectre. clouds. IMahina ! on the wings of the roaring winds. The evil wraith of death went under gloom : Our voices shall be heard, at times, in the desert ; we He fell without sliajie, and away shall sing on the breeze of the rock.* On wind of the hla.k cairns, like smoke Which a boy, with siiek in hand, raises * The poet here speaks with the solemnity and con- Around a hearth of discord and of gloom. fidence of an inspired individual. He feels that hts Line 305. poems will stand the test of time, when he requests Malvina to be near him to learn the song for trans- Scrcad fuathas Chruth-Loduinn's a' bheinn, mission to posterity. To one who has visited Glencoe G a thional ann fein 's a' ghaoith. it seems an exceedingly natural way of describing it. " Cliuar Innis nan tore an fhuaim ; The sons of the feeble hereafter ^\411 lift the voice on

C haisg astar nan stuadh le fiamh ; Cona; and looking up to the rocks, say, "Here Ossian

T)h' eirich gaisgich mhic Chumhail nam buadh ; dwelt."