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the contrary, it might reasonably be concluded, that the silence of the 

 author upon this topic, as upon that of the wolves, bears, &c., was 

 an artificial silence, arising, perhaps, from Mr. Macpherson's want of 

 sufficient acquaintance with, and abilities to manage, those subjects. 



These are merely negative proofs, but a closer inspection of the 

 poems, as published by Mr. Macpherson, and of those Gaelic poems, 

 published by the Highland Society of London, as the originals of the 

 poems of Ossian, will afford internal proofs of a positive nature, that 

 those poems are of recent composition. These proofs, it is sub- 

 mitted, may be drawn from errors in chronology ; historical facts; and 

 geography; as well as from the mention of things that did not at all 

 exist, in the days of Ossian, such as fighting Druids ; bards conduct- 

 ing armies ; praying for the souls of the dead ; castles and towers ; 

 white sailed ships, with groves of masts ; armour, and sides cased in 

 steel ; Culdees ; Druids ; Lochlin, &c. These shall be considered in 

 succession, and the reader's attention is requested to them. 



/. Chronology. 



CucHULLiN sat by " Tura's wall." So says Ossian, in Fingal, 

 book i. page 1, old edition. Cuchullin therefore lived in the time of 

 that bard, and, by the same authority, so did Fingal. Let us inquire 

 how this agrees with truth ; but in this inquiry no Scottish historian 

 can help us, for no Scotch historian ever made Cuchullin and Fionn 

 Mac-Cubhail, or, as he is now called, Fingal, contemporaries, until 

 the birth of Mr. Macpherson's Ossian. We are not, however, with- 

 out authorities to assist in this inquiry ; the Irish chronicles must be 

 our guide, and they will guide us faithfully. The Annals of Tiger- 

 nach, Abbot of Cluain-mhic-Nois, an Irisli annalist, whose authority 

 is undisputed, and who died so long back as the year of our Lord 



