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wise, in ancient poets ; and of his mentioning things which, certainly, 

 the Scots had no knowledge of for a long period after the time in 

 which it is said Ossian lived. In treating of this part of the subject, 

 our observations apply to the Gaelic originals, published by the High- 

 land Society, as well as to the English, published by Mr. Macpherson. 



In the " Supplemental Observations on the Authenticity of 

 Ossian 's Poems," published by the Highland Society, vol. iii. page 

 359, we are told, that " The many caves which we find in the High- 

 lands * * * * were places of safety in ancient times, when pursued 

 by their enemies, or probably for places of residence * * * * which 

 are not only the most proper places for security from their enemies, 

 but are likewise better adapted for their preservation from voracious 

 animals, with which Scotland abounded, at so early a period as the 

 days of Ossian. This country being at that time overrun with woods, 

 afforded shelter to wolves and bears, enemies to the human race, and 

 they had no other places of safety, but either in their caves or upon 

 the tops of their hills." This, it must be confessed, is a frightful pic- 

 ture of the powerful kingdom of Morven, in the days of the mighty 

 Fingal; that Fingal, who, from those miserable caves, and from " the 

 tops of their hills," was enabled to collect armies sufficiently nume- 

 rous and powerful to withstand and defeat " the king of the world," 

 to invade Lochlin and other mighty kingdoms, and, like a true knight 

 errant, to pass into Ireland with an immense fleet of " white sailed 

 ships," whose high groves of masts nodded, by turns, on the rolling 

 waves," merely for the purpose of revenging the death of a boy king, 

 who had been murdered by an usurper. 



Without stopping to notice the contradiction between the picture 

 of Fingal's kingdom, here given, and that to be drawn of it from the 

 Poems of Ossian, let us see how far does it strengthen or weaken the 

 internal evidence of the antiquity of the poems. Scotland was, in the 



