153 



SECTION IX. 

 On the Era of Ossian. 



-'■'■ The era of the real Fin Mac-Cumhal, and his son Oisin, is as 

 distinctly marked in Irish history as any other event which it records. 

 It appears evident from the chronological researches of Doctor Char- 

 les O'Conor, that the former fell in the year of our Lord 273, and 

 that Oscar, his grandson, fell ten years afterwards, viz. in 283, at 

 the battle of Gavra. Hence it will appear scarcely credible, unless 

 Fin could be proved to have lived to an antediluvian age, that he 

 commanded an army against the Romans in 207, as has been pre- 

 tended ; and that he defeated them under Caracalla, at the west end 

 of Loch Fraochy " where there is a place named Dall-Chillin, or 

 Fingal's burial-place." ,?i,3bx ,« osil lot ?.iiMyoo:>r. 



We have asked in a former section of this Essay, who has 

 recorded this defeat of the Romans ? and Graham answers, that it is 

 not to be expected that Tacitus, Herodian, or Dion Cassius, would 

 give us any account of the poems in which such events are recorded. 

 True, not of the poems; but why not of- the battles in which the 

 Romans were overcome, and the names of the generals against whom 

 they fought ? They have told of Galgacus and Caractacus ; why not 

 of a greater than they, the illustrious Fingal .'' The Doctor employs 

 a negative argument, and contends that " nothing has been adduced 

 from ancient history, or even from the poems themselves, which can 

 fairly be considered as contradictory to the position, that they belong 



VOL. XVI. X 



