From the silence of Buchanan we are led to the same conclusion. 

 He says not a word of the kingdom of Morven, or the Palace of Selma, 

 of Fingal or Ossian, whereas he would have assigned them a conspi- 

 cuous place in his history, had he ever heard of them in connexion 

 with his country. The tales which have been invented respecting 

 them would have been exactly adapted to his taste. For, as Robert- 

 son the historian testifies, " instead of rejecting the improbable tales 

 of chronicle writers, he was at the utmost pains to adorn them, and 

 hath clothed with all the beauties and graces of fiction, those legends 

 which had formerly only its wildness and extravagance." Moreover 

 he was led to the subject so directly, that there was scarcely a possi- 

 bility of avoiding it, had it not been a nonentity. He gives a minute 

 enumeration and description of the Hebrides. He notices hundreds 

 of the small islands. Even StaflTa, though in his days no object of 

 curiosity, does not escape his observation ; but he drops not a hint of 

 the renowned kingdom of the woody echoing Morven. He speaks 

 of the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and says, " they sing 

 songs not inelegant, containing commonly the eulogies of valiant 

 men, and the bards usually treat of no other argument. Instead of 

 a trumpet they use a bagpipe. They are much given to music, but 

 on instruments of a peculiar kind, called clarsachs." Of Ossian there 

 is no notice. 



Erin is very frequently mentioned in Macpherson's Ossian, and 

 made the scene of the poem of Temora. In the fourth book of this 

 poem, Fingal says, that having left Selma, on the following morning, 

 " Erin rose in mist. We came into the bay of Moilena, where its 

 blue waters tumbled in the bosom of echoing woods."* In vain have 



* Again we are told in Temora, book vii., that " Culbin'e Bay received the ship in the 

 bosom of echoing woods." 



