112 , 



lion of Irish records in prose and verse, compiled within this period 

 by the orders of Cormac from more ancient documents, and is said to 

 be still extant.* There is also in the book of Lecan, a poem, ascribed 

 to the fifth century, on the Religna Ree, or Royal Sepulchre, at Rath 

 Croghan, in the County Roscommon, f- 



We are not here called upon to enter the arena on the obsolete 

 question of the authenticity of the poems attributed to Ossian by Mr. 

 Mac-Pherson ; the interest of the contest is long since worn out, and 

 at all events, every thing appertaining to Ossian, his country, his era, 

 his poetry, are all matter of internal evidence, or can at least be only 

 well established by authorities in the Irish or other Celtic languages. 

 Much learned extravagance has been exhibited on all sides, and even 

 Mr. Whitaker was so shaken by the almost national enthusiasm, to 

 deify this Homer of the north, that he actually quotes and relies upon 

 the poems given by Mac-Pherson, as historical authority ! It would 

 be a source of great satisfaction to every Irishman and Scotchman, if 

 on this occasion Whitaker's judgment were sound, and Mac-Pherson's 

 veracity unimpeachable; but under existing circumstances, those, who 

 seek that satisfaction, must draw on their credulity, and any enjoy- 

 ment that may result, will be, we fear, but the dream of the Athenian 

 madman. No early writer of Ireland we believe ever mentions Ossian 

 as a poet, and we are quite sure that Tigernach, the most candid of 

 her annalists, though he repeatedly speaks of Ossian, never hints that 

 he was a bard, or refers to a hne of his composition. J In truth, it 

 would seem that Mac-Pherson, having collected much of his raw mate- 

 rial from the legends of the Erse, and the Irish Finian tales, presented 

 it to the world in a texture so richly worked off, as at least entitles him 



• Trans. lb. Celt. Soc. p. Ix. f Trans. lb. Celt. Soc. p. xxvi. 



♦ See 2 O'Conor, p. 52, &c. 



