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pronounce so positively upon other languages and translations, as to 

 attract the attention of the Committee of the Highland Society. 



With respect to the authenticity of the poems, Mr. Mac Donald 

 positively asserts, that " there is not one Highlander, not one indi- 

 vidual acquainted with our country and the Gaelic language, who 

 has ever, for a moment, doubted the authenticity of these poems." 

 Did Mr. Mac Donald never hear of Doctor Shaw, a Highlander, and 

 author of a Gaelic Grammar and Dictionary ? and that that gentle- 

 man had written and published a pamphlet to prove that the poems 

 in Macpherson's Ossian are forgeries ? Perhaps he did not. There 

 may be a possibility that he did not, but notwithstanding his illite- 

 rateness and ignorance of language, there is scarcely a probability 

 that he did not hear of both ; for the whole tenor of his testimony 

 shews that he was well acquainted with the controversy relating to 

 those poems. We have already given an extract from Doctor 

 Shaw's pamphlet, expressive of his opinions on some points of this 

 controversy, and shall have occasion hereafter to refer to it again. 

 But if neither Doctor Shaw, nor any other Highlander, had ever written 

 a word against the authenticity of the poems, will it be believed that 

 no person " acquainted with the Gaelic language has ever doubted 

 the authenticity of these poems." Is it not well known that the late 

 venerable Charles O'Conor, Doctor O'Halloran, and other Irishmen, 

 well skilled in the Gaelic language, have denied the authenticity of 

 the poems, and accused Macpherson of forgery in imposing them on 

 the public as the genuine productions of Ossian. A charge, let it be 

 observed, of which he never has been acquitted. 



Let us follow this inquiry a little further, and ask, what has Mr. 

 Mac Donald said as to the authenticity of the poems that deserves 

 attention ? His opinion regarding the language of the poems goes 



