235 



for nothing. No illiterate person could be competent to form a correct 

 judgment on that subject, and the truth of what Mr. Mac Donald as- 

 serts regarding it, is positively denied. The opinion respecting other 

 languages, and translations into them from the Gaelic, is equally worth- 

 less, nor should it be noticed here, if it were not to observe on it, 

 that the system of literary forgery had not entirely ceased in Scot- 

 land in the year 1800, when this man's supposed testimony was 

 drawn up. It is evident that the Committee was imposed upon ; for 

 no illiterate person would take upon him to pronounce so dogmatically 

 upon a subject which he could not understand. But what does the 

 testimony positively say as to the fact of the existence of the poems 

 when it was drawn up ? Does it say that any person could repeat 

 any one entire poem in the Gaelic language that was in every respect 

 the same as its supposed translation in the Ossian of Macpherson ? 

 It does not ; — but it says, "It is enough that thousands can still be 

 found in the Highlands and Isles who can recite many detached por- 

 tions of them,"" (the poems of Ossian.) This is " the bone and mar- 

 row" of this testimony, which the person who makes it says is 

 '' enough " to prove the transmission of those ancient poems down to 

 our days. 



We might stop here with Mr. Mac Donald, but that there is one 

 thing in his testimony which may as well be noticed here, not because 

 it proves any thing as to the existence of the poems, or their author, 

 in the third century, but because the thing is mentioned in other 

 places of the Report as of some importance. It relates to " the Mac 

 Vurichs for many generations family bards to the Mac Donalds of 

 Clanranald," who were " to transmit in writing, the history and 

 poetry connected with the family and their country. There is still 

 extant a poem, composed by Niel Mor Mac Vurich to the Mac 

 Donalds immediately before the battle of Garioch or Harlan, which 



VOL. XVI. I I 



