the son of the Mac Mhuirich mentioned in the foregoing affidavit, 

 another marksman, contradicts that affidavit so far as it relates to the 

 " Leabhar Dearg," which, he swears positively, his father gave to 

 Macpherson, by the command of Clanranald ; and he describes that 

 book as being made of paper, longer and broader than a Bible, but 

 not so thick in the cover. 



The above is the substance of three affidavits, in some cases 

 contradicting each other. But supposing them all to accord, we can 

 discover nothing " very satisfactory " in them, respecting the au- 

 thenticity or antiquity of those poems published by Macpherson as 

 translations from Ossian. The affidavits merely aver that Mr. Mac- 

 pherson got one book which " wholly regarded the Fionns or Finga- 

 lians ;" that he got another book which contained works of Ossian ; 

 and that poems of Ossian were taken down for him by one of the 

 declarants, from the recital of others. Not one of these, however, 

 says that the poems published by Macpherson were translations from 

 either of the books, or from the poems taken down from the recital 

 of others ; so that for any thing we can discover to the contrary, the 

 poems contained in those documents may have been copies of those 

 of the Irish Ossian, all of which Mr. Macpherson acknowledged in 

 his " Dissertation on Ossian," n. ed. p. 37, were in his possession, 

 and from which he borrowed the materials for several of his pqenis, 

 as we have already shewn. !:'.:;.'>? 



The communication made to the Committee by the Rev. Mr. 

 Anderson, one of Mr. Macpherson's executors, proves nothing regard^ 

 ing the authenticity of the poems. The memorandums in Macpher- 

 son's hand-writing merely mention that he had, in the whole, or in 

 part, delivered the originals of eight of his poems to M. John Mac- 

 kinzie. These eight poems, with the exception of Comala, Temora, 

 Conlath, and Cuthona, form the entire of the originals published by 



VOL. XV r. M M 



