260 



the Highland Society : by the memorandum on Carthon, it appears 

 that the entire original of that poem was not deUvered to Mr. Mac- 

 kinzie by Macpherson; and the copy of that original in the Society's 

 pubhcation is also defective. Why Mr. Macpherson did not trans- 

 late, or cause to be translated into Gaelic, the concluding part of 

 this poem, is not easy to guess. But, let his motives be what they 

 may, it is evident that he stole the most interesting part of the whole 

 poem, the combat between Carthon and Clessammor, from a poem 

 of the Irish Ossian, beginning " Fainig triath an borb laoch,'' trans- 

 lated and published by Miss Brooke, which describes the coming of 

 Connlaoich, the son of Cuchullin, to Ireland, and the battle between 

 those two heroes, in which, neither of them knowing the other, the 

 father kills the son. Mr. Macpherson has made the son overcome 

 the father, and while binding him, the father stabs him with a dag- 

 ger and kills him : but in all other respects the leading incidents of 

 Macpherson's poem are closely copied from the Irish bard, though not 

 literally translated. 



The Committee next gives us an account of manuscripts in the 

 possession of the Society ; but for any purpose that this serves in 

 throwing light upon the question regarding the authenticity of Mac- 

 pherson's Ossian, an account of Shanscrit manuscripts would answer 

 equally well. By the account given by the Committee, Report, page 

 90, and by the Appendix, No. xviii and xix, it appears that the poems 

 ascribed to Ossian, contained in those manuscripts, are not copies 

 of the originals of any of Macpherson's Ossian, but corrupted copies 

 of poems common in Ireland, and always ascribed to some Irish bard 

 or bards, who assumed the name of Ossian. And the ancient manu- 

 scripts, of which the Committee has given us some facsimiles, are 

 evidently Irish. The fac-similes, and the explanation given of them 

 by Doctor Donald Smith, who appears to have been the best Gaelic 



