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scholar concerned in the Report, show clearly that that ingenious 

 gentleman did not perfectly understand ancient Irish manuscripts. 

 The first specimen of the Irish is given Plate II. and begins " /// Fint 

 uao baoiscne a cuinchadh a mhic Oisen. Paoi Oisin pliadhin, ^c." 

 The translation of which is thus given: — " Fingal of the family of 

 Baoiscne, meeting his son, to wit Ossian. Ossian was a year, 8fc" In 

 this the translator, not understanding what was meant by the III of 

 the original, therefore omitted it in his translation, and by that means, 

 and mistaking the sense of the word Cuinchcadh, made the passage 

 nonsense. The /// of the original is a contraction for the word Triall,* 

 and the text should be thus rendered : — Fionn the descendant of 

 Baiscne went to seek his son Oisin. Oisin was a year, ^c." In this 

 reading the sense is clear, but the reading of Doctor Smith is quite 

 unintelligible. 



Another proof of the inability of the learned Doctor to understand 

 ancient Gaelic manuscripts is furnished in the concluding line of the 

 -same specimen, where the translator supposes an inverted C, with 

 two small oblique strokes before it, to be a contraction for the word 

 *' Con." He, therefore, after the word decern, imagines the sense 

 runs on to the end of the line, and he writes it thus : " decens Co- 

 nuadh ladh ei a scciadh " "Con" "Con." Upon this he writes a note, 

 and says, " what follows decens seems to have been the burden of the 

 song which Ossian sung on the above occasion." This is a most egre- 



• The sense of the contraction represented by II lis easily discovered by any person 

 acquainted with ancient Irish manuscripts. The letter I is the second in the ancient arrange- 

 ment of the Irish alphabet, and is called Luis. The letter therefore three times repeated thus 

 lll.OT Ul, i. e. tfij I, or tj\) Ir^f, as in the fac-simile given by the Committee, represents the 

 word " Triall," "he went," or " Triallus," "he goes," as II or II represents the word ddil in 

 all its different meanings ; or as the letter ii three times repeated, thus rrr, or ;t/ifi, or jjp, 

 I. e. c/t; 71 represents the word Triar or VfXjiXji, three persons. 



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