273 



and thirteenth stanzas, shew the poem to have its origin in Ireland. 

 It is also observable that Finn is never called Fingal in the Gaelic 

 text of this poem, though he is always so designated in the trans- 

 lation. 



We shall pass over the ** Analysis and Comparison " of the ex- 

 tract from the poem of Carrickthura, with Macpherson's translation, 

 which the Committee has given us in its Report, page 130, as we 

 intend to make some observations on that poem when we come to 

 speak particularly of the Gaelic originals of Ossian. 

 ; i We shall now dismiss the Report of the Highland Society, by 

 calling the attention of the reader to the words of the Committee, 

 Report, p. 153, where, after all its labour to prove the antiquity and 

 authenticity of the modern Ossian, it is obliged to confess, that in 

 the original of the poem of Temora, there are imperfections and 

 modernisms in the Gaelic. The Committee says, " whoever will exa- 

 mine the original prefixed to some editions of the Seventh Book of 

 Temora, and compare it with the translation, will, in the opinion of 

 the Committee, discover some imperfections, some modernisms in the 

 Gaelic, which do not occur in the specimen of Fingal, given in the 

 Appendix to this Report." It is in vain that the specimen of Fingal 

 will be sought for in the Appendix, unless we take the Cento formed 

 by Doctor Smith, inserted pp. 190 to 260, for that specimen. If 

 that be what the Committee calls a specimen of the original, it would 

 be no difficult matter for a Gaelic scholar of moderate abilities, to 

 point out in those pages hundreds of imperfections, corruptions, and 

 modernisms ; but we forbear to enter upon any particular analysis of 

 tliat production for the present. 



-ir From the great length of the Report of the Highland Society of 

 Scotland on the Poems of Ossian, and of the Appendix attached 

 thereto, both together amounting to 498 pages closely printed octavo. 



