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not serve the cause for which Sir John contends. If the learned 

 baronet had sufficient candour, when quoting Mr. Pinkerton, he 

 would have done justice to Ireland by telling us something more of 

 what that erudite writer says on the subject of the Duan Albanach. 

 He says, (Enquiry, London eel. 1786, vol. ii, p. 92,) "The Gaelic 

 poem of Malcolm the Third's time, is the most ancient monument of 

 Dalriadic history retnaining, and deserves the greatest credit. The 

 Highland Scots are allowed, by their own late writers, to have been 

 an illiterate people ; the celebrated monastery of Hiona was sup- 

 plied from Ireland, which it always regarded as its parent country, 

 and being detached from Dalriada, had no effect on the character of 

 the Highlanders. Ireland was, on the contrary, much noted for such 

 learning as was then in vogue, so that it is from the Irish writers that 

 we must expect genuine memorials of the Dalriadic kingdom." We 

 shall hereafter give some quotations from this ancient poem, and 

 compare its language and versification with the language and versifi- 

 cation of " the original Gaelic " of Ossian, as published by the High- 

 land Society of London. 



In the third section of the learned baronet's Dissertation, he 

 quotes a number of Scotch writers, who, he says, mention Fingal as 

 a Scotchman ; and what is more extraordinary, he tells us that Col- 

 gan, an Irish author, was of the same opinion. He says, " Colgan 

 also, an Irish author of great learning and research, after mention- 

 ing that Saint Patrick had a convert who was dignified with the title 

 of Saint Ossin, or Ossian, and to whom probably the Irish ballads 

 regarding Saint Patrick and Ossian ought to be attributed, adds in a 

 note to a passage in which mention is made of Fingal, (or Finnius 

 filius Cuhhalli,) that he was much celebrated in poems and tales 

 inter suos ; by which he must necessarily mean, that he belonged to 

 Scotland, and not to Ireland, as in that case he would have said 



