280 



century. Some of the quotations from those authors do not posi- 

 tively say that Finn was a Scotchman, and one of them, (Bishop 

 Douglas,) intimates that he was an Irishman, in these words : 



" Greit Gow Macmorne, and Fin Mac Cowl and how 

 They suld be goddis in Ireland as they say." 



In section 5th, p. 40, of his Dissertation, Sir John gives a corres- 

 pondence which he carried on M'ith two Roman Catholic Bishops, 

 (the Right Rev. Doctors Cameron and Chisholm,) and some Roman 

 Catholic priests relating to " a manuscript of Ossian, in Gaelic, actu- 

 ally existing at Douay, in Flanders, previous to Mr. Macpherson's 

 having made any collection of those poems." But the correspon- 

 dence proves nothing either as to the Scottish origin, authenticity, 

 or antiquity of Ossian's poems. It does not appear that the first of 

 those prelates. Doctor Cameron, had any knowledge of the Gaelic 

 language, or that he had ever seen the manuscript in question. He 

 had his information on the subject from the Rev. James Macgillivray, 

 who told him it was written on folio paper, three inches thick and 

 small letter, by the Rev. James Farquharson, Prefect of Studies in 

 Douay in 1763, and who returned to Scotland in 1773, leaving his 

 manuscript behind him, and that it was now irrecoverably lost. The 

 Bishop further states that the Rev. Mr. Macgillivray had told him 

 he had seen the Rev. Mr. Farquharson collate Macpherson's transla- 

 tion of Ossian, particularly the poems of Fingal and Temora, with 

 his own original. This information is repeated in a letter addressed 

 by Mr. Macgillivray to Bishop Cameron, with the addition that Mr. 

 Farquharson made the collection during his residence at Strathglass, 

 in Scotland, before the year 1760. It does not appear that Mr. 

 Macgillivray knew the Gaelic language. He does not say he ever 

 read the manuscript himself, but that he had seen its owner read it. 



