281 



Bishop Chisholm's letter, on this, contains httle more than what 

 was said by Bishop Cameron and Mr. Macgillivray, only that he 

 says Mr. Farquharson, a Jesuit, wrote the manuscript in Strathglass, 

 before and after the year 1745. The Bishop had seen the manuscript in 

 the hands of its owner in the years 1766, 1767, but could not then 

 read it. He had never heard of any other manuscript of Ossian 

 either in France or in Rome, .iiiii •. 



In a second communication from Doctor Cameron, he mentions 

 two other clergymen who had seen the manuscript, but neither of 

 them knew more of it than that they had seen it, and one of them 

 says no one in the College could read it. 



A letter from the Rev. John Farquharson to Sir John Sinclair is 

 not quite so satisfactory as the foregoing. He says no more than 

 that he had seen the manuscript in 1775 and 1776, and " heard the 

 compiler attest, it contained various Gaelic songs, a few fragments of 

 modern composition, but chiefly extracts of Ossian's poems.'' 



" Such," says Sir John, p. 57, " is the substance of the new evi- 

 dence which it has fortunately been in my power to bring forward, 

 regarding the authenticity of Ossian's poems." Is it possible that 

 Sir John Sinclair could for a moment suppose that such testimony 

 weighs a feather on the argument respecting the authenticity or anti- 

 quity of Ossian's poems, depending as it does upon the existence of a 

 manuscript described by persons who could not read it, as compiled 

 between 1745 and 1760, but which, they were told, contained 

 Gaelic songs, modern fragments, and chiefly extracts from Ossian's 

 poems. If such evidence could have any weight with Sir John Sin- 

 clair, we doubt very much that it could have the same effect upon 

 any other person, even in North Britain. 



The sixth section, p. 57, on the poems being preserved by oral 

 tradition, contains nothing worth observation. '1 "**^^''^ ^ 



