288 



Numbers 5 and 6, pp. 226 and 228, are by Sir John Sinclair 

 himself. They prove no more than that the worthy baronet, like 

 some lawyers pleading for their clients, found it necessary to say the 

 more in proportion to the smallness of what he had efficaciously to 

 say on the authenticity of Ossian's poems. 



Not satisfied with what was said by the Highland Society of 

 Scotland in their Report, and by Sir John Sinclair in his Disser- 

 tation on the authenticity of the poems of Ossian, the Highland 

 Society of London have appended to their third volume of the 

 poems, " in the original Gaelic," a " translation of the Abbe Cesa- 

 rotti's Dissertation," and '' supplemental observations on the authen- 

 ticity of Ossian's poems." Of the two first we have so largely 

 treated in the foregoing pages, that we do not think it will be neces- 

 sary to occupy much of our reader's time, or our own space, in the 

 consideration of what is said by the two latter. 



V The proofs brought by the learned Abbe for the authenticity of 

 the poems, are such internal proofs as he thinks the poems furnish. 

 The first of these were, that " the heroes prepared their own repast, sat 

 round the light of the burning oak," and " the wind lifted their locks 

 and whistled through their open halls." This, we confess, is a pic- 

 ture of savage life ; but we cannot admit, on that account, that the 

 poems are the genuine works of a bard of a savage period, who, not- 

 withstanding all this barbarism, fills his pages with a representation of 

 refined manners and elegant sentiments. 



The second proof produced is, " that the country is represented 

 as wholly uncultivated, thinly inhabited, and recently peopled." 

 Yet, from this uninhabited country, Ossian makes his hero, Fingal, 

 lead his thousands to battle. 



Another of the. Abbe's proofs is "the omission of all religious 

 ideas." Surely the Abbe must have been dozing when he wrote this 

 sentence. There is not, to be sure, any mention of gods and god- 



