289 



desses in the poems, but can it be truly said that the mention of 

 ghosts, 'which are of such constant occurrence in those poems, and 

 the frequent prayers of the author for the repose of the dead, convey 

 no religious ideas ? '^^ 



•These internal evidences, produced by the Abbe, were before 

 brought forward by Doctor Blair, and nothing has been added to 

 their weight by being again forced upon our notice. Upon the futi- 

 lity of those proofs we have already made some observations, and 

 shall not again trouble our readers with a repetition. — See before, 

 pp. 189, 194, &c. 



The remaining parts of the learned Abbe's Dissertation proves 

 nothing as to the authenticity of the poems, but it gives us reason 

 to suspect that he was very superficially, if at all, acquainted with 

 the history of the ancient Scots. ^'-^ '^' 



In the supplementary observations on the poems of Ossian, by 

 John Mo Arthur, LL. D., that gentleman, in speaking of the preser- 

 vation of ancient poems by oral tradition, lays it down as a fact, 

 which n;iust be admitted, that tradition is better than writing, to pre- 

 serve poems from corruption and error. To overturn this opinion it 

 is necessary only to compare any of those Gaelic poems, published by 

 the collectors of Gaelic poetry in Scotland, which were preserved by 

 tradition, with those copies of the same poems, published by Miss 

 Brooke, or Mr. OTlanagan, or with copies preserved in Irish manu- 

 scripts, and it will be found that the first are corrupt in the or- 

 thography, in grammar, in versification, and in the incidents of 

 the poems ; whilst the latter are free from all these faults. If this 

 Essay had not, necessarily, run out to so great a length, the writer 

 might, by the insertion of examples, give abundant proofs of what 

 is here asserted ; but as a number of those poems, are within the 

 r6ach of the Gaelic scholar, capable of making such comparison. 



