294 



top margin of which the word Etnanuel is written, not by the way 

 of title for the book, but for a quite different purpose. The greater 

 part of the ancient GaeUc manuscripts, now extant, were probably 

 written in monasteries, by the religious of those establishments ; and 

 the writers, that they might have God always in remembrance, even 

 while writing on mere worldly subjects, were in the habit of writing 

 the word Emanuel on the tops of their pages, to remind them, by 

 that name, that God was present with them. In others of those 

 manuscripts the words losa Criost, or Mo shldnaightheoir, were writ- 

 ten to remind, not only the writer, but whoever might in future read 

 the writing, of Jesus Christ and their Saviour. 



This manuscript which, it appears, Mr. Astle also was silly 

 enough to suppose was called Emanuel, carries with it more the 

 appearance of its being an Irish than a Scotch Gaelic manuscript ; 

 but, be that as it may, and for argument sake, admitting that the ma- 

 nuscript was of so early a date as the ninth or tenth century, four 

 hundred years after Saint Columb had established his school in loiia, 

 it cannot be admitted as a proof that the Gaelic originals of Ossian, 

 published by the Society, were composed by Ossian in the second cen- 

 tury. On the contrary, the language of the manuscript, compared 

 with that of the " originals," will prove beyond a possibility of doubt, 

 that the former was written some centuries back, and that the latter is 

 a modern fabrication. 



At page 452, the learned Doctor makes an odd assertion respect- 

 ing the poems of Ossian. He says they were recited to amuse and 

 lull people to sleep ! ! 



Sir John Sinclair, in his " Dissertation," p. 10, and Doctor Mc 

 Arthur himself, told us that the total ignorance of letters among the 

 Highlanders accounted for their having preserved the poems of Ossian. 

 The learned Doctor, however, seems to be now of a different opinion; 



