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fore, be allowed to pass over Dr. Mc Arthur's work, by merely 

 alluding to a passage which he cites from one of Doctor John Mac- 

 pherson's letters to Doctor Blair, published in the Report of the 

 Society, p. 9. In that letter, Doctor Macpherson says, " Again, 

 should we suppose with Mr. Macpherson, that Ossian lived down to 

 the beginning of the fourth century, it seems plain enough that the 

 composition of that poet might have been transmitted from one gene- 

 ration to another, until letters began to flourish in some degree in 

 the Highlands and Isles * * * * All the world will allow that the 

 use of letters was known in Ireland from Saint Patrick's time * * * 

 Therefore it may very reasonably be presumed, that some one of 

 Saint Patrick's disciples would have committed to writing the compo- 

 sitions of that excellent poet, before he himself had left the world, 

 that is to say, before the middle of the fifth century." This letter of 

 the Doctor contains a curious admission, upon which no Scotchman 

 can very much pride himself; namely, that though Ireland had the 

 use of letters in the middle of the fifth century, the Scotch were unac- 

 quainted with the art of writing. For if Ossian were a Scotchman, 

 and that his countrymen were literate, where was the necessity to get 

 a disciple of Saint Patrick's to write down the compositions of that 

 poet i But the most curious affair in the Doctor's letter is the sup- 

 position that Ossian, who, according to James Macpherson, flou- 

 rished in the second century, might have lived to the middle of the 

 fifth century, and then recite his poems to one of Saint Patrick's 

 disciples, that he might write them down to preserve them to pos- 

 terity ! ! ! If this were true, Ossian must have had less faith in the 

 efficacy of oral tradition, to preserve long poems, than Sir John Sin- 

 clair, and some others of his countrymen, who assert, that amongst 

 the Scotch, "their total ignorance of letters, and other particulars, 

 accounted for their preservation." 



