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nals, p. 89, that Macpherson had a notion that it would be better to 

 print the Gaehc originals in Greek characters ! ! ! Why the Society 

 should change the orthography of the originals, the reason assigned 

 by Sir John Sinclair is not sufficiently satisfactory. The orthogra- 

 phy of the modern Gaelic Bible is not near one hundred years old. 

 Before that translation was made, the Highlanders had no translation 

 but the Irish one usually called Bedell's Bible, and the New Testament, 

 translated by William O'Donell, Archbishop of Tuam, from 1609 to 

 1628. This latter book was printed in the Roman letter in 1690, 

 for the use of the Highlanders, who did not then read the old Gaelic 

 letter ; but the orthography was the same as the quarto Irish Bible, 

 printed at the same time, in its native character. The Irish Bible in 

 the Roman letter was intelligible to such of the Highlanders as could 

 read ; and at the time Macpherson's Ossian was published, they had 

 no other Bible ; and there. cannot be any great doubt that many of 

 the readers of the old Irish Bible were living at the time the Society 

 published the originals of Ossian, so that it is not quite clear that 

 " the generality of Gaelic readers were best acquainted with the 

 orthography of the" (modern) " Gaelic Bible." This, therefore, can 

 be no excuse for publishing the works of an ancient poet in an ortho- 

 graphy that he would be ashamed of, if he could possibly see it. As 

 well might the modern Greeks publish the works of Homer in their 

 own modern dialect, as the Highland Society the works of Ossian in 

 modern Scotch Gaelic. Macpherson's notion of printing the origi- 

 nals of his Ossian in Greek characters, may have arisen from a design 

 to hide his own ignorance of the ancient Gaelic language, contained 

 in old Gaelic manuscripts ; and the alteration from the old Gaelic 

 orthography, in the originals, to that of the modern Gaehc Bible, 

 may have arisen from something of a similar feeling in the executors 

 of Mr. Macpherson, or perhaps in the Highland Society. It is highly 



