312 



which have been translated and pubUshed by Miss Brooke, but an 

 infinitely greater number of which are to be found in Irish manu- 

 scripts still unpublished. 



Sir John Sinclair, in the " Dissertation on the authenticity of the 

 poems of Ossian," prefixed to the first volume of the Gaehc originals 

 of Ossian, p. 76, says, "a variety of satisfactory proofs regarding the 

 authenticity of particular parts, will be found in the Report of the 

 Highland Society. About fifteen hundred verses, in words almost 

 •the same with the poem of Fingal, were transmitted to that Society." 

 For these fifteen hundred verses he refers us to the "Report, Appen- 

 dix, Number 15," which is the Cento compiled by Doctor Smith, 

 from a variety of Gaelic poems, as we have already mentioned. The 

 poems from which the Doctor compiled his Cento, are corrupted 

 copies of the Irish Ossian's poems ; and are, doubtless, the sources 

 from which Macpherson drew the materials from which he moulded his 

 poems of Ossian ; and they must be considered, for so far as they go, the 

 only original poems to which that ingenious gentleman had recourse, 

 and from which, together with some Irish tales, he drew his ideas. 

 The connecting of various passages from a variety of poems, to form 

 an original for Mr. Macpherson's Ossian, proves very great industr}^ 

 in Doctor Smith, and affords a clear illustration of what the Com- 

 mittee of the Society, in drawing up its Report, says of the manner 

 in which Macpherson manufactured his poems of Ossian. The Report 

 says, p. 152, "The poems and ft^agments of poems which the Com- 

 mittee has been able to procure, contain, as will appear from the arti- 

 cle in the Appendix, Number 15, already mentioned, often the sub- 

 stance, and sometimes almost the literal expression (the ipsissima 

 verba,) of passages given by Mr. Macpherson, in the poems of which 

 he has published the translation. But the Committee has not been 

 able to obtain any one poem the same in title and tenor with the poems 



