322 



" Haughtily answered Manus, 

 The supreme king of Lochlainn of speckled ships ; 

 I will take his spouse from Fionn, 

 Against his will across the waves, and also Bran." 



" The Fiann will give severe battle 

 To thy host, before they give up Bran ; 

 . And Fionn will give battle in abundance. 

 Before he surrender his spouse." 



" By thy hand, oh generous Fergus, 

 Though great thy reliance on the Fiann ; 

 I will bring with .me Bran across the sea. 

 Or combat briskly on his account." 



" From thy hand, though great thy hopes, 

 From thy host, though great thy estimation 

 Of the numbers that you brought across the sea. 

 Never shall you carry Bran beyond the waves," 



We have now laid the three exemplars before the reader, and we 

 have no doubt that it will be obvious that, the Irish is the original, of 

 which the other two are imitations. 



In the episode of Borbar and Fainasolis, in the third Book of 

 Fingal, we find another barefaced plagiarism from another of the 

 Irish Ossian's poems. The Irish poem made use of on this occasion, 

 is the " Laoidh an Mkoighre bhorb," of which we have already taken 

 some notice in this Essay, pp. 221 and 251. In the second of the 

 pages here referred to, we give an extract from a Scotch copy with 

 its translation, given as an original in the Report of the Highland 

 Society, p. 93, opposite to which we placed the corresponding Irish 

 verses, with a literal translation of our own. It appears, however, 

 that the Scotch have a variety of " originals." The copy in the 

 Report, excepting the abominable spelling, and some other trifling 

 difi^erences, agrees with the Irish original; but this would not square 

 with the views of the Society, and therefore Doctor Smith in his 

 Cento, in the Appendix to the Report, p. 226, gives us another origi- 



