324 



sity to compare those different copies, may find Doctor Smith's hnes 

 in the Appendix to the Report of the Highland Society, p. 246 ; the 

 Society's original in vol. ii. p. 166 ; and Miss Brooke's Irish copy in 

 p, 298 of her work. A perfect copy of the Irish, in a very old manu- 

 script, is in the possession of the writer of these sheets. 



The fourth Book of Fingal gives us additional proofs of Mac- 

 pherson's plagiarisms, and of the depredations committed by modern 

 Scotch ingenuity upon the old Irish poems attributed to Ossian. 

 The first of the passages we now allude to is Ossian's courtship with 

 Evirallin. We have already (pp. 222 and 257) paid some attention to 

 this representation of ancient gallantry, and would now dismiss the 

 subject without further notice, if it were not that the original of Doc- 

 tor Smith's Cento, and that of the Society, are so discordant with 

 each other, and with the copies published by Gillies, in Perth, 

 1786, and by Doctor Young in the first volume of the " Transactions 

 of the Royal Irish Academy," from a copy which he obtained in the 

 Highlands of Scotland, and which agrees with the old Irish poem of 

 " Suiridh Oisin." 



From what we have already said, and the proofs we have given of 

 the fabrication of the poems of Ossian by Macpherson, and of the 

 modern originality of the Gaelic poems, given by the Society, as 

 those of Ossian, we feel it might be considered a waste of time and 

 space to give any further extracts from the latter ingenious invention. 

 We beg leave, however, to give an extract from the opening of the 

 poem as given by Doctor Smith, and request the Gaelic scholar to 

 compare it with those from Gillies, p. 11, and Doctor Young, in 

 vol. T. "Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy." According to 

 Smith, Ossian's address begins thus : 



" A ribhin ur nan geala-glac. 

 Gad tlia mi nochd mo dhiobar seann-laoich 

 ' -' Dubradh rium laoch calma 



