828 



There is another poem not yet noticed by us which deserves our 

 attention, as it furnishes a yet further proof of the depredations com- 

 mitted by Macpherson on the old Irish poems, ascribed to Ossian. 

 The poem of "Carthon" is so much hke the poem of the coming of 

 Conlaoch to Ireland, and the death of that chief, that there cannot 

 be a shadow of doubt that the latter is the original. Miss Brooke 

 has translated and published, accompanied with the original, the 

 poem on the death of Conlaoch ; we shall, therefore, make no com- 

 parison of the two productions, but leave that task to the reader, and 

 we have no doubt that the Irish must be confessed the store from 

 which Macpherson stole his Carthon. We may, however, be per- 

 mitted to observe, that Mr. Macpherson changes the names of 

 Cuchullin and Connlaoich, to Clessamor and Carthon. The High- 

 land Society, in the Appendix to its Report, p. 319, acknowledges 

 the similarity, and makes a comparison between Miss Brooke's copy 

 and one in the possession of the Society, in Kennedy's collection. 

 The Society is obliged to confess, p. 325, that, in some things at 

 least, *' Miss Brooke's copy is the more genuine." 



Let us, before closing our observations on the originals, remark, 

 that the ground work and several of the incidents in the poem of 

 Temora, are borrowed from three ancient Irish poems on the battle 

 of Gabhra, or Gavvra, and from popular Irish Tales on the same 

 subject. One of those poems is called "Eo« Osgair," — "-The Death 

 of Oscar" or, otherwise " Marbhrann Osgair," — " The Death-song 

 of Oscar," found by Doctor Young in Scotland, and published by 

 him in the first volume of the " Transactions of the Royal Irish 

 Academy." A copy of this poem, and of two others, both called 

 " Cath Gabhra," — " The Battle of Gabhra," in old manuscripts, are 

 in the possession of the writer of these pages, but as this Essay has 

 already run out to an unreasonable length, we shall, for the present, 

 forbear to give extracts. 



