e 



329 



In the course of this inquiry, we have been necessarily prolix in 

 the examination of all that has been alleged in support of the asser- 

 tion, that those poems published by Macpherson, as the works of 

 Ossian, are translations of the works of a Highland bard of the third 

 century, and we have proved from a variety of evidence, drawn from 

 the poems, that they were not written at, or near, the period assigned 

 to them. We have shewn from the confession of the Highland Soci- 

 eties, and from extracts from, and references to, various ancient Irish 

 poems, which are formed into episodes in the larger poems of Ossian, 

 that those poems never existed in any language, in their present form, 

 before they were so formed and published in English by Mr. Mac- 

 pherson. jj^ 



By an analysis of the '^ Poems of Ossian in the original Gaelic ;" 

 by a comparison of them with the Cento of Doctor Donald Smith, 

 which the Society asserts contains fifteen hundred lines of the origi- 

 nal of the poem of Fingal ; by a comparison of them with extracts 

 from ancient Irish poems, plundered by Macpherson for the purpose 

 of supplying materials for his own Ossian ; and by shewing that that 

 Ossian never appeared in its present form before it was moulded into 

 that shape by Mr. Macpherson, we have proved that those originals 

 of the Society are modern compositions. If the poems were old, 

 though of no very remote antiquity, they would be correct in their 

 versification ; but in this we have shewn them to be in every respect 

 defective. If they were of very remote antiquity, near the period 

 assigned to them, they would be now unintelligible to the generality 

 of Gaelic readers ; certainly so to those who had not made ancient 

 Gaelic manuscripts a particular study. The insertion, therefore, of a 

 few obsolete words into the originals, to give them an appearance of 

 antiquity, without the writer perfectly understanding their ancient 

 meaning, only serves to make the imposition the more glaring. It is 



