330 



proved, that the poems of Ossian ne^er appeared in their present 

 form before the days of Macpherson, and as the Society's "origi- 

 nals" corrrespond in form with Macpherson's EngUsh, those " origi- 

 nals " must have been fabricated since Macpherson's Ossian was pub- 

 lished. 



Having now, as we conceive, produced sufficient evidence to shew 

 to the Royal Irish Academy, and to every impartial person who may 

 take the trouble to examine this subject, that " the poems, both as 

 given in Macpherson s translation, and as published in Gaelic, in 

 1807, under the sanction of the Highland Society of London, are 

 of recent origin," it only remains for us, in further pursuance of the 

 subject proposed by the Academy, to inquire into " the probable era 

 and country of the original poet or poets." 



That a celebrated person of the name of Oisin, or Ossian, as he is 

 called by English readers, flourished in Ireland at a very early 

 period ; that he was always reputed a famous poet ; and that he was 

 the son of Fionn Mac Cubhaill, an Irishman,* and the chief of the 



* That it was the general belief of the people of Scotland, that Fionn was an Irishman, is 

 evident from the " Ilislorical and Genealogical Essay npon the Family and Surname of Bucha- 

 nan," first published in quarto by William Buchanan, of Auchmar, in Edinburgh, in the year 

 1723, and reprinted in the same city, in the year 1775. In this last-mentioned edition, 

 p. 16, the author, after mentioning that " Cormac U/fada, king of Ireland, was obliged to em- 

 ploy 3000, or as others say, 9000 of the choice men of the kingdom; which number he ap- 

 pointed as a standing army," he tells us, " these forces were termed of Feans, being the an- 

 cient Irish term for Giants ; and their general was termed kiny of Feans, than which the Irisli 

 use no other terms as yet in their own language for a general. About the middle of the fifth 

 century, the Irish, with some of our Scottish historians, assert Finmacoel to be general of these 

 Irish forces ; whose huge stature and actions against the Danes, and others, are somewhat 

 above measure extolled in divers rude rhymes, in their own language, retained as yet by the 

 Irish, and by some of our Scottish Highlanders." Here is the testimony of a Scottish wri- 

 ter of some celebrity, that the Scotch of his day believed that not only Fionn w as an Irishman, 

 but that the "rude rhymes" (the poems of Ossian,) in which he and his men were extolled, 

 were of Irish origin. It can scarcely be believed that Sir John Sinclair, when composing his 

 " Dissertution," and speaking of writers who mentioned Fionn (Fingal) in their works, was 



