a9 . 



He also carefully avoids all allusion to the Ogham inscriptions, 

 still to be found upon rocks, and to the military game of chess, in 

 M'hich the Fenian warriors dehghted, and of which particular mention 

 is made in the old Irish tale of the three sons ofUsnach, a tale well 

 known to Macpherson. He probably thought the game of too mo- 

 dern invention for the age of his poems, though had he been as fami- 

 liar with the Odyssey as with the Iliad, he might have found that its 

 introduction would expose him to no hazard of an anachronism. 



Blair mentions it as a merit, that he particularizes his mountains, 

 seas, and lakes, though noticed only in a simile; "it is the hill of 

 Cromla, the storm of the sea of Maimer, or the reeds of the lake of 

 . Lego." On this Shaw justly observes, " the author surely would not 

 be so uncircumspect as to use the name of Parnassus, Scylla, and 

 Charybdis, or the reeds of the Red Sea. This is no more than what 

 every poet, and in every country, has done ; and this inlernal evi- 

 dence proves nothing." i iioiin ,nnva. uaiiiur nayig gixj'' 

 ^ui-Lord Kames was a strenuous defender of the authenticity of 

 Ossian, and being a critic of taste, he quotes a great variety of pas- 

 sages as illustrative of the manners. *' If all," says he, " were not 

 genuine, the cloven foot would some where peep out.''* And so it 

 does, and the horns and the tail too, till the whole father of lies be- 

 comes apparent, though thickly clad in Caledonian mist. Some of 

 the very passages quoted by his Lordship, belong to the sacred Scrip- 

 tures, and rise conspicuous, in characters of light, to proclaim whence 

 they were stolen. Blair says well, that Macpherson does not borrow. 

 'No, he clandestinely and surreptitiously takes "jewels of silver, and 

 jewels of gold and raiment," and spoils his neighbours, and offers the 

 spoil to an old Irish bard, with whose fame he wishes to identify his 

 own, but who indignantly scorns the alliance ^nd the offering. 



■' " ''•'■! •''"■'••' • ■• ' * Kawes' Sketches, vol. i. p. 245. 



VOL. XVI. N 



