15 



infection, translations were made, and foreign presses took an interest in 

 multiplying copies. We learn from the notes to the Abbe Cesarotti's Dis- 

 sertation, that "in 1787 the Baron Edmund De Harold, colonel in the 

 service of the Elector Palatine, published at Dusseldorf an English ver- 

 sion of seventeen little Caledonian poems, which he had discovered, 

 with the following titles: The Songs of Tara; The Song of Phelim; Evir- 

 allen; Sulmora; Ryno's Song on the Death of Oscar; Malvina, a dra- 

 matic poem; Rinfena and Sira; A song of Ossian after the defeat of the 

 Romans; Bosmina; The Songs of Comfort; The Last Song of Ossian ; 

 Sulima; Sitric; Lamor; Larnul, or the Song of Despair ; The Death 

 of Asala; The Morning Song of the Bard Dlorah." All these poems 

 the Baron ascribed to Ossian, except that of Lamor, which is supposed 

 to be of more remote antiquity ; and that of Sitric, which appears to 

 be of the ninth century. Of these poems it is observed, that " the 

 style is neither so figurative nor so bold as in those published by Mac- 

 pherson. In Ossian'e Poems no mention is to be found of any deity, 

 while those translated by the Baron, on the contrary, are filled with 

 the most sublime descriptions of the supreme Being. Macpherson's 

 Ossian appears to have been a native of the Highlands of Scotland ; 

 and De Harold's Ossian seems to be a native of Ireland." 



Ireland, it may be supposed, was not an uninterested spectator of 

 these transactions. Till now her claim to the Fenian bards and 

 heroes had no more been disputed, than her claim to Brian Boroimhe 

 and his bard Mac-Liag. She heard with amazement of the usurpa- 

 tion of her right, in favour of the Gael Albanach. Her renowned 

 chief. Fin Mac-Cumhal, the general of one of her ancient kings, had 

 undergone a metamorphosis beneath the spells of a sorcerer, called 

 Macpherson, almost as great as that which he suffered from the in- 

 cantations of the daughter of GuUen.* The Fenian chief was become 



* See the Irish Poem of The Chase. 



