29 



with all its superlative excellence, was but a faint shadow of the 

 ■strength and majesty of the Celtic Homer. But Gaelic poetry, as 

 he informs us, was now " frequently brought upon the carpet." 

 Ossian was become a subject of national interest, and the ancient lite- 

 rary renown of Caledonia, was involved in the question of his superior 

 genius. It was equally involved in the question of his authenticity, 

 and unless this could be supported, all would be lost. To settle this 

 point, Bishop Cameron, in one of his letters, informed Sir John Sin- 

 clair, that Mr. Macgillivray saw the greatest "part of Fingal and 

 Temora collated by Mr. Farquharson with the original ; and Macgil- 

 livray himself says, " I have an hundred times seen him turning over 

 the folio, when he read the translation, and comparing it with the 

 Erse ; and I can positively say, that I saw him in this manner go 

 through the whole poems of Fingal and Temora." This is strong and 

 decisive language ; still we hesitate. Had he only made a proper use 

 of some one of the "hundred" opportunities which he enjoyed, to 

 take down in writing a few of the passages which most forcibly struck 

 either Farquharson or himself, both in the original and the transla- 

 tion, page for page, and line for line, and presented them to the 

 world as a specimen of the mode in which the comparison was con- 

 ducted, his assertions might have claimed more respect ; and we can- 

 not but marvel that he did not execute this task, or induce his friend 

 to execute it, both for their own and the public satisfacton. That Mr. 

 Farquharson turned over his folio " an hundred times " to search for 

 passages similar to those which he admired in Macpherson's Ossian, 

 we can readily believe, and also that he may have found certain simi- 

 larities of thought and of diction, with an identity of names. Such si- 

 milarities are found in the Fenian Tales, from which, we feel confident, 

 Macpherson took many of the materials of his centos ; and which we 

 doubt not were, in the present instance, copied from Mrs. Fraser's col- 



