1831.] 



"Domestic and Foreign. 



673 



fiend, and plays old Gooseberry with 

 the dead and the living especially with 

 a lady who for some time is dead, and 

 not dead. Particular scenes in all the 

 tales are sketched and even finished 

 with spirit, but, generally, the details, 

 and the very interlacing of incident, are 

 beyond anybody's following with in- 

 terest or patience. 



The Scottish Gacl,or Celtic Manners,c., 

 by James Logan, 2 vols., 8vo. Notwith- 

 standing the numerous volumes pub- 

 lished of late years relative to the High- 

 landers of Scotland, their habits, and 

 superstitions, and peculiarities, there 

 was still wanting one to embrace the 

 whole subject, and communicate at once 

 all that had been collected, and lay dis- 

 persed in different quarters. Such an 

 one Mr. Logan has supplied. His ulti- 

 mate purpose was to exhibit the relics of 

 Celtic manners, as they are preserved 

 among the Highlanders' of the present 

 day ; and certainly no time was to be 

 lost, for they are disappearing every 

 year, and in another half century will 

 all probably have vanished without leav- 

 ing a rack behind. Mr. Logan, of 

 course, though he accumulates all the 

 evidence he can muster, may be said to 

 take for granted the main question, 

 whether the Highlanders, after all, are 

 Celts at all. He has no doubt they are 

 the pure descendants of the original 

 Celts, unmixed with Gothic, Irish, or 

 Saxon ; and the best evidence by which 

 he identifies the existing peculiarities, 

 which he designates as Gaelic, with those 

 of the original Celts, are the poems of 

 Ossian, and other traditional poems still 

 floating, but fast fading away, in the 

 memories of individuals, in remote 

 districts. Not but he traces similar pe- 

 culiarities, more or less, among the ori- 

 ginal Irish, the Welch, and the Ameri- 

 cans ; but the poems are his best 

 authorities, and of course no common 

 pains are taken to establish their au- 

 thenticity, or rather their antiquity. 



Till after the rebellion of 1745 the 

 Highlanders were scarcely known at all, 

 and whether they had poetry or prose 

 among them, nobody in England thought 

 of inquiring, and scarcely any body in 

 cultivated Scotland. The Lowlanders 

 and Highlanders had indeed little in 

 common ; and least of all was it sup- 

 posed that Highlanders had any thing 

 which could challenge the respect of 

 Lowlanders, or vice versa. When Mac- 

 pherson put forth his Translation of 

 Ossian, the literary world was in arms, 

 and generally proclaimed the production 

 to be an impudent imposture. The 

 great Coryphceus of learning of his day, 

 Johnson, demanded like a man of sense, 

 if there had been no other possible me- 

 dium of preservation the MSS. Mac- 



M.M.New Series VOL. XL No. 66. 



pherson, as full of vanity as an " egg is 

 of meat," refused to furnish the proofs 

 demanded. Either he had no MSS. to 

 produce, or, what seems to have been 

 the fact, he was desirous the world should 

 finally believe the poems were his 

 own invention. Meanwhile numbers of 

 Scotchmen were every where declaring 

 the poems were familiar to them they 

 had heard them sung over and over 

 again in various parts of the Highlands 

 and verily believed them to be pro- 

 ductions of ancient date. But it was not 

 till the institution of the Highland So- 

 ciety that proofs were produced of con- 

 siderable antiquity. The oldest MS., in 

 existence, of some portion of them, is 

 thought to be of the ninth century, and, 

 of course, even that may have been 

 copied from others, Macpherson seems 

 himself to have written down from the 

 mouth of rehearsers the whole of what 

 he translated ; and Mr. Logan brings 

 together the evidence, that has at dif- 

 ferent times been gathered, relative to 

 the persons who did rehearse them to 

 Macpherson. One man made affidavit, 

 that his brother recited four days and 

 four nights to him ! But there can exist 

 no doubt, from incidental notices in 

 books, that many of these poems were 

 habitually sung ages ago, and sung to 

 particular tunes, and thus more securely 

 handed down. The case is apparently 

 parallel with that of Homer, whose 

 poems, according to all tradition, were 

 sung in detached pieces, called rhapso- 

 dies, and for the production of which, 

 when some Athenians collected them in 

 the time of Pisistratus, large rewards 

 were offered. 



On the general antiquities and relics 

 of the Celts the author's industry has 

 brought together a considerable mass of 

 information, in a manner creditable alike 

 to his industry and his judgment. The 

 historical portions might have been use- 

 fully compressed, and a little more life 

 thrown into the whole ; but non omnid 

 possumus omnes. 



Fragments of Voyages and Travels, fyc., 

 by Captain Basil Hall, R. N., 3 vols., 

 18mo. Captain Hall is here his own 

 hero, and takes especial pains to prove 

 himself one from his cradle. He is 

 brimful of self-importance, and fully 

 convinced he is a genius and a jewel of 

 the first water. Now we have no incli- 

 nation whatever to dispute his preten- 

 sions we have no doubt he is a very 

 clever person, and he has at all events 

 produced a very respectable little book 

 one presenting many points of in- 

 terest, and even of utility ; but it is not, 

 and never can be, agreeable to have a 

 conviction of immense superiority to all 

 the world driven down one's throat, in 

 this manner, at the point of the pen. 

 4 11 



