Dec. 16. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



489 



mistaken, our own beloved Queen keeps up some 

 of the old liturgical offerings which her predeces- 

 sors, from the most remote period, were wont to 

 make, us she presents at the chapel royal her offer- 

 ings of gold on the Epiphany or Kingtide, and 

 makes her maundy there during Holy Week, by 

 distributing money and clothing to poor men and 

 women. At her coronation, too, her offering of a 

 mark of gold was represented by no trifling sum of 

 money. 



In that highly interesting notice on " Holy- 

 bread," with which Me. Denton has enriched the 

 pages of " N. & Q.," he says (Vol. x., p. 250.), 

 " Although wanting in the Pontificale Romanum — 

 it (benedictio panis) would seem to have been a 

 rite observed in England, since, in the Missale 

 parvum pro sacerdotihus in Anglia, Scotia et Iber- 

 nia itinei'antibus (1626), one of the forms of the 

 French books is inserted," &c. If, instead of the 

 Pontificale, Me. Denton had looked into the 

 Rituale Romanum, or among the " Benedictiones " 

 at the end of any edition, either ancient or modern, 

 of the Missale Romanum, he would have found 

 always one, and often both forms for the blessing 

 of the Holy-loaf: the Pontificale, having in it those 

 services which a bishop only may celebrate, does 

 not give this blessing, which any priest may utter. 

 Me. Denton moreover seems to think that the 

 French have a form of their own for the " Bene- 

 dictio panis," and that the form set forth in the 

 above notices, Missale parvum pro sacerdotihus in 

 Anglia, Sfc, is borrowed from the French church- 

 books. This, however, is not so, as I see the old 

 Roman form in that Missale parvum now lying 

 open before me, at p. 252. The Eoman is the 

 original form of prayer, and is embodied into the 

 ritual of every individual church throughout Latin 

 Christendom. It is to be seen in all our own old 

 English service-books ; in all the German and 

 French rituals ; it is to be read at the end of the 

 Missale Mozarabes, edited by Lesley ; it was em- 

 ployed in Scotland, as we learn from the Aberdeen 

 Breviary ; and this same form given in the Mis- 

 sale parvum is a continuation of the same form to 

 be found in all our Sarum missals and manuals, 

 and that had been employed so many hundred 

 years in this country. 



Let me here put in as a Note that the reprint 

 of the Breviarium Aberdonense, ^ust brought out 

 by Mr. Toovey, is by far the most splendid repro- 

 duction of any black-letter service-book ever ac- 

 complished in this or any other land, and sheds 

 equal lustre on the press of this country and on 

 the undertakers of such a valuable liturgical work. 



D. Rock. 



Newick, Sussex. 



OSSIAN S FOEMS. 



(Vol. X., p. 224.) 



Without any wish to revive a controversy which 

 seems to have been set at rest by the opinion, now 

 generally prevailing, that the Poems of Ossian are 

 not authentic, I should like, with your permission, 

 to offer one or two remarks in reply to Mb. West. 



No rational mind can believe in the authen- 

 ticity of a literary work, without sufficient proof 

 of its existence. Now, what evidence have we to 

 show that the " originals " of the poems published 

 by Macpherson are, or have ever been, in exist- 

 ence ? Nothing, so far as can be discovered, but 

 that writer's bare assertion. He was repeatedly 

 challenged to produce the " originals," and neither 

 he, nor any one on his behalf, has ever exhibited 

 a single complete poem by Ossian. Would Me. 

 West believe in the existence of the Iliad or the 

 JEneid, upon the testimony of Pope or Dryden, 

 and with nothing to support their assertions but 

 their translations of Homer and Virgil ? 



As to " oral tradition," that too, though long 

 relied on, had to be given up like everything else. 

 A country whose inhabitants have memories long 

 enough to transmit from age to age an epic poem 

 in six books, is a country which has not yet been 

 discovered. True, this reduces us to the belief 

 that Macpherson, by the mere force of his genius, 

 and with the aid of a few fragments of old songs, 

 has written down a poet of the third century. 

 But that is not more difficult to believe than 

 other similar feats ; and the age which produced 

 the still more startling forgeries of Chatterton, 

 and the Marquis de Surville, might well have 

 given birth to those of Macpherson. 



The "beauty" of the Poems of Ossian is a point 

 on which a change has come over the general 

 opinion. Napoleon, it is said, made them his con- 

 stant study and delight ; and, until the beginning 

 of the present century, they shared with Young's 

 Night Thoughts the admiration and applause of 

 the French. But since that period the public 

 taste, in England at least, has taken another di- 

 rection ; and at the present day the Poems of 

 Ossian, in spite of some beautiful images and a 

 striking passage here and there, are deemed by 

 the majority of critics to be little better than a 

 series of nursery tales. Heney H. Beebn, 



St. Lucia. 



IX)NGEVITr. 



(Vol. X., p. 149.) 



You may add to the instances of longevity 

 which have already appeared in " N. & Q.," the 

 following, which is wonderful if true. It is ex- 



