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tranflations of the works of Offian ; this charge I am enabled 

 to refute, at leaft in part, having fortunately met with the 

 oriaiinals of fome of them. Mr. Mc. Pherfon, I acknowledge, has 

 taken very great liberties with them ; retrenching, adding, and 

 altering as he judged proper : But we muft admit that he has 

 difcovercd great ingenuity in thefe variations. 



Mr. Hill, in his letters on this fubjed, having taken notice of 

 the manner in which thefe tranflations were made, according to 

 Mr. Smith's own confeffion (a gentleman who has likewife pub- 

 lifhed a very elegant and beautiful colledion of poems attributed 

 to Offian and other Highland bards) namely, " that Mr. Mc. 

 " Pherfon compiled his publications from thofe parts of the 

 " Hi2;hland fongs which he moft approved, combining them into 

 " fuch forms as, according to his ideas, were moft excellent, 

 " retaining the old names and leading events," complains, that 

 until the oria;inals are produced, no man can tell what is Offian's 

 and what is Mc. Pherfon's. 



This charge feems indeed to be an unanfwerable objedion 

 to the form in which thefe tranflations have been given to the 

 public. The manners, cuftoms, laws, the ftate of arts and fciences 

 amongft the antient tribes of thefe countries ; the order, imagery, 

 and connedion of their poetical remains, are the great objeds of 

 enquiry to the curious. They have therefore long been anxious 

 to fee, either the very poems themfelves in their primitive form, 

 or fuch tranflations as have adhered faithfully to them. Until 

 this be done, it will certainly be impoffible to diftinguifli the 

 ancient from the modern, the real from the fiditious ; and there- 

 fore, 



