[ 45 ] 



fore, however we may admire them as beautiful compofitions, 

 we can never rely on their authority, in any queftion of hiftory, 

 antiquity or criticifra. Mr. Mc. Pherfon, I muft alfo allow, is 

 liable to cenfure for having altered the date of his originals, as 

 well as their matter and form, having given them a much higher 

 antiquity than they are really entitled to. On this ground it is 

 that he ftudioully fuppreffes all mention of St. Patrick, v;hofe 

 name frequently occurs in thefe poems, and only occafionally 

 alludes to him under the charadter of a Culdee, or one of the firft 

 Chriftian miffionaries into this country ; for any mention of St. 

 Patrick would have induced us to fufped, that perhaps thefe 

 poems were not in truth the compofitions of OlTian, but of thofe 

 Fileas who in later times committed to verfe the traditional 

 relations of his exploits. We cannot adopt the opinion of fome 

 of the advocates for Mr. Mc. Pherfon, that he has only omitted 

 fuch paffages as are of modern fabrication, and retained the 

 genuine lines of Offian alone : and even granting that he had 

 the faculty of diftinguifhing, by fome unerring criterion, the ge- 

 nuine compofition of Offian, he' can never affure us, that he has 

 fo thoroughly attained the fpirit of the bard, as that we may 

 juftly place his own infertions and additions on the fame level 

 with them. He ought to have permitted the world to judge 

 in thefe cafes for themfelves ; and when he profeffed himfelf 

 to be merely a tranflator, it fhould feem he tranfgreffed the li- 

 mits of his province, when he prefumed either to add to or 

 mutilate the originals. Of the degree of this ftretch of his pre- 

 rogative we may form fome conjedlure from the following cir- 

 cumftance : One of the profeffors of the Univerfity of Glafgow, 



having 



