214 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vot. bel Be 
Oglachas or the servile metre is made in imitation of all kinds of Dan 
Direach which have been mentioned. An Ogdachas is only a verse in 
imitation of those metres, and is confined neither to correpondence, con- 
cord, union nor to true termination. Dvrotghneach consists either of nine 
syllables in a quartan, or more, as far as thirteen, each quartan ending 
in a word of three syllables, and every final word must make a union with 
another word in the beginning or middle of the next line or couplet. 
There must also be a correspondence between the final words. 
Brutlingeacht is composed very much after the same manner as the 
Oglachas. It requires correspondence (at least improper correspondence) 
and also a kind of concord, unzon and head. 
The imperfect sketch which has now been given almost in the words of 
O’Molloy and O’Donovan, of the principal Irish metres, and the laws that 
govern them, may suffice to show, that the ancient Irish poets were care- 
ful students of the genius of their language ; and that they were led uncon- 
sciously it may be, to adopt that method of versification and to frame those 
rules of prosody, that suited the natural tendency of their own thoughts. 
and the possibilities of the language, by means of which their thoughts and 
feelings found expression in verse. Nor can it be otherwise than a 
pleasant and a profitable occupation to the Celtic student, to examine and 
witness for himself how the Irish poets carried out the laws of Irish versi- 
fication, and how they exhibited great ability and ingenuity in moulding 
their verse, according to the requirements of the various metres. The 
commendation is altogether too faint which Davies bestows upon the laws 
of Irish prosody. Puerile as some of those laws may appear, they were 
evidently the invention of a people who applied themselves closely to the 
study of letters. Nothing can be clearer than that the system of Irish 
versification is entirely different from the system of the Greek and Latin 
poets, and that a faithful adherence to the laws of their own versification 
demanded from the Irish poets no less ability and pains and musical 
culture than Sophocles and Euripides and Virgil and Horace displayed 
in the composition of their poems. 
Shaw, whose Gaelic Grammar was published in 1778 thus writes, 
(p. 132) “The measure of Ossian’s poetry is irregular and various. 
Generally he has couplets of eight, though they do not rhyme, and seven 
and sometimes nine syllables. These feet are most commonly trochee and 
dactyl. The trochee occupies the first, the dactyl the second, and third, 
and a long syllable ends the line.” 
Davies was led to believe that Ossian and his poems belong to the 
Irish Gaels, and in accordance with his theory observed, (p. 196) “that 
f 
