1892-93.] THE PRESKNT ASPECT OP THE OSSIANIC CONTROVERSY. 321 



for poems such as those that had been ascribed to Ossian, to be handed 

 down during many centuries, mainly by oral tradition. Johnson and 

 Hume and Laing were conspicuous among those who opposed the un- 

 ambiguous asseverations of MacPherson regarding the poems of Ossian 

 and the manner in which he came to obtain possession of them. Those 

 influential writers went ^the length of imputing very unworthy motives 

 to MacPherson, and of casting severe aspersions on his literary honesty. 

 In writing to Dr. Blair, Hume makes use of this caustic language : " You 

 need expect no assistance from MacPherson, who flew into a passion 

 when I told him of the letter I had written to you ; but you must not 

 mind so strange and heteroclite a mortal, than whom I have scarce ever 

 known a man more perverse and unamiable. He will probably depart 

 for Florida with Governor Johnstone, and I would advise him to travel 

 among the Chickisaws or Cherokees in order to tame him and civilize 

 him." There are not wanting witnesses to attest that the names of 

 Fingal and his heroes were known long before MacPherson published 

 his translation of Ossian. Barbour in his " Bruce," which was published 

 from a MS. that bore the date 1491, makes a distinct reference to 

 Fingal and Goll MacMorni — Gol MakMorn, one of his greatest heroes. 

 In his Gaelic edition of the Psalms of David, which was published in 

 1684, Kirke makes special mention of Fingal in the author's address to 

 his book. Bishop Carswell of Argyll published in 1567 his Gaelic version 

 of John Knox's Liturgy — the first book that was ever printed in Gaelic 

 In the preface, mention is made of those who are desirous of composing 

 histories concerning warriors and champions, and Fingal the son of 

 Cumhall, with his heroes. Dunbar mentions Fyn MaKowll and Gow 

 MacMorn, i.e., Fionn MacCaomhaii and Goll MacMorni. The poems 

 contained in the Dean of Lismore's book were collected by James Mac- 

 Gregor, Dean of Lismore, who died about the year 155 1. The book 

 in question is, therefore, more than three hundred years old, and a great 

 portion of it may be assigned to as early a date as 1512. It contains 

 twenty-eight Ossianic poems, extending to two thousand five hundred 

 lines. It thus appears that, apart from the evidence which MacPherson 

 was able to adduce, other writers of a much earlier date place the 

 existence of poems belonging to the age of Ossian beyond a doubt. 



It must be difficult for us, with all our modern appliances, to form a 

 correct estimate of the retentiveness, which, under particular cultivation, 

 the human memory is capable of acquiring. We learn, on the authority 

 of Caesar, that the Druids of Britain were in the habit of committing to 

 memory a great number of verses, insomuch that some Druids expended 

 twenty years in completing their education. " They seem," he writes, 

 " to have instituted this method for two reasons : because they would 



