322 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. IV. 



not have their learning divulged to the vulgar, and lest those who 

 learned by depending on their writings would be less assiduous in 

 cultivating their memory, and because it frequently happens that by 

 the assistance of letters persons take less pains in getting by heart 

 or remembering." Grote informs us that there were educated gentlemen 

 at Athens, who could repeat the Iliad and Odyssey by heart. In the 

 preface to MacCallums' Ossian these very judicious remarks are made: 

 "That until the present century almost every great family in the High- 

 lands had its bard, to whose office it belonged to be master of all the 

 poems of reputation in the country ; that among these poems the works 

 of Ossian are easily distinguished from those of later bards by several 

 peculiarities in the style and manner ; that Ossian has always been 

 reputed the Homer of the Highlands, and all his compositions held in 

 singular esteem and veneration ; and that it was wont to be the great 

 entertainment of the Highlanders to pass the winter evenings in discours- 

 ings of the times of P'ingal and rehearsing these old poems, of which they 

 had all along been enthusiastically fond." Than Dr. John Smith, the 

 author of the Sean Dana, no one is entitled to greater respect in connec- 

 tion with the Ossianic controversy. He was born in the cla.'5sical portion 

 of the Highlands of Scotland, and his devotion to Gaelic and Gaelic 

 literature was great and successful. He thus writes : " That there have 

 been in the Highlands of Scotland for some time back a good many 

 poems that were ascribed to Ossian, and repeated by almost all persons 

 and on all occasions, is a fact so indisputable that nobody can be hardy 

 enough to deny it. There is not an old man in the Highlands but will 

 declare, that he heard such poems repeated by his father and grandfather 

 as pieces of the most remote antiquity, long before the translation of 

 them had been thought of Bards who are themselves several centuries 

 old quote them, imitate them and allude to them. Just now in the 

 parish of Kilninver is a tradesman and poet of the name of MacPhael, 

 whom I have heard for weeks together repeat ancient tales arid poems — 

 many of them Ossian's — from five to ten o'clock in the winter nights. 

 In Glendonan, Kilchrenan Parish, is a family of the name of MacDugal ; 

 and at Arivean, Glenorchay Parish, another of the name of MacNicol, 

 now almost extinct, both of whom were such senachies for some gener- 

 ations back, that they could entertain at this rate for a whole winter's 

 season. What wonder if the poems of Ossian, where such was the 

 custom, have been so long preserved." Those in our day who are dis- 

 posed to call the authenticity of the poems of Ossian in question, must 

 find very much to modify their opinion in the citations which I have 

 made — citations which could easily be multiplied, in favour of the exten- 

 sive prevalence of Ossianic poetry in the Highlands of Scotland during 



