222 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. I. 



poems which bear the stamp of genius, bears also the mark of their 

 purely Gaelic origin. 



August Ebrakd. 



There are scholars of great eminence, both in Britain and on the con- 

 tinent of Europe, who still believe in the authenticity of Macpherson's 

 Ossian. The late Rev. A. Clerk, editor and translator of the last edition 

 of Ossian, may be mentioned as representing British scholarship on the 

 side of Macpherson. August Ebrard, an eminent German scholar, who 

 made Celtic a special study, examined the texts of Macpherson minutely 

 in both Gaelic and English, compared the narratives therein with the 

 state of society in the third century (the supposed era of the Peine) and 

 found the correspondence so remarkably exact that he was fully convinced 

 that the poems of Ossian are genuine productions of that age. He gives 

 many instances from the poems of beautiful Gaelic sentences changed in 

 the English version into sheer nonsense owing to Macpherson's ignorance 

 of the meaning of the Gaelic texts. He notices among other things that 

 the LocJilanaidi are always represented as carrying brown shields, while 

 the Gaels bear blue ones, thus corresponding with the fact that the former 

 in that age used bronze while the latter used steel. He points out that 

 the war between Fingal and Swaran has been proved to be a historical 

 fact. Ossian represents Swaran as landing in Ireland with a mighty 

 host. CuchuUin, the guardian and regent of the young King Cormac, 

 gives battle, without waiting for his allies, and is defeated. Fingal 

 arrives by sea with his heroes, renews the war, and defeats Swaran, but 

 provides him with a safe return to his own country. Suhm, the Danish 

 historical investigator, proves in his Danish History that there was a king 

 of West Gothland named Swaran, who, after several piratical voyages, 

 fell into a war with Gram, King of Norway, in the year 240. Suhm 

 places this voyage to Ireland in 238. 



Another great German, Ehlert, takes an opposite view, and designates 

 the poems of Ossian '• the most magnificent mystification of modern 

 times." 



The Subject Matter of the Poems. 



The Ossianic poetry deals with the mighty deeds of the heroes of the 

 Feine, their generosity, magnanimity, hospitality — heroes who always 

 resisted the proud and powerful, and gave protection to the weak under 

 their swords. Their foes are various, among them " The King of the 

 World," by which name may be designated the Emperor Severus. The 

 Lochlanders were their sturdiest foes, and single combats between their 

 respective kings, and great battles between their respective armies are 



