134 HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in short, by changing what he considered as too simple or 

 too rude for a modern ear, and elevating what in his 

 opinion was below the standard of good poetry. To what 

 degree, however, he exercised these liberties, it is impos- 

 sible for the Committee to determine. The advantages he 

 possessed, which the Committee began its inquiries too late 

 to enjoy, of collecting from the oral recitation of a number 

 of persons, now no more, a very great number of the same 

 poems, on the same subjects, and then collating those 

 different copies or editions, if they may be so called, reject- 

 ing what was spurious or corrupted in one copy, and 

 adopting from another something more genuine and excel- 

 lent in its place, afforded him an opportunity of putting 

 together what might fairK' enough be called an original 

 whole, of much more beaut}-, and with much fewer 

 blemishes, than the Committee believes it ?ioiii possible for 

 any person, or combination of persons, to obtain.' 



In a preface to the volume the Committee specially 

 acknowledges its obligations to Dr Donald Smith, formerly 

 surgeon to the Brcadalbane Fencibles, ' one of the best 

 Celtic scholars of the time.' To this gentleman the Society 

 in 1804 voted a piece of plate, of the value of ;^30, ' as a 

 mark of the Society's sense of the great benefit the Com- 

 mittee on the Ossian inquiry had derived from his know- 

 ledge and services in that business.' The Committee, 

 in the last page of the volume containing its report, records 

 ' with infinite concern' the death of its ' excellent coadjutor, 

 Dr D. Smith, who had died after a very short illness on the 

 very day (22nd IMay 1805) when the last of his labours in 

 its services, the concluding sheet of this Appendix, issued 

 from the press.' Dr Smith's death took place at his 

 lodgings, St James' Square, Edinburgh. At a meeting of 

 the Directors of the Society, held on 24th May, a record is 

 made in the minute of the death of Dr Smith as 'a loss to 

 his country, and to the Highlands in particular ;' and it was 

 resolved that ' it is highly becoming the Society to show 

 proper respect to his memory, and that a respectable attend- 

 ance of the members. particularl\- such as were best known 

 to Dr Smith,' be requested to be present at his funeral. 



