THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 401 



much poetical merit as any lie has inserted. MacPherson took too 

 little time in the Highlands and Western Isles, to be able to have 

 collected the whole of them ; for as the works of Ossian are dispersed 

 all over the Highlands, there is not a clan through whose land you 

 travel, but you wUl find some one of these poems among them, which 

 is not to be met with any where else." * 



The report of the Highland Society has forever rescued Ossian's 

 poems from the imputation of being a forgery. MacPherson took 

 down some of the poems which he published from the recitation of 

 men with whom he came in contact in his tour throu-gh the Highlands. 

 He was also indebted to MSS. for some of the poems. " From this 

 man the declarant got for MacPherson a book of the size of the New 

 Testament, and of the nature of a commonplace pook, which contained 

 some accounts of the families of the Macdonalds, and the exploits of 

 the great Montrose, together with some of the poems of Ossian." * 

 In writing to a friend, MacPherson remarks : " I have met with a 

 number of old MSS. in my travels; the poetical parts of them I 

 have endeavoured to secure." t 



It is perhaps impossible to determine how far MacPherson was led 

 to arrange the poems which he collected. In all likelihood he used 

 his own discretion in selecting such portions as he might deem most 

 suitable and authentic. Apart from the overwhelming evidence 

 gathered by the committee of the Highland Society, there are very 

 cogent reasons for believing that MacPherson was incapable of writing 

 Gaelic so pure and elegant. I have never observed that proper 

 attention has been paid by any one to the language of the poems of 

 Ossian. It is undoubtedly the classical Gaelic of the Highlands. 

 For purity and beauty, for richness and expressiveness, it stands 

 alone in the whole range of Gaelic literature. There is no poet of 

 the eighteenth century, whose Gaelic at all approaches the rich, terse 

 and elegant diction of Ossian. In his poems there is no reference 

 whatever made to agriculture : the chase afibrded to the heroes of 

 Fingal their most pleasing employment. The sails are held together 

 by thongs. Battles are often detei'mined by single combat. It is 

 very much to be questioned whether any one who wished to forge 

 poems to which a very remote origiu was to be assigned, could so 

 divest himself of modern ideas and habits as not to make an occasional 



* Report, p. 28, Appendix. 



t Ibid, Appendix, p. 96 j and ibid. p. 154. 



