OSSIAN.* The name of Ossian is now so well known, over all Europe, and, we might add, over all the world, that it might appear a defect in a work of this kind to omit noticing it. His poems, as translated by Mr. Mac pherson, have acquired a celebrity of the most extraor dinary kind.
We do not intend to enter largely into the controversy respecting their authenticity, which for upwards of forty years has agitated the public mind. That Ossian existed, has not been, and cannot bc, called in question, while a nation exists to attest the fact. That poems ascribed to him, as well as to Oran, Ullin, Fergus, and other cotem porary bards, also existed, and have been handed down some way or other, has not, so far as we know, been dis puted. On this subject positive evidence has been de manded, with a tone which indicated total ignorance of Caledonian history, or minds predisposed to resist con viction. All the evidence which the case admits, has been for years before the public ; that is, the testimony of credible witnesses, and the poems themselves, in the original, as found among the papers of Mr. Macpherson.
The first thing, however, is to give a short outline of Ossian himself.
He was the oldest son of Friom, called in the poems Fingal, that is, the fair Gaul, the Fulgentius of Fordun, king of Morven, or of the west mountainous coast of Scotland, one of the best of men, one of the bravest of warriors, and the most finished character recorded in pro fane history. Fingal was descended of a long line of re nowned ancestors. The example of some of them he quotes, as worthy of imitation by his favourite grandson Oscar. Fingal, Duan Third Gillies, 34.
Of the extent of his dominions we have no certain, or even probable information. We doubt, whether, as Dr. John Smith seems to think, it comprehended almost all that territory which afterwards made up what is called the Scottish kingdom, before the Pictish kingdom was an nexed to it ; we however, refer to the Doctor's Seann Dana, p. 35, 36 ; and to Innes' Appendix to his critical Essay. From the poems of Ossian, and from tradition, we know that he was a prince of great renown.
Who Ossian's mother was, (probably Agandecca, daugh ter of Magnus Starno, king of Lochlin,)we are not certain, nor do we think it of any great consequence to waste time in inquiring. He was married early in life, to Evcrallin,
daughter of Branno, king of Lego, in Ireland. She died not long after the birth of Oscar, their only son ; and Ossian, who never married again, often alludes to her loss, and describes her beauty. Addressing Malvina, his daughter-in-law, in the fourth book of Fingal, he thus speaks : " Of Evcrallin are my thoughts, when in the light of beauty she came, her blue eyes rolling in tears." He had several brothers, whose fame he commemorates in his poems. At what period Ossian lived is disputed. If we allow Ireland the honour of giving him birth, the point is speedily settled ; we have no objection, however, to give the Irish their own Ossian and their own Fingal, to command their militia and fight their battles, provided they allow us our Ossian and our Fingal, as familiar to the of ear every Highlander as Homer was to the Greeks, and Virgil or Horace to the Romans.
It seems settled among those who have investigated the subject, that lie flourished towards the end of the third, or beginning of the fourth century. We refer for farther information to Mr. Macpherson's excellent dis sertation on the era of Ossian, and also to that of Dr. J. Smith. Boethius, however, whose work was publish ed in 1526, conjectures that he lived about a century later, that is, in the time of Eugenius, the son of Fergus the Second, who died in 462. On the supposition that the poems ascribed to hint are really his, we are inclined to think that he lived earlier. For, in the fifth century, Christianity began to make some progress in Caledonia, to assume some settled form, and Druidism, as an esta blished religion, was nearly overthrown. Hence, if Ossian had lived at this time it is scarcely possible. to think that he could have been unacquainted with Christianity, as his poems uniformly evince he was. The discussion he had with Patrick, a Christian missionary, one of the Culdees, still extant, and supposed to be authentic, tends to show that the Gospel was only then offering itself to the inhabi tants of Caledonia. This controversy is highly amusing, and proves that Ossian had hardly any idea of a Supreme Being, at least, of one in strength and prowess superior to his father and Gaul.