This part of our detail we must conclude with a single extract from Mr. Pope's letter to Mr. Alexander Nichol son, minister of Thurso, dated Rea, 15th November, 1763, Appendix, No. III " I have perused Dr. Blair's letter to you, and would heartily wish I could be of use in that affair, in which he has taken such a concern. It was quite proper that he went to the West Highlands, as these poems have been more carefully preserved in them than with us in the North Highlands. And, from both these quarters, he can get such evidences as are sufficient to convince people of candour ; so that if the literati in Eng land will not be persuaded, they must wait till they see Ossian and his heroes in another world." We also re commend to the attention of the reader, Mr. Macpherson's letter's to Mr. James M'Lagan, then minister of Amulrie, afterwards of Blair in Atholl. When the correspondence began in 1760, they had not seen one another, and conse quently were attracted by similarity of pursuit. In his first letter, dated Ruthven Badenoch, 27th October, 1760, Mr. Macpherson writes : " 1 have met with a number of old manuscripts in my travels ; the poetical part of them I have endeavoured to secure." Captain Morrison of Greenock's testimony in favour of the honesty of his friend Mr. Macpherson is highly worthy of notice. Ile knew him intimately ; acted as his amanu ensis, and had every opportunity of detecting any fallacy, if fallacy there could be. Sec his answers to queries, No. XIII. Appendix to MS. Report, p. 175. 177. In addition to this answer and general observations, he wrote to the writer of this article before they were personally acquaint ed: "When writing Ossian's poems with James Mac pherson at London, Sir James Foulis wrote me to send him the address to the Sun, which I slid: And that was not the one he wanted. Ile wrote the poem it was in, and then I sent it to him. He knew more of the Gaelic than James Macpherson, or any man I ever saw. This you will find if you can get access to his papers.
I wrote most part of Ossian's works, with Mr. Mac pherson, before I went for my family to America, in 1781." This letter is dated Greenock, 20th December, 1800.
Though we have already offered more than sufficient proof that Mr. Macpherson was nothing more than the collector and translator of only part of Ossian's poems, it would be unpardonable if we passed over in silence Sir John Sinclair's admirable dissertation upon the subject ; wherein he has adduced proof conclusive enough, if no other existed; and, as we must refer to that dissertation itself, vol. i. Ossian, we shall satisfy ourselves with quot ing Dr. NPArthur's words, from his supplemental obser vations to his translation of Cesarotti's Dissertation on the authenticity of Ossian's Poems, published in 1807.
" The collection of Ossian's poems, made by the Rev. PvIr. Farquharson, at an early period of his life, prior to Mr. 'Macpherson's poetical mission to the Highlands, and the existence of the thick folio manuscript volume con taining these poems, which he left at the College of Douay, at the commencement of the French revolution, has been circumstantially detailed and proved by the con current testimony of two bishops and three respectable clergymen now living." Ossian, vol. iii. p. 479
Whoever reads Sir John Sinclair's dissertation, with the letters of thtse respectable clergymen, and Dr. M'Ar thur's notes and supplemental observations, must be con signed to invincible unbelief, unless he believes that Mr. Macpherson was no more than the translator and editor of Ossian.
We now come to another point in the editorial evidence, which arises from Dr. John Smith's poems of Ossian, Or ran and Ullin, published in 1787.
We do not think that this part of the subject has receiv ed due attention, or any weight in the controversy. He published his translation of these poems seven years be fore. The originals were offered to the public under every circumstance which might demonstrate their claim to belief. Dr. Smith, whom we knew well, was a man of profound piety, of singular probity, and of excellent skill in Celtic literature. Except his brother Dr. Donald, we never knew any man equal to him in that department of national literature. The authenticity of the poems edited by him was never called in question. Kennedy, who made a collection of Gaelic poems, now in the possession of the Highland Society of Scotland, claimed the merit of some of the finest passages translated by Dr. Smith, and has brought their antiquity into doubt. As we cannot enter into this strange controversy, we must refer to the Report of the Society, and to Dr. Graham of Aberfoyle's excel lent essay on the authenticity of Ossian's poems, and also to Mr. Stewart's essay. If Kennedy, a poor schoolmas ter, were a man of genius and talents, some attention might be due to his assertion. But Dr. Smith's opinion is so decisive against the imposture of Kennedy, that no man of common sense can, for a moment, admit it. To think that a man, who could not write three lines of any poetry, could fabricate one of the sublimest descriptions in Smith's poems, would be almost a miracle of poetic fic tion. But suppose even this true, enough remains to place the poems collected and published by Dr. Smith be yond the reach of suspicion.
If they are authentic, it follows of necessity that the poems translated by Mr. Macpherson must be so too, for they bear the same character. Now, can we suppose that two men, unacquainted with one another, and quite oppo site in their nature, and, I may add, in their pursuits, could nearly at the same time fabricate compositions so like one another, and ascribe them to authors perhaps of doubtful existence, while they had it in their power to take the whole merit to themselves ? We are sorry our limits do not permit us to enter largely into this part of the subject. If they did, we could show that the poems collected and edited by Dr. Smith are fully equal, and in some respects superior, to those of Macpherson. We could show, that the compositions of the different bards, though the Dr. has not attempted to class them, are easily distinguished from one another, as easily as any scholar could distinguish Ovid from Virgil, or Dante from Tasso. We refer to Dargo and Gaul, the former by Ullin, and the latter by Ossian.