It appears that every bard furnished his part, and recit ed it before 'the warriors when they met to hear the praises of their deeds. Now, we would ask, how could any man contrive all this, and support it throughout ? It remains now that we say a few words upon the liberty which Mr. Macpherson may have used in purifying the poems he collected. We must certainly agree with Dr. Smith, that on this suhject, in the present state of our knowledge, we cannot speak with any precision. That he laboured to exclude every thing modern, as lie conceiv ed, we have his own authority already quoted. How far his judgment may on this point have been correct, this is not the place to inquire.
We may, however, refer to what is commonly called Malvina's Dream, as lie has given it in the beginning of the poem of Croma, and as it is published in Gillies' Col lection, whence we may see that his edition was not al ways the best. His edition is far inferior to the other, and in some instances scarcely intelligible. They differ, in deed, very materially, from which we may infer that he is not the author of the one or of the other. It is evident that his own translation was not made from the edition published. It approaches much nearer that given by Gillics, to whom it was communicated by the late Mr. Maclagan of Blair in Athol!, a first rate Gaelic scholar.
The numberless editions, however, of these poems which have for ages circulated among the Highlanders, though generally speaking the same in substance, are so various, that it would be wrong to condemn Mr. Macpherson un less we knew exactly what edition he preferred. We could, as in the present instance, show that he did not always re ceive the best, and that, as in the battle of Lora, he left out, or did not possess, many terms which throw much light upon the poem. Of the chorus of the bards in Co mala, beginning " Roll streamy Catlin, roll in joy,"' we have before us a much superior edition. But it begins another poem almost altogether different from Comala, though, we think, of equal beauty. Hence we are led to believe that Mr. Macpherson selected a fragment here and there, as suited his purpose. This Dr. Smith candidly confesses he had done himself, and supposes, upon good authority, Mr. Macpherson must have done something similar. It was nothing more than restoring detached pieces to their proper places. Many pieces appear evi dently to have been lost ; and hence neither the skill nor genius of two such eminent men could avoid the obscu rity and abruptness which mark almost the whole of their originals.
We must now hasten to a conclusion, and observe, as we have seen from the external evidence, that where Mr.
Macpherson could not understand the original, he either passed over the term which he could not translate, or left it out altogether, or used some vague general terms. or cir cumlocution ; and Aire do not know how he could have done otherwise, unless he had taken more time to consult Irish dictionaries, such as Curtin's, O'Reilly's, and O'Bry an's, with which he does not seem to have been acquaint ed. The description of Cuchullin's chariot and horses) in the first book of Fingal, is a signal proof of his hurry, at least, if not of the little progress he made in Celtic literature, at the time he translated the Poems of Os sian. Again, however, we must say, that perhaps he trans lated from a different edition. But there is in Mr. Grant of Coriemony's Thoughts on the Origin and Descent of the Gael, (p. 418) another edition of that celebrated pass age, which we often heard repeated in our youth, much more full and complete, and which bears, in grenzio out facie, every mark of ancient composition. Some of the terms are intelligible only to Gaelic scholars of the first emi nence, such as Mr. Grant. And we doubt whether many more could translate them as he has done. We would, however, point out some terms which even he had some difficulty in translating into English, and we rather think he sometimes failed. Mr. Macpherson's description is beau tiful, Mr. Grant's more perfect, and we might say sublime.
It is a singular fact, that an omission occurs, and that is, the description of Cuchullin's sword, which certainly be longed to the passage, and which may be seen in Gillies' Collection, p. 211, one of the most eloquent pieces of com position in any language. But we much doubt whether any man living could do justice to it in an English trans lation, or whether many at this moment can fully under stand it.
We think we have now established the fact, that who ever composed the poems called Ossian's, it could not be either Macpherson or Smith. We hope the Highland Societies of London and Edinburgh will soon prepare and publish their valuable collections ; and then he must be a sturdy infidel indeed who can any longer doubt the authen ticity of Ossian.
Justice to injured worth and patriotic exertion demands, that we should here conclude with one single remark. That is, that the proud dignified conduct of Macpherson, resulting from concious integrity, should, instead of form ing an argument against him, for ever endear his me mory to every Highlander, and raise a monument to his fam e.*