The literature of the Highlanders

by Nigel MacNeill

THE OSSIANIC QUESTION.

1. Sketch of the “Poems of Ossian.”—In the year 1759 James Macpherson was tutor in the family of Graham of Balgowan, at Moffat. There he met John Home, the author of “Douglas.” Home was told by Professor Adam Fergusson, a Gaelic-speaking Highlander, that some remains of ancient Gaelic poetry existed; and getting translations of specimens from Macpherson, a native of Badenoch, he showed them to Drs Blair, Fergusson, and Robertson, by whom they were highly appreciated. Importuned by them, he translated all he had, and published in 1760 “Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland.”

The friends already mentioned wished to secure all other relics that could be found in the Highlands; and the tutor, then a divinity student, was provided with funds, and undertook his famous journey through the Highlands, where he received MSS., and took down poetry from the recitation of old people. He was first accompanied by Lachlan Macpherson of Strathmashie, a gentleman and a scholar, and also a bard himself, for some time on his tour; he was also joined latterly by Captain Alexander Morrison, who subsequently assisted him. He returned to Badenoch, and remained there till January, 1761, preparing his materials for the next publication, assisted by Macpherson and Morrison. Two Perthshire clergymen were also near him—the Revs. Mr Gallie and James MacLagan, the latter no mean poet himself. By these also he was assisted, and he kept correspondence with them.

In 1762 appeared in London, “Fingal,” an epic in six books, along with other sixteen poems.

Next year appeared “Temora,” in eight books, and five other poems. “A specimen of the original of ‘Temora,’” the seventh book in Gaelic, was also published in this volume.

These epics kindled scepticism in many minds; and the “translator,” smarting under imputations of forgery, as well as filled with vanity at being thought the author of the poems, indulged himself in sullen silence.

2. Dr Johnson.—The great king who reigned in literary matters in those days was Samuel Johnson, a very worthy man, but full of obstinate prejudices against everything Scotch and Highland. He undertook a journey to the Hebrides purposely to investigate into the Ossianic question; but he came with the absolute belief that Gaelic was never written, and no poems of any consequence existed in that language. Boswell’s journal:—“Dr Johnson proceeded—‘I look upon Macpherson’s “Fingal” to be as gross an imposition as ever the world was troubled with. Had it been really an ancient work ... it would be a curiosity of the first rate.’...

“When Dr Johnson came down, I told him ... that Mr MacQueen repeated a passage in the original Erse, which Mr Macpherson’s translation was pretty like; and reminded him that he himself once said he did not require Mr Macpherson’s ‘Ossian’ to be more like the original than Pope’s ‘Homer.’

“Johnson—‘Well, sir, that is just what I always maintained. He has found names, and stories, and phrases, nay, passages in old songs, and with them has blended his own compositions, and so made what he gives to the world as the translation of an ancient poem.’ So also thought Laing in his famous and elaborate essay; as well as thousands of others who accepted the dicta of these writers.”

3. The Highland Society’s Report, got up with great candour, and after much inquiry and research, and with the testimonies of noblemen, gentlemen, and clergymen, bearing on the question, from all parts of the Highlands, appeared in 1806. It was prepared by Henry Mackenzie, the author of “The Man of Feeling.” The result arrived at was:—

1st, That the characters of Macpherson’s poem were not invented, but were subjects of Highland tradition; and that poems certainly existed which might be called Ossianic.

2d, That such poems had been handed down from an unknown period by oral recitation, and that many Highlanders could still repeat them.

3d, That such poems had been written, and some were to be found in MSS.

4th, That Macpherson used many such poems in his work by joining separated pieces together, and that, by adding connective narratives of his own, he had woven them into larger poems and the so-called epics. No materials were found, however, to show the extent of this process and the amount of genuine matter the poems as published by Macpherson contained.

4. The Gaelic Ossian was published in 1807, accompanied with Macfarlane’s Latin version and Mac Arthur’s dissertation. It came through the hands of Macphersons’s executors, assisted by Dr Thomas Ross, of Lochbroom. Money was collected in the East Indies by military gentlemen to defray the expense of publication, and before Macpherson died in 1796 he had the copy ready for the press; but no traces were to be found of any ancient MSS. which he might have used in preparing his copy, if he ever had any such MSS. that he used. There is nothing exceptionally ancient about the text of 1807.

5. New State of the Question.—Highlanders, with very few exceptions, if any, on its appearance accepted the Gaelic text of 1807 as the genuine originals from which Macpherson translated, and which they regarded as composed by Ossian in the third century. But the views of Johnson and Laing were still subscribed to by the great majority of English-speaking people.

6. Macgregor’s “Genuine Remains.”—Patrick Macgregor, M.A., barrister, published in 1841 the genuine remains of “Ossian” in an English rhythmical translation not much inferior to Dr Clerk’s with a very well-written historical introduction maintaining the authenticity of the Gaelic Ossian.

7. Irish Writers were all along jealous of the attention which Macpherson’s translations secured for Gaelic poetry in Scotland. Societies and individuals determined not to be behind Scotland in supplying the public with ancient Ossianic poems. The Ossianic Society especially published five volumes of tales, and poems, and translations; Macpherson was charged with stealing the substance of his poems from Ireland; and at the same time the arguments of Johnson and Laing were reiterated; while the most of what they themselves published as ancient was not more than a century or two old. The Irish could neither manufacture nor lay their hands on epics like those of James Macpherson, so Dr Drummond, Edward O’Reilly, &c., charged Macpherson with fabricating the poems, when they found they could not prove that he stole them from Ireland. Ireland has extensive Celtic literature; much of it ancient too; but it can show nothing like Macpherson’s productions.

8. Dr W. F. Skene.—This Celtic scholar says:—“A review of all the circumstances which have been allowed to transpire regarding the proceedings of James Macpherson seems rather to lead to the conclusion that the Gaelic version, in the shape in which it was afterwards published, had been prepared in Badenoch, during the months Macpherson passed there, after his return from his Highland tour, with the assistance of Lachlan Macpherson of Strathmashie, and Captain Morrison, and that the English translation was made from it by Macpherson in the same manner in which he had translated the fragments.” The following facts appear to favour Dr Skene’s conclusion:—After Lachlan Macpherson’s death, a paper was found in his repositories containing the Gaelic of the seventh book of Temora, in his handwriting, with many corrections and alterations, and thus described—“First rude draft of the seventh book of Temora.”

Mr Gallie sent to the Highland Society a part of the Gaelic of Fingal, which afterwards appeared as part of the Gaelic version. He had taken it from a MS. he had recovered, written by a friend, “who was at that time with Mr Macpherson and me—a gentleman well known for an uncommon acquaintance with the Gaelic, and a happy facility in writing it in Roman characters.” Pressed to tell who this friend was, he says:—“His name was Lachlan Macpherson, of Strathmashy. He died in 1767.” Dr Skene says:—“This Gaelic version seems, therefore, to have been put together before 1767; and if before 1762, it will account for the original of the seventh book of Temora having been published in that year, and also for an advertisement which appeared soon after the publication of the second quarto, that the originals were lying at the publisher’s, and would be published if a sufficient number of subscribers came forward; but as few subscribers appeared, and fewer came to look at them, they were withdrawn.”

The view of Dr Skene was scarcely maintained hitherto by any Scottish Gaelic scholar. Shaw in 1788 echoed Johnson’s sentiments. He began to read through Macpherson; and was held immediately to scorn by the Gaelic literati.

9. The Late Rev. Thomas Pattison, author of “The Gaelic Bards” (1866), and a man highly capable of forming judgment on the question, says, “When we consider that the finest parts of Macpherson’s Ossian are incontestably proved to have been popular poetry long anterior to his appearing, I think we should throw all prejudice aside, and affirm that whoever composed the poems attributed to Ossian, James Macpherson was not the man; and that whatever merit may belong to him as a translator, or whatever claim he may have to be considered their compiler in their present form, he has no legitimate title to be called their author. They are substantially older than he, probably by many centuries.” Pattison, like many others before him, dwells on Macpherson’s inferior Gaelic scholarship; but the facts do not warrant the conclusion drawn, that Macpherson was incapable of writing the Gaelic Ossian. Macpherson was a man of genius, and quite able to deliver himself in Gaelic as good and classical as many scholars that lived then or since.

10. John F. Campbell, Esq.—The most formidable opponent of the authenticity of Macpherson’s Ossian recently is Mr Campbell of Islay. His earlier views, as expressed in the Highland Tales, were those of Gaelic-speaking Highlanders in general. But the longer he dwelt among the genuine old ballads found in manuscripts and in collections taken down from the oral recitation of Highlanders who lived before Macpherson’s time, the more confirmed he became in his growing conviction that Macpherson was both translator and author, and that the English was first composed. “My opinion now,” he says, “is that Macpherson’s translation was first composed by a great genius, partly from a knowledge of Scotch nature and folk-lore, partly from ideas gathered from books, and that he and other translators afterwards worked at it, and made a Gaelic equivalent whose merit varies according to the translator’s skill and knowledge of Gaelic. It is said that an early copy of the 7th book of Temora, with corrections in Strathmashie’s hand, was found after his death. I suppose that he revised a Gaelic translation by Macpherson, or by some other. His own Gaelic songs are idiomatic, whereas the 7th book of Temora is Saxon Gaelic in general, and nonsense in many passages. The English equivalent is like the rest of Macpherson’s work. In either case, because of matter, manner, orthography, and language, Macpherson’s English and Gaelic Ossian, must have been composed long after Dean MacGregor collected his book in Macpherson’s country, near his district, and in Morven.” This is the opinion of a Gaelic-speaking gentleman thoroughly conversant with the facts of the case, and eminently qualified to maintain his side of the question.

11. Mr Hector MacLean, Mr Campbell’s clever co-adjutor in much of his work, takes a similar view. He says—“The so-called Gaelic Ossian of Macpherson exhibits all the symptoms of being a translation from English. Anglicisms abound everywhere; the structure of the verse is fully as much akin to English as to Gaelic poetry. It is deficient in all the good qualities of style, strength, clearness, and propriety. The versification is exceedingly rugged and irregular; alliteration, so characteristic of Celtic poetry, is generally deficient, and frequently entirely wanting; the sentiment is usually morbid and vapid; and in fact the so-called original Gaelic Ossian is almost in every respect inferior to the so-called English translation.” MacLean at the same time speaks of the ballads in Campbell’s Leabhar na Féinne as “characterised by purity of language, vigour of expression, and smoothness of versification.” MacLean’s thorough knowledge of Gaelic as well as his English culture and philological attainments entitle him to be heard.

12. Rev. Dr Archibald Clerk.—The dissertation prefixed to the magnificent edition of Ossian, Gaelic and English, published in 1871, at the expense of the Marquis of Bute, and edited with a new literal translation into English by Dr Clerk, of Kilmallie, should be read by all who wish to know the history of the Ossianic controversy. Dr Clerk was an accomplished Gaelic scholar—a man of culture and sound judgment. He ably and warmly maintains that Macpherson was only a translator. In him his opponents find a writer thoroughly qualified, by his literary, scholarly, and philological attainments, to deal with this vexed question. When he and Mr Campbell fail to agree, it is very difficult for others less conversant with the facts of the case to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. While Dr Clerk was patriotically engaged on his splendid new edition of Ossian, Mr Hector MacLean was regretting “that those who know Gaelic as their vernacular should be so far duped as to spend their time translating into English what is really nothing else than an inferior and incorrect translation from that language.”

13. The Rev. Dr Hately Waddell.—“Ossian and the Clyde” is the title of a large, and elaborate, and ingenious work by Dr Waddell. He holds that “Ossian” is historical and authentic; and he supports this position by a three-fold argument—geological, geographical and etymological, and traditional. The work is learned and eloquent; and the author pursues his argument with much minuteness and research. He believes in Ossian by instinct, just as many of his opponents have rejected the same by instinct. He holds that Macpherson is merely editor and translator; and that he has used no liberties with his text beyond what an editor and translator is entitled to use. He, however, labours under the disadvantage of not knowing the Gaelic language, although this difficulty is much minimised by the help of Dr Clerk’s literal translation and notes. Part of his arguments is certainly new and original; and the book deserves perusal on the part of the student of the Ossianic controversy.

14. Dr August Ebrard.—This distinguished German divine and writer, whom Professor Blackie describes as an “impartial spectator” and a “well-trained German scholar,” has written an article on this question in which, after giving a historical sketch, he indicates his arguments in favour of the authenticity of Macpherson’s Ossian. He says, “in Ossian’s poems there is presented to us the subject-matter of Observations and thoughts, just such as would have occurred to the remembrance of one who had taken part in these battles. And whoever may have cast this material into its present form it is certain that he has left the substance thus unaltered. And why should this not actually have proceeded from this Ossian—prince, warrior, and poet? We know that in old times it was the common custom of the Celtic tribes that the bards should accompany the army to battle, and that every warlike and heroic deed should straightway be celebrated in more or less detailed song. Undoubtedly this would happen with the numerous warlike deeds of King Finnghal. How intelligible it must, then, appear, that after the death of Finnghal and the ruin of his kingdom, the king’s son, Ossian, who had fled to the Hebrides, and who was now a blind old man, should have collected into such [complex epics] as “Carthonn,” “Finnghal,” and “Timora,” the songs which had been sung, partly by himself and partly by friendly bards (as Carul and Ulin). How intelligible that these poems, noble in themselves, as well as being reminiscences of [former magnificence], should have been preserved with a fond tenacity, and transmitted from generation to generation in the usual manner, by learning by heart, in the centuries (300-900) when the Caledonian nation was so heavily oppressed by the Nordmen, Picts, Britons, and Anglo-Saxons.” He further says:—“And thus all the linguistic phenomena are forthwith explained.” Dr Ebrard is well known as the author of a work on the early Celtic Church, and by his Gaelic grammar.

15. Professor John Stuart Blackie.—In presenting the views of those entitled to be heard on this question it only remains now to give the conclusions arrived at by Professor Blackie, who is acquainted with Gaelic and thoroughly familiar with all the facts. He holds that the question has never yet been examined in a strictly philological fashion. After going through the whole of the originals recently he holds, in opposition to Mr Campbell, that the Gaelic is unquestionably the original. He brings forward five tests by which a translator’s hand is clearly discoverable:—

(1.) In the English version, awkward, forced, and unidiomatic expressions frequently occur, which can be clearly traced to the influence of a Gaelic original.

(2.) In all poems of any antiquity handed down in manuscripts difficulties will occur, arising from obsolete words, errors in transcription, confused connection, and other causes. In such cases it is a common practice with translators to skip the difficulty, gloss over the matter with some decent commonplace, and sometimes to make positive blunders, which it is not difficult for a philologer to expose. All these signs of a translator’s hand are frequent in Macpherson’s English, and would be more so had he not indulged in such a habit of skipping generally, that it is difficult to say in certain cases decidedly that the skip was made because the writer of the English wished to shirk a difficulty.

(3.) It is a common practice with translators, when they find a passage a little obscure, to remove the obscurity by some manifest alteration of the phrase, or even by interpolating a line or interlarding a commentary. This also occurs in Macpherson.

(4.) It is not always that a translator writes under the same vivid vision, or the same fervid inspiration as the original poet. The instance of failure to seize the most striking features of the original, and the substitution of generic for specific epithets are frequent in Macpherson.

(5.) Most translators yield—sometimes, no doubt, wisely—to the temptation of improving on their originals, and Macpherson, from what we know of him, was the last man in the world to think of resisting such a temptation. How much of the Gaelic as we now have it—that is, his clean copy of his own originals—was subjected to this process of beautification no one can tell, but departures from the simplicity of the original can be traced in several instances.

He thinks that the English, as a whole, is a translation from the Gaelic, and not a translation of the best quality in many respects, and that this may be accepted as one of the best ascertained facts in the range of philological investigation. Philological induction, combined with the amount of external evidence to be found in the Highland Society’s report, produce a cumulative proof which he is most anxious to see how Mr Campbell can rebut. Principal Shairp thinks that Professor Blackie has hit upon the true solution of this controversy.

16. Mr Archibald MacNeill, W.S., with his brothers Lord Colonsay and Sir John MacNeill, who were all familiar with the Gaelic language, firmly believed that the Gaelic text of Macpherson belonged to the early centuries of the Christian era. Mr MacNeill published his views in a small volume in which legal acumen is brought to bear on the question, and which concludes as follows: “At what date Ossian lived we do not pretend to determine; but this, at least, is sufficiently clear, that the Gaelic Ossian was not the production of Macpherson or any author of modern times, but must be referred to a period of remote antiquity. It further appears from the internal evidence of these poems, that they refer to a period prior to the diffusion of Christianity and the era of clanship.” Of course Macpherson was clever enough, granting he elected to do so, to give a complexion of antiquity to his compositions.

17. My own opinion of the question I embody in the following propositions. I began the study of Macpherson’s Ossian some twelve years ago, and exercised myself then in translating many portions of it, so I am fairly familiar with it.

I believe—

(1.) That the English is a translation from Gaelic, probably from a ruder version than that published in 1807.

(2.) That Macpherson is neither absolutely the author, nor merely the translator, of the poems connected with his name.

(3.) That he formed his original Gaelic by joining and recasting old ballads, that he connected these ballads by paragraphs of his own composition, and that the newly-written recast matter constitutes the chief parts of the epics which he had thus formed, but in which, however, the spirit of the old productions still survives.

(4.) That the Gaelic is far more elaborate than the English, is subtler in conception, less concrete in expression, and has been likely, before the text was finally published, the subject of many alterations and improvements.

(5.) That on the whole the language of the text of 1807 is not, as some allege, essentially different from that of the ballads that are known to be genuine.

(6.) That the metre of the Gaelic text is not more irregular than that of these same ballads, the chief difference being that while the latter are mostly made up of either trochees or iambs the former frequently mixes anapaests with trochees or iambs.

The Highland Society’s report, in a general way points to similar conclusions. The process adopted by Macpherson was early described by Dr Smith (1780) who is supposed to have dealt with ballads in Macphersonic fashion:—“Mr Macpherson compiled his publication from those parts of the Highland songs which he most approved, combining them into such forms as, according to his ideas, were most excellent, retaining the old names and leading events.” This is what Dr Smith himself honestly did in his Sean Dana; and it is rather surprising, after Dr Smith’s description of the process adopted by himself, and probably also by Macpherson, that any intelligent persons, whether Highland or otherwise, should insist on the absolute originality of every line in the texts of both Smith and Macpherson. I believe no conscientious dishonesty was intended by either, especially by Smith. They were both influenced by the loose views of editorial functions prevalent in their day. The question of what was Macpherson’s ideal of editorial functions lay ignored all along at the root of the Ossianic controversy. A seriously mistaken and uncritical view it was; but he thought he was doing what would be for the credit of his native country.

When the writer arrived at the conclusions just indicated, ten years ago, he was not so clear as to the process by which Macpherson wrought the Gaelic and English Ossians into their present forms. Since then, in 1883, he entered more minutely into the question in a paper read before [the Gaelic Society] of London and the conclusion forced upon his mind, as the result chiefly of comparisons between the various versions of the Gaelic fragments which were found in mysterious circulation in Macpherson’s lifetime, was that the Gaelic Ossian, like the English equivalent, was a production of the last century, and that James Macpherson was the author as well as translator of these celebrated compositions of the Gaelic muse. Dr Macdonald, M.P., President of the Gaelic Society, and other expert Gaelic scholars present, while reluctant to accept the conclusions of the paper, did not seriously attempt to dispute them; while Mr Macdonald Cameron, M.P., regarded the arguments brought forward as clearly decisive on the question. Since then Mr Macbain of Inverness ably discussed the poems from other standpoints, and has informed the writer that the late Dr Cameron of Brodick adopted similar views. The great Ossianic question may now be regarded as settled. What was needed all along to settle it was sufficient knowledge, culture, judgment, and honesty on the part of men familiar with the Gaelic language. Such men have appeared since the publication of Dr Clerk’s Ossian, the first note being sounded by Mr J. F. Campbell in his celebrated review of Clerk’s work in The Times. Mr H. Maclean adopted the same views; and the writer, in 1883, on independent and other grounds was forced to take up the same position. Dr Cameron and Mr Macbain, representing the midland and northern Highlands, having now concurred, the students of the Gaelic language north and south unite thus in regarding Macpherson’s Gaelic Ossian as compositions of the last century. These compositions are great original works, and ought to be thus described. Their spirit is ancient and Celtic, though their form is modern. They, James Macpherson their author, and Gaelic literature stand in the same relation to one another that we find illustrated in the case of the “Idyls of the King,” Alfred Tennyson, and Cymric literature. The only difference is that Tennyson has not given us the “Idyls” in Welsh as well as in English, and that Macpherson’s English version is in prose instead of being in blank verse. As long as Gaelic scholars of undoubted respectability believed otherwise, it was difficult for outsiders like the Blackies, Ebrards, and Waddells, who discussed the question, to be certain of their conclusions; but henceforth it will be inexcusable in any man of letters to argue for the old views, as Mr George Eyre-Todd does in an introduction to the “Poems of Ossian,” published in the Canterbury Poets series (1888) without taking any cognisance of the latest deliverances of those most entitled to express an opinion.

For a long time the controversy regarding the poems of Ossian had only the English version for its critical basis; so it was unreasonable then to expect a satisfactory solution of the vexed question of authorship. Those who knew the language could only guess at the originals; and those who did not know it had to be satisfied with all they could make of the English. Both parties occupied a position critically absurd. The one side ignorant of the language could not presume to pronounce whether the poems were or were not a translation; and the other had not yet the materials for judgment before them. But now in the year 1807 appeared the long looked-for and much discussed Gaelic originals of the Ossianic translations published some forty years previously. The following is the title-page in full:—“The Poems of Ossian, in the Original Gaelic, with a literal translation into Latin, by the late Robert Macfarlane, A.M., together with a Dissertation on the Authenticity of the Poems by Sir John Sinclair, Bart., and a translation from the Italian of the Abbe Cessarotti’s Dissertation on the Controversy respecting the Authenticity of Ossian, with Notes and a Supplementary Essay, by John McArthur, LL.D., published under the sanction of the Highland Society of London. Magna est veritas et praevalebit. Vol. I. London. [Printers and Publishers’ names], 1807, pp. ccxxxii., 278.

“—— —— —— Vol. II.,” pp. 390.

“—— —— —— Vol. III.,” pp. 576.

“Dana Oisen Mhic Fhinn, air an cur amach air son maith coitcheanta muinntir na Gaeltachd. Duneidin; clo-bhuailte le Tearlach Stiubhart. 1818.” 8vo., pp. 344.

This last is a copy of the Gaelic text contained in Sir John Sinclair’s [magnificent edition] of Ossian. It was printed at the expense of Sir J. Macgregor Murray and other gentlemen that it might be distributed among the Highlanders to cultivate and to preserve their old chivalrous spirit. There was a copy sent for the use of every parish school in the Highlands. These copies were addressed to the care of the parish ministers, in whose hands they generally remained. One thing is certain, they never reached nor became known amongst the people in the manner in which other books circulated amongst them.

Here were the Gaelic originals of Ossian at last; and certainly there was no great reason to regret the delay in their appearance, when they were now presented in so splendid a dress. Surely now all controversy about them should cease for ever. All Gaelic-speaking Highlanders thought so then; and there are many who think similarly still.

This text was not exactly as it came from Macpherson’s hands, who died while preparing it for the press. A standard of Celtic orthography was then in course of formation; and John Mackenzie, Esq., of London, one of Macpherson’s executors, engaged the Rev. Dr Thomas Ross to write out with him the text of Ossian in the style adopted by the excellent translators of the Gaelic Bible. Dr Ross, although well acquainted with the language, was not the most accurate scholar of his day. So until Clerk’s “Ossian” appeared in 1870 there was no fairly correct and scholarly text of these poems. Had the text come from Macpherson’s own hands, the orthography would probably have been very different. Macpherson enjoyed neither the time nor the practice in writing the language to enable him to write either consistently with himself or with any system of orthography. What he wrote, or took down, or copied at an earlier period, of which we have a fair specimen in the 7th Book of “Temora,” published with the translations, is like what many educated Highlanders of the present day would write. When conducting Highland periodicals, the writer frequently received articles from gentlemen with some reputation for Gaelic scholarship which were much in the style of Macpherson’s orthography. Yet these same gentlemen might be, as some of them were, profoundly acquainted with the vocabulary and idioms of the language, although they were unable to write consistently with their own or any other mode of spelling; and were they poets of first-class genius, they could produce, as far as acquaintance with the language was concerned, poetry like that of Ossian, Macdonald, or Macintyre, the last of whom could not write at all; whilst it will not be seriously contended that Ossian was so familiar with the pen as he was ever with the sword. The state of the text at any time since it was first moulded in Macpherson’s hands could not be of the slightest value in deciding the age of the poems. Neither could it be of more service philologically than any other Gaelic books printed during the last hundred years. It could have no value like The Book of Deer, and The Book of the Dean of Lismore.

Though a very inviting field, it is not here intended to enter into examination of the words of the text. When this question has been competently investigated some of our views which at present waver will be thoroughly confirmed.

Let the question of the authenticity be in the meantime laid aside, and let the poems as they are be considered. One thing is certain—they are the clever productions of a Gaelic genius—of a master whose works have influenced the literature of modern Europe. The healthy and grand old figure of Ossian appeared on the scene of the artificial literary world of the eighteenth century, and his tenderness, his naturalness, and his keen sympathies with the external world of form, of colour, and of movement carried before him the conventionalities of a hollow generation. Ossian, along with Cowper, was the first influence at work in bringing back the rising poets of the day to the study and contemplation of nature. The poems were translated into all the languages of Europe. This “most magnificent mystification of modern times,” as a German writer has described Ossian, acted like a spell on poets in this country and on the Continent. Goethe and Lamartine felt the force of this spell; the former acknowledged it in the “Songs of Selma” in “Werther,” and the latter in “Memoirs of my Youth.” The illustrious French poet has vividly described in the following passage the enthusiastic admiration of Ossian that prevailed in France in his younger days.

“It was now the period when Ossian, that poet of the genius of ruins and battles, reigned paramount in the imagination of France. Baour-Lormian had translated him into sonorous verse for the camp of the emperor. Women sung him in plaintive romances, or in triumphal strains, at the departure, above the tomb, or on the return of their lovers. Small editions in portable volumes had found their way into all the libraries. One of them fell into my hands. I plunged into this ocean of shadow, of blood, of tears, of phantoms, of foam, of snow, of fogs, of hoar frosts, and of images, the immensity, the dimness, and the melancholy of which harmonise so well with the lofty sadness of a heart of sixteen which expands to the first rays of the Infinite. Ossian, his localities, and his images harmonised wonderfully also with the nature of the mountain district, almost Scottish in its character, with the season of the year, and with the melancholy aspect of the places where I read him. It was during the biting blasts of November and December. The earth was covered with a mantle of snow, pierced here and there by the black trunks of scattered pines, or overhung by the naked and branching arms of the oaks, upon which flights of crows assembled, filling the air with their coarse cawings. Icy fogs clothed the branches with hoar frost, clouds swept in eddying wreaths around the buried peaks of the mountains. A few streams of sunshine streamed for a moment through their openings, and discovered distant perspective of unfathomable valleys, which the eye might fancy gulfs of the sea. It was the natural and sublime exposition of the poems of Ossian which I held in my hand. I carried him in my hunting pouch over the mountains, and while the dogs made the deep gorges of the hills echo with their barking, I read his pages, sitting beneath the shelter of some overhanging rock, only raising my eyes from its pages to find again, floating along the horizon or outstretched at my feet, the same mists, the same clouds, the same plains of ice or snow which I had just beheld in imagination. How often have I felt my tears congealing on the borders of my eyelids! I had become one of the sons of the bard, one of the heroic, amorous, or plaintive shades who fought, who loved, who wept, or who swept the fingers across the harp in the gloomy domains of Fingal.”

In Italy the influence of Ossian was supreme. Cesarotti tells us that he became the founder of a school of poetry there. Throughout the literary world the power of Ossian’s muse was felt. The artificiality, hollowness, and conventionality of the last quarter of the eighteenth century rendered the natural echoes of the grand old voice of Cona a fresh music and a welcome relief.

There are two complete translations of these Gaelic poems before the world besides Macpherson’s—Macgregor’s and Clerk’s. The last is absolutely literal, while Macgregor’s is also pretty faithful to the Gaelic. Both versions are neither blank verse, nor rhyme, nor prose, but are couched in a species of rhythmic verse in lines of various lengths. Neither the one nor the other is ever likely to become popular, so that a literal popular version is still required for those whom Macpherson’s own cannot satisfy. I have thrown into a very literal blank verse the whole of Carrick, from which I take the following description of Finn’s encounter with the Ghost of Lodin. It is a fair specimen of the poems as a whole, and gives us an inkling of their mythology, which here and elsewhere is vague and shadowy:—

Lodin’s Ghost.

A fire descended in the dark beyond;

The moon was red and languid in the east;

A blast came down in sadness from the plain;

And on its wings the semblance of a man;—

Cru-Lodin standing pale upon the plain—

He nigh approached unto his own abode,

Holding his dark spear [useless in his hand];

His red eye like the blazing of the skies;

His speaking like the thunder on the hill

In shadowy darkness distant far away;

Finn lifted up his spear amid the night;

And on the meadow was his shouting heard.

Finn.

“Son of the Night, begone thou from my side.

Betake thee to thy wind and be away!

Why camest thou to my presence, shadowy one?

Thy semblance is unreal as thine arms.

Can thy brown form be terrible to me,

Thou Phantom of the Circles Lodin owns?

Frail is thy shield, and weak thy vapoury cloud;

Thy bare sword like a flame across the surge;

Which shall be cleft asunder by the blast,

And scattered thou thyself without delay,

Begone thou Dismal Offspring of the skies!

Recall thy blast to take thee and begone.”

The Ghost.

“Would’st thou from my own circle me coerce?”

Spake the deep voice of hollowest refrain.

“It is to me that hosts of heroes yield;

I glance but on the people from the height,

They are dispersed like ashes ’neath my gaze.

Out of my breath proceeds the blast of death.

I journey loftily upon the wind;

And tempests hurry forth themselves on high

Around my brow, cold, melancholy, pale;

But calm is my abode beyond the clouds,

And pleasant the broad fields of my repose.”

Finn.

“Go, and abide then on thy pleasant plains,”

Replied the mighty king with hand on hilt,

“Else, Cuhal’s Son, forget not in the field.

Weak is thy spectre—and my strength is great.

Did I direct my footsteps from the hill

Toward thy hall, high on the peaceful plain?

Or did my pow’rful spear e’er clash amid

The garments of the skies against the voice

Of the Black Ghost Cru-Lodin’s circle keeps?

Why hast thou lifted with a scowl thy brow?

Or wherefore shakest thou aloft thy spear?

Little I dread thy words, thou Shadowy One!

I fled not from an army in the field,

Why flee before the Offspring of the Winds?

The Valiant Brave, the King of Lofty Bens,

He shall not flee! He knows, though he has not

Been there, the frailty of thine arm in war.”

The Ghost.

“Begone! flee to thy land,” replied the Form,

“Flee on [the dismal tempest], flee, begone!

The blast is [in the hollow] of my hand.

Mine are the conflict and the speed of storms;

The King of Sora is a Son of mine;

He kneels down in the mountain to my form;

At Rock of Hundreds he upholds the strife,

And scathless he shall gain the victory,

Begone to thine own land, thou Cuhal’s son,

Or to thy grief experience my wrath.”

The Combat.

He lifted up his threatening spear on high,

And fiercely forward bent his lofty head.

Then Finn advanced, opposing him in wrath,

Wielding his blue transparent sword in hand,—

The sword—the Son of Luinn of duskiest cheek,

The steely lustre pierced the Phantom through.

The Evil wraith of death assumed a frown;

He fell devoid of shape, far, far beyond,

Riding the wings of the dark cairns, like smoke

A sapling raises with a stick in hand,

About a hearth of discord and of gloom.

The Wraith of Lodin’s form shrieked on the Ben,

Collecting his essentials in the wind;

The Innis of the boars the tumult heard:

The trembling waves stopped action in their course.

The heroes of great Cuhal’s son arose.

And in each hand a spear was held aloft;

“Where is he?”—and their fury gathering gloom,

And every mail loud clanking round its chief.

As formerly remarked, the “Old Lays” of Dr Smith are fully as interesting and poetical as Macpherson’s Ossian; and all who wish to read and enjoy good Gaelic poetry—fresh and idiomatic —should go to these lays. Smith’s own translation is exceedingly loose and turgid as compared with his Gaelic. As already observed, Smith also comes under the suspicion of being the author of the Gaelic, as well as translator. His own account of the translation has been already given; and there seems no good reason why its honesty and correctness should be doubted. His Gaelic originals appear to stand in the same relation to pre-existent ballad and taleologic literature that Burns’ new versions of Scottish songs and ballads sustain to the older and original productions. Like Macpherson, Dr Smith cannot be said to be wholly the author nor merely the translator of these grand poetical “lays.” Illustrative specimens of them are given in the next chapter. To furnish a contrast to Macpherson’s Ossian and manner, I give the following lines on Bas Airt, or the Death of Artho:—

In battle-field he fell in fame;

Terrible to many as he came

Like thunder through the woods, or lightning

That hid itself midst ruin frightning!

The enemies trembled, fell, and fled;

From Artho’s hand destruction sped,

Like Melmor’s rocks dashed through the woods

To sink below in sullen floods;

Such seemed the low-laid hero’s form

Ere came death’s arrow in the storm.

Dan an Deirg, one of the finest poems in Smith’s volume, has been recently translated, edited, and annotated by an accomplished English scholar and graduate of Cambridge, Mr C. S. Jerram, who has been at the pains of studying the language. To this interesting little volume is prefixed a very intelligent and fair account of the state of the Ossianic question.

Dr Smith’s “Old Lays,” translated by himself in too free and turgid a fashion, are as interesting as Macpherson’s “Ossian,” and not inferior in any respect to that famed production. In the opening of one of these “lays,” called “Finan and Lorma,” we find a very pretty set of verses in which the young people around him, looking upon the heavens, are represented as addressing the aged Ossian in the following manner:—

While on the plains shines the moon, O bard!

And the shadow of Cona holds;

Like a ghost breathes the wind from the mountain,

With its spirit voice in its folds.

There are two cloudy forms before us,

Where its host the dim night shows;

The sigh of the moor curls their tresses,

As they tread over Alva of roes.

Dusky his dogs came with one,

And he bends his dark-brow of yew;

There’s a stream from the side of the sad-faced maid,

Dyes her robe with a blood-red hue.

Hold thou back, O thou wind! from the mountain,

Let their image a moment stay;

Nor sweep with thy skirts from our eyesight,

Nor scatter their beauty away.

O’er the glen of the rushes, the hill of the hinds

With the vague wandering vapour they go;

O, Bard of the times that have left us!

Aught of their life cans’t thou show?

OSSIAN’S REPLY.

The years that have been they come back as ye speak,

To my soul in their music they glide;

Like the murmur of waves in the far inland calm,

Is their soft and smooth step by my side.

The translation is from “The Gaelic Bards.” Let us now glance at a particular class of popular pieces that have become mixed up with the suspected works of Macpherson and Smith. The original of the specimens which follow was well known before Macpherson’s Gaelic Ossian appeared. The famous “Address to the Sun” is found in English in Macpherson’s Carthon. In the published Gaelic of 1807 its place is marked by asterisks. The Gaelic is inserted to correspond with the English in Clerk’s edition. A new literal translation is here attempted:—

O, thou that glidest in the sky,

Round as the hero’s full hard shield,

Thy frownless lustre, whence on high?

Sun, whence thy ceaseless light revealed?

Thou comest in thy lovely might;

The stars conceal from us their motion;

The moon pale hies from heaven’s height,

And shrouds her in the western ocean.

Thou in thy distance art alone;

Who bold may dare approach thy might;

With age, cairn, cliff, are overthrown;

With age the oak falls from the height.

The ocean shakes with ebb and flow;

The moon is lost in depth of night;

But, Victor, thou alone dost glow

In endless joy of thine own light.

When tempests darken round the earth

[With lightning], and with hoarse-voiced thunder,

Fair through the storm thou look’st in mirth

Upon the troubled heavens under.

But vain to me are thy bright rays,

Since I must see no more thy glance

Gold-tressed that turns on eastern gaze

Of heaven’s cloudy countenance,

When thou art trembling in the west,

Through ocean’s dusky doors to rest.

But like myself thou art perchance—

Once robed with weakness, once with strength;

In circling sky our years advance

Together to one end at length;

Rejoice, O Sun, while thou art young;

Be glad, thou Prince! while thou art strong!

Old age is dark and void of mirth,

Like faint moon ere her horn she fills;

While looking from the clouds on earth

Where hoary mist skirts cairny hills.

The biting blast with breath of cold

Beats on the traveller weak and old.

It is said that this address, the original of which was supplied to the Highland Society in the year 1801, was well known in the central Highlands early in the eighteenth century. The Rev. Mr Macdiarmid wrote it down from the dictation of an old man in Glenlyon about 1770. It is said that this old man learned it in his youth from people in the same glen before Macpherson was born.

The “Address to the Setting Sun” is given at the beginning of Macpherson’s Carricthura. It consists of eleven lines, and has been a great favourite among the people. The following is a literal translation:—

Leav’st the blue distance of the skies,

Unsullied Sun, with tress of gold?

Where west thy tent of slumber lies

The portals of the night unfold.

The cautious billows cower nigher

Thy shining temples to behold;

Awe-struck, their heads they lift up higher

To view thee grand in thy repose!

Pale from thy side they back retire!

May in thy cave sleep o’er thee close,

O, Sun! till thou the dawn inspire.

The above lines were written down by Mr Macdiarmid at the same time as the “Address to the Sun.” In the two pieces we find abstract conceptions that we never come across in the old ballads. This gives real ground to the argument of [recent writers] that the poems are of modern date. Whether ancient or modern, they are poetry of a high order, superior to that of the Irish and Scottish ballads. The new theory seems to some inconsistent with the honour and veracity of more than one clergyman and gentleman of repute, who could have no personal interest in helping to palm on the public the alleged forgeries of Macpherson. There is another “Address to the Sun”—to the rising sun—in Dr Smith’s Old Lays, which appeared many years before the publication of Macpherson’s Gaelic. It is admirably translated by Mr Pattison, and I avail myself of his translation:—

Son of the young morn! that glancest

O’er the hills of the east with thy gold-yellow hair

How gay on the wild thou advancest

Where the streams laugh as onward they fare;

And the trees yet bedewed by the shower,

Elastic their light bright branches raise,

Whilst [the melodies sweet] they embower

Hail thee at once with their lays.

But where is the dim light duskily gliding,

On her eagle wings from thy face?

Where now is darkness abiding?

In what cave do bright stars end their race—

When fast, on their faded steps bending,

Like a hunter you rush through the sky,

Up those lone lofty mountains ascending,

While down yon far summits they fly?

Pleasant thy path is, Great Lustre, wide-gleaming,

Dispelling the storm with thy rays;

And graceful thy gold ringlets streaming,

As wont in the westering blaze.

Thee the blind mist of night ne’er deceiveth,

Nor sends from the right course astray!

The strong tempest, all ocean that grieveth,

Can ne’er make thee bend from thy way.

At the call of the mild morn appearing,

Thy festal face wakens up bright;

Thy shade from all dark places clearing,

But the bard’s eye that ne’er sees thy light.

In an Irish poem from which quotations have been [made the bard] is represented as blind. In two of these pieces we have touching allusion to the same melancholy infliction. “Vain to me are thy bright rays” occurs in the Address to the Sun, and “the bard’s eye that ne’er sees thy light” in the Address to the Rising Sun. The soul of the old poet seemed to take delight in contrasting his own sightless condition with the brilliant sun in his course through the heavens. This tone of melancholy pleasure—of deep and lonely nurtured feeling—so characteristic of the Ossianic poems, is [also characteristic] of the Celtic race, especially of the Scottish Gael, whose spirit seems to have been enswathed in the majestic gloom of his own native glens and mountains. The curtains of mist hanging over the silent and weird-looking lochs, the ghost-like clouds that glided across the glens or inwrapped the crests of the hills, the moan of the sounding seashore mingling with the roar of a hundred streams forcing their ways to join the boundless ocean, are sights and sounds which naturally exerted a powerful influence on the souls of those who lived daily in their midst. When the tempests darkened round the earth, and lightnings flashed, and the hoarse-voiced thunder shook the hills, how pleasant it must have been for the depressed spirit of man to gaze on the face of the sun, looking “fair through the storm” “upon the troubled heavens under” of a Hebridean sky!

These are specimens of a great deal of poetry which Highlanders of the present day unhesitatingly ascribe to Ossian. Indeed, the Ossian of these pieces appears to be a poet of quite a different calibre from that of the old ballads. One thing is clear that whoever was the author or authors of these much discussed productions, he or they were poets of the highest order, and must have been Gaels born and bred in the Highlands.

CHAPTER X.
OLD LAYS.

“Lean gu dlù ri cliù do shinnsear;

’S na dich’nich a bhi mar iadsan.”—Seann Dan.

English:

Follow thou thy fathers’ fame;

Ne’er forget thy country’s claim.

After the Celtic poems and translations of the Bard of Badenoch had begun to realise fame and fortune for their author, other writers of varying gifts sought to enter into similar labours. For literary students the Gaelic realm of letters hitherto had been obscure and untrodden fields; but now all at once the old Celtic world of the Scottish past became alive with heroes of magnificent deeds and bards of illustrious renown. The refinement, the culture, the heroic courage of grand old Scots, in the environment of the purest chivalry, kindled everywhere admiration throughout Europe. People wearied of the artificialities and platitudes of the eighteenth century, allowed themselves to get into raptures over the healthy pictures of ancient life which these Celtic compositions unfolded. The blind old Ossian was then more popular than the blind old Homer, and all “Old Lays” connected with the Highlands and Islands acquired a value which they never had before. There was a general rage for Gaelic old lays and ballads, and a search was instituted throughout the land for such productions. Bards, senachies, reciters, and singers of every description and every rank in life were requisitioned for the supply of ancient Ossianic ballads.

One good result of this was to make the Highlands better known, and to help in the removal of old race-prejudices which had all along existed in some quarters, but which had become greatly intensified through the recent Jacobite rebellions for which the Highlanders as a people were not primarily responsible. John Knox may be said to have made the Scotland of his time reforming, radical, and religious, and Sir Walter Scott the Scotland of the nineteenth century romantic in verse and story; and James Macpherson may be said with equal force to have made the Highlands in the eighteenth century. It has been said that old Celtic lays and ballads became then the fashion. The pioneer in the field, it ought to be remembered, however, was not the Badenoch tutor. Three or four years before Macpherson was heard of there died, in June 1756, in the 30th year of his age,