TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH.

A good deal of Gaelic literature has been translated into English, whilst the “Ossian” of Macpherson has been rendered into Latin and into most of the European languages. Following is a list of the names of those who have published anything of importance:—

Jerome Stone1756 Patrick Macgregor1840
James Macpherson1760 Robert Munro1843
Rev. J. Wodrow1771 Rev. Dr MacLauchlan1862
Ewen Cameron1777 J. F. Campbell, Esq.1866
John Clark1778 Rev. Thomas Pattison1866
Rev. Dr Smith1780 Rev. Dr Clerk1870
Rev. Dr Ross—— Robert Buchanan1872
The MacCallums1816 C. S. Jerram, Esq.1873
Mrs Grant—— Professor J. S. Blackie1876

The names of some others, such as Sinclair, the Whytes MacBean, etc., will occur to the Gaelic reader. The works translated by these writers would fill many volumes. The works of Macpherson, Dr Smith, Dr MacLauchlan, J. F. Campbell, Thomas Pattison, Dr Clerk, and Professor Blackie have received much attention, and are well-known. Macpherson and Smith translate, on the supposition of translation, very much in the style of Pope in his Homer with this difference, that their paraphrastic renderings are only in prose. MacLauchlan, Campbell, and Clerk have adopted a rigid literality of rendering which the Ossianic controversy, among other reasons, compelled them to follow. These writers give the original [Gaelic along with] the English version. So does Jerram, whose Dan an Deirg is scholarly and accurate, very much in the style of Clerk’s Ossian. In the Gaelic Bards of Pattison the original is not given, the work being intended for popular use among English readers. Pattison’s translations are metrical and rhyming; and so are Blackie’s in his admirable and interesting work, The Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands. Those to whom the Gaelic is a sealed language have kindled the flame of patriotic enthusiasm by the healthy mountain breezes which the perusal of these translations has brought down.