§2. Earliest Notices and Translations.
It is generally stated that the first German notice of the Poems of Ossian was given by Raspe in No. 92 of the Hannoverisches Magazin for 1763. This is, to be sure, the first extended review, but a notice of Fingal had appeared the year before in the Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften.[30] It is interesting to note what attracted this first critic, who regards the characters of the epic as full of strength and feeling, and endowed with all the virtues that go to make up true heroism. He marvels at the bold poetic expression, and seems to detect in it a resemblance to the oriental style. In a review of Temora which appeared in the same magazine in the following year, the author tells us that, on the one hand, the various critical dissertations written by Macpherson and, on the other, the nature of the poetry itself have convinced him of the authenticity of the songs, which he thinks ought to be made more widely known through German translations. He is attracted particularly by “the grandeur and sublimity of thought, the spark of genius, the power of expression, the boldness of metaphor, the sudden transitions, the irresistible and unexpected touches of pathos and tenderness, and the similarity in similes and phrasing.” In these notices we encounter several remarks that are characteristic of the Ossian craze in Germany. In the first place, doubts as to the authenticity are not to be entertained.[31] Equally interesting is the impression made upon the critic by the ‘spark of genius,’ the ‘power of expression,’ the ‘boldness of metaphor’; in other words, the Gaelic bard was considered fairly well endowed with those qualities that constitute the ideal poet of the Storm and Stress, and he might well be placed by the side of Shakspere as a natural poet. We note further that the pathos and tenderness exhibited in the poems of Ossian attracted attention from the beginning, and this very pathos and sentimentality and melancholy did much to establish Ossian in the popular favor. The German is by nature inclined to be sentimental, and to the German of the 18th century the joy of grief, the [Greek: himeros nooio] was a large reality.
Two years before the appearance of Engelbrecht’s translation of the Fragments, there appeared in the Bremisches Magazin a German prose translation of two fragments that had been published in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1760. In a notice of Fingal in Volume 6 of the same magazine (1763), the epic is characterized as “beautiful, pathetic, and sublime.” The characterization of Temora given in the following year is but an echo of the sentiments expressed in the Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften.
One of the first to draw attention not only to the poems of Ossian but to Bishop Percy’s Reliques as well,[32] was Rudolf Erich Raspe. Raspe had studied at Göttingen and spent some years in Hannover, so that nothing was more natural than that he should take an interest in English literature. His first notice of Ossian appeared in No. 92 (1763) of the Hannoverisches Magazin. The tone throughout is one of hearty appreciation, and supreme confidence is placed in the authenticity of the poems, which he defends enthusiastically, basing his arguments upon the various dissertations prefixed to the works of Ossian. The supposed originality of the Gaelic bard appealed strongly to him. “With justice,” says Raspe, “can he be styled an original, he is new throughout.”[33] And in another place: “Ossian is in the opinion of many great connoisseurs a genius of the first order.”[34] Here then we have our Originalgenie without further search. Raspe was thus struck by what he was pleased to regard as Ossian’s naturalness. The fact that Dr. Blair in his “Dissertation” had not hesitated to place Ossian on a par with Homer causes Raspe to marvel that Ossian was gifted enough to raise himself to the height demanded by an epic poem “without the machinery, the gods, and the comparisons of the Roman and Greek poets.”[35] He regarded Ossian as the embodiment of the ideal that Winckelmann saw in the Greek masterpieces, a soul characterized by ‘noble simplicity and quiet grandeur.’ Ossian’s noble sentiments are set up as an example worthy of emulation in these degenerate times.
In Nos. 94 to 97 (1763) of the same magazine, Raspe gave a translation of extracts, ‘disjecta membra Hippolyti,’ from the six books of Fingal in rhythmic prose. The portions omitted are briefly summarized. The translation possesses no special merits and we can pass over at once to the first translations that appeared in book form, that of the Fragments by Engelbrecht (1764), and that of Fingal by Wittenberg (1764), both of which appeared anonymously and both in rhythmic prose. Neither of these translations met with a particularly flattering reception; the magazines seem to have taken no notice of them whatever, the editions were probably limited, and we have no record of a second edition in either case. Wittenberg, indeed, intended to publish two additional volumes, the second to contain Temora with several smaller poems and the third the remaining fragments, together with Dr. Blair’s “Dissertation,” but his plans bore no fruit. Wittenberg was no great literary light and would have been forgotten long ago had he not been mixed up in the Lessing–Goeze controversy.[36] In his preface he tells us that he took pains to make the translation as literal as possible—quite a wise proceeding for one who had no hope of improving upon the original and no ability to turn Macpherson’s prose into respectable verse. When he remarks in the preface that the poems of Ossian are, even thus early, too well known among the Germans to call for further commendation to the reader, we may see how quickly Ossian had found a place in the public favor. However, Wittenberg can not abstain from recording his appreciation, and takes up the cudgels in defense of the authenticity.
Engelbrecht, the translator of the Fragments, was a merchant and by way of avocation a literary dilettante. He began to translate the fragments partly in prose and partly in verses without rime, but business interfered with the continuation of the work and when he again took it up, he cast aside the poetic portion and translated in rhythmic prose from the first edition of Fingal (1761). He intended originally to publish a translation of the epic Fingal as well, but abstained, because Wittenberg anticipated him.[37]
In the year after the appearance of the two translations just discussed (1765), a reprint of the Mémoire sur les Poëmes de Macpherson mentioned above (p. 5) was published in Cologne, and a partial translation of the same article appeared in the Hamburgische Unterhaltungen the following year. Little attention was paid in Germany to the attempt to transport Ossian and his heroes to Ireland. The translator might have foreseen that an article of this nature would be apt to be received with disdain. Gerstenberg, to be sure, believed in the article,[38] but then he had had his doubts from the very first. Yet he was the exception, and the view of the general public is better illustrated by a sentence in the review of Fingal from the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen (1765), where the critic writes: “We must at the outset reject the suspicion expressed in certain French monthlies, which declare these poems to be the work of the publisher and consequently a forgery. In a hundred places do we find proof that refutes this suspicion.”[39] In the same review Ossian is characterized as less loquacious than Homer, and in a review of the Works of Ossian (London, 1765) in the same magazine (1767), the critic remarks how infinitely superior the character of the Gaels is to that of Homer’s heroes: “Ossian’s heroes are throughout far more generous, more modest and more kind than Homer’s robbers, who are sublime solely in virtue of their strength.”[40] And again: “Ossian’s soul felt infinitely more, his code of morals was better, he knew the human heart in its more delicate emotions; and, what might not be expected from a Highlander, he was infinitely more tender in love and had a greater partiality for women than the Greek.”[41] Macpherson’s peculiar prose did not fail to impress the reviewer, who saw in it a mixture “made up of the Holy Scriptures, of Homer and of the speeches of the Iroquois, yet nevertheless possessing something of its own.”[42] Verily a strange combination that could not fail to be effective. However, carried away as the average reviewer was by the beauty inherent in the poems, by the noble, almost sublime character of the old Gaelic heroes, and by the grandiloquent language in which the poems were couched, they were not always entirely blind to the cardinal defects of the work, and we must give the reviewer credit for his candor when he says: “To be sure, the comparisons are too frequent and the style somewhat too monotonous.”[43] This was no small admission to make in regard to a poet greater even than Homer, and so in the second review a reason for this defect is given in palliation. “Ossian lived,” we read, “in a different clime, where nature does not possess half the beauty of the Greek.... It is therefore easy to see that Ossian, whose wealth of comparison is altogether too great, is forced to become monotonous as far as these and his descriptions of scenery are concerned.”[44]
We have seen that the first notice of Ossian appeared in the Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften, and for a number of years this magazine assumed the leading rôle in Ossianic criticisms and discussions. Several notices appeared in the first three volumes of the Neue Bibliothek. In Vol. 1 (1766) we have a notice of Cesarotti’s Italian translation. The reviewer expresses his astonishment that the Abbé has dared to render the translation in verse, a criticism that Denis was soon to call down upon his head in still greater measure. In Vol. 2 (1766) appeared a most sympathetic review of the Works of Ossian by Christian Felix Weisse, who had been editor of the Bibliothek since 1759. Weisse took a lifelong interest in Ossian, a fact that is attested not only by his reviews, but also by his translations of John Macpherson’s Critical Dissertations ... (1770), and of Smith’s Gaelic Antiquities (1781). In his review he feels called upon to defend the authenticity of the poems against the attacks of English and French scholars, particularly against the article in the Journal des Sçavans; he does not mention a single German scholar, which goes far to show with what unanimity Ossian was accepted when he first made his appearance. Weisse’s review is taken up principally with an extensive résumé of Dr. Blair’s “Dissertation,” prefixed to the edition under discussion. The comparison of Homer and Ossian receives a due share of consideration. The notice is concluded in Vol. 3 (1766), where the plan and character of the two epics Fingal and Temora are given, together with several specimens from the poems in German prose. And then Ossian is proclaimed a poetic genius.[45] “If strong feeling and natural description are the two chief ingredients of a poetic genius, we must confess that Ossian possesses a large amount of genius. The question is not whether there are mistakes in his poems ... but has he the spirit, the fire, the inspiration of a poet? Does he speak the speech of nature? Does he elevate by his feelings? Does he interest by his descriptions? Does he depict for the heart as well as for the imagination? Does he cause his readers to glow, to tremble, to weep? These are the great characteristics of true poetry.”[46] And these grand characteristics of true poetry, as laid down by Weisse, Ossian certainly possessed. The form in which the poems came out approached closely to what was then regarded as constituting the language of nature. His sentiments were surely ennobling. His descriptions, while their monotony would soon tire a reader of to–day, interested and charmed by reason of their novelty, and while sufficient play was left for the imagination, no one could complain of failure to touch the heart; and lastly, if an author was to be judged by his ability to cause his readers to glow, tremble, and weep, was it strange that a high rank was assigned to a poet whose heroes and heroines spent a goodly portion of their time in doing the one or the other, especially the last? Tears play a most important part in the economy of Ossian’s poems, and we need not wonder that the sentimental youth and maiden of the day were so fond of him. And so Weisse needed no external proof to convince him of the genuineness of the poems; their character was proof sufficient to him. It would have been difficult for him—and in this respect he represents a numerous body—to reconcile the spuriousness of the songs with the undeniable effect they produced.
Before closing this discussion of the earliest notices and translations, we must mention two further translations that appeared prior to the publication of Denis’s hexameter version in 1768–9. The one is a translation of the Fragments that appeared anonymously in 1766. It was originally published in the Neues Bremisches Magazin and then printed separately as Fragmente der alten Dichtkunst. The translation evoked little attention and soon passed into oblivion. To the second translation fate was more kind. It was a poetic rendering of two extracts from “The Songs of Selma.” They appeared anonymously in Vol. 4 of the Unterhaltungen and were later reprinted several times in various places. The translator is Ludwig Gottlieb Crome, a collection of whose poems appeared after his death.[47]
The bibliography brings out two interesting additional points. We see first that not a single imitation of Ossian exists before the advent of Denis’s translation, and secondly, that most of the early publications hailed from Bremen and Hamburg, the cities in which the originals were soonest accessible. That the periodicals of Hannover and Göttingen should be among the first to pay tribute to the newly discovered genius is easily explained by a reference to the dynastic connections between Hannover and England.