THE STATE OF THE OSSIANIC CONTROVERSY.
In controversy about Ossian, the man on the affirmative side has an immeasurable advantage over all others; and, with an average practical acquaintance with the subject, may exhaust any antagonist. The contents, the connection, and the details; the origin, the tradition, the translation; the poetry, the sentiment, the style; the history, the characters, the dramatis personæ; the aspects of nature represented, the customs and manners of the people; the conflicting nationalities introduced, the eventful issues, the romantic incidents; the probable scenes, the subsequent changes; the philosophy and the facts, and multiplied revelations of humanity—all these, and many more such themes inseparably connected with Ossian, if a man rightly understands and believes in them, would enable him to maintain his position in actual controversy, with integrity and ease, for a twelvemonth. The man, on the other hand, who does not believe in the authenticity of Ossian must forego all these advantages in succession, and will reduce himself to straits in an hour. He dare not expatiate or admire, or love, or eulogise, or trust, or credit, or contemplate, or sympathise with anything; or admit a fact, or listen to a word, or look at an argument, on the peril of immediate discomfiture. He must simply shut the book. His only stronghold is denial; his sole logic is assertion; his best rhetoric is abuse; his ultima ratio is to create distrust, and to involve both himself and everybody else in confusion. Genius, for example, he declares without hesitation to be trickery; poetry to be bombast; pathos, monotonous moaning; the tenderest human love to be sham; the most interesting natural incidents, contemptible inventions; the plainest statistical information, a deliberate act of theft; the sublimest conceptions of human character, a fudge; the details of human history for three hundred years, a melodramatic, incredible fiction; and what cannot now be found anywhere else recorded, a dream; accidental coincidence he speaks of as detected dishonesty; imaginary resemblance, as guilty adaptation; a style suitable to the subject, as plagiarism; occasional inspiration he calls a lie; translation, a forgery; and the whole, if not a "magnificent mystification," then, in Procurator-Fiscal phrase, a "wilful falsehood, fraud, and imposition." But all this, without proof—and nothing like proof is ever advanced—may be said in an hour, and the argument would remain as it is. Such, in point of fact, has been the sum total of assault, reiterated by every new antagonist with increasing boldness for a century, till reasonable readers have become callous to it, and only ignorant or prejudiced listeners are impressed. To be "hopelessly convinced" by it, is perhaps the latest phase of incredulity; to be edified or enlightened by it is impossible.
But, besides the advantage of being able to speak with freedom of an author like Ossian, from any natural point of view, an almost infinitely higher advantage still is to be obtained by actually verifying his text; by realising his descriptions, ascertaining his alleged facts, and localising the scenes of his narrative. Whatever is truly grand in Ossian may thus be identified with nature, if it has a counterpart there; and what seems only an imaginary outline at first may be filled up and fixed for ever as among her own still extant properties. A new sense, coherent and intelligible, may thus be imparted to the most familiar figures; and not an allusion to earth or sky, to rock or river, will be lost after such a process. Nay, a certain philosophic significance, amounting to scientific revelation, may be honestly associated with some of his loftiest figures; and what the translator himself apologises for as extravagant, may be thus converted into dreamful intuitions of hidden fact and poetic forecasting of future discoveries. Mr Arnold, in his Celtic Literature, seems to glance at such a capacity in Celtic man—"His sensibility gives him a peculiarly near and intimate feeling of nature, and the life of nature; here, too, he seems in a special way attracted by the secret before him, the secret of natural beauty and natural magic, and to be close to it, to half-divine it," p. 108. But Mr Arnold does not seem to include in this capacity the intuitions of natural science, at least not for Ossian; yet nothing can be more certain than that Ossian and his fellow-countrymen enjoyed them.
That verification to such an extent, however, both of facts and localities, and ideas—philosophic or imaginative, in the text of Ossian, was possible, has scarcely hitherto been believed by any one; it has certainly never been attempted. A sort of vagueness in many of his descriptions ill-understood, and a similarity in poetic figures that might be indiscriminately applied; and an occasional apparent conflict or confusion of details seem to have deterred almost all readers from the study we now recommend. But all these difficulties, of verification and interpretation alike, are only on the surface; and not even there, if it has been looked at attentively. Let any intelligent reader, with the poems which refer to Scotland in his hand, survey the Clyde, the Kelvin, and the Carron, and trace the still remaining footsteps of nature and of civilization through distant centuries on their banks, and he will see that Ossian has been there. Let him look steadily even at the cloud-drifts from the Atlantic, as they troop or roll along in a thousand fantastic forms, converging all to a certain inland range, and he will understand that the author of these poems must have seen and studied them so. Let him proceed then to Arran, and he will discover there, if he looks and listens, not only scenes and traditions, and monuments of sepulture, still associated with the names of Oscar and Malvina, Fingal and Ossian—in literal confirmation of what has been stated in the text concerning them; but the only reliable account, by survey and tradition also, of the Fingalian expeditions from Morven to Ireland. Let him then, by direct communication, which is occasionally possible from Arran; or by any circuit he pleases, disembark in the Bay of Larne "with its bosom of echoing woods," as Fingal himself must have done; and there, with Fingal and Temora in hand, let him survey the entire region between Larne and Belfast. Let him march with his eyes open by the pass of Glenoe, and try to ascend it on the old track—by the "narrow way at the stream of the battle of thousands," round the double-headed rock there by moonlight, or in the misty dawn; and before attempting this, let him look carefully around among the limestone cliffs for any other reasonable opening; and if he does not begin to suspect, at least, that it was here Cuchullin stood, and Calmar fell, against the invading Norse, he must be "hopelessly convinced" to the contrary, indeed. Onwards let him prosecute his journey, looking backwards occasionally to the sea, where the ships of Fingal should be appearing—onwards among marshy Lenas, open Straths, half cultivated Heaths—with an occasional monolith among the enclosures, testifying to what has once been done there; onwards, with his eye now to the ridges on the left—on one of which, below Carneal or thereabouts, the head-quarters of Fingal must have been before the campaigns began—onwards until he touches the source of the Six-Mile-Water above Ballynure; and there, looking steadily westward down the strath where the river winds, let him recall the very words of the text in his hand—"Nor settled from the storm is Erin's sea of war; they glitter beneath the moon, and, low-humming, still roll on the field. Alone are the steps of Cathmor, before them on the heath; he hangs forward with all his arms on Morven's flying host.... They who were terrible were removed: Lubar winds again in their host":—and then ask himself deliberately if the whole scene, with the relative changes of position in the contending armies, the retreat of the one that had been advancing, the pursuit of the other that had been retreating, the recrossing of the stream by both over some of its hundred links, and the temporary pause of battle in that valley, with hosts on either side of the river which now flowed through the ranks of one of them, whilst the other was in retreat up the ridge—could have been more truly described by poet or geographer than it has been in these few words of Ossian? Onward let him proceed, if he pleases, by Ballynure and Ballyclare to Lough Neagh; or let him return again across the valley to the north, in a line at right angles to the road between Larne and Connor. But before he moves from the spot let him glance round for a moment to the south, in the direction of Carrickfergus—"where a valley spreads green behind the hill [literally spreads] with its three blue streams. The sun is there in silence; [that touch is wonderful—no war, as yet, is there] and the dun mountain roes come down." Let him search there at leisure, if he pleases, and he will find the stream of the Noisy Vale, where poor Sulmalla saw the vision of Cathmor's ghost, and "the lake of roes," where Lady Morna died, still Loch Mourne, a little farther east on the mountain. But if this should be inconvenient, then by a step or two forward to the top of the ridge on the right he will come in view of the northern branch of the Six-Mile-Water; and now let him steadily consider what he sees. From east to west before him, lies the Drumadarragh range; between himself and which lies the valley of the Deer Park, intersected by the river, whereabouts, in all probability, the assassination of Oscar took place. Beyond the ridge and through the pass just visible, rises the Glenwherry Water; near the head of which, as has been fully explained, both in "Ossian and the Clyde" and elsewhere, should be found a cave in some rocky cliff, with oaks, or the remains of oaks, before it; whilst the river, in its sheltered course or Cluna, glides below. "Crommal, with woody rocks and misty top, the field of winds, pours forth to the light blue Lubar's streamy roar. Behind it rolls clear-winding Lavath, in the still vale of deer. A cave is dark in a rock; above it strong-winged eagles dwell; broad-headed oaks before it, sound in Cluna's wind. Within, in his locks of youth, is Ferad-Artho, blue-eyed king, the son of broad-shielded Cairbar, from Ullin of the roes. He listens to the voice of Condan, as grey he bends in feeble light. He listens, for his foes dwell in the echoing halls of Temora. He comes at times abroad, in the skirts of mist, to pierce the bounding roes. When the sun looks on the field, nor by the rock nor stream is he! He shuns the race of Bolga, who dwell in his father's hall." Let him march then to Ferad-Artho's hiding place, across the intervening valley—taking leisurely note, as he goes, of every monolith or cairn on his track; and either up the face of the hill, or through the pass on his right, where the high road now runs, and so on to the hamlet of Maghgerabane; above which, on the Skerry—a gloomy, low-browed, basaltic precipice before him—like a dark porch or portico, in the very face of the rock, halfway up, he will descry the cave in question. He should now cross the Glenwherry at the village, in its grassy gorge, and draw nearer to the portico on the hillside beyond it, keeping a steady look-out for the roots of oaks, for they are still to be discovered there, as he ascends the cliff. Three of them in a row, about twenty feet below the cave, but directly in front of it, although now overwhelmed with ruins, still send up shoots; and two more, a little farther up to the west of it, are equally conspicuous. He will find the cave itself half-ruined already, by the continual fall of basaltic masses from the mountain; and in attempting to scale the rock at the door of the cave, he should be as circumspect as possible, lest a worst thing than the breaking of a bone befals him. He need not, however, be afraid of "strong-winged eagles," for they are gone; nor need he look for "bounding roes" in the valley, for they are probably exterminated; but he may still look westward on one of the sweetest and stillest vales in the bounds of the Island; and when he remembers that he is now within a few miles of Connor, which is the Temora of Ossian, he will have no difficulty in understanding how Ferad-Artho was brought for shelter and for safety to the cave just above him; or how easily the boy-king could be discovered there by his friends in Fingal's camp to the south, who knew exactly where to find him. Such explorations are but the one-half of what may still be made from the text of Ossian, in this very region; but these will occupy at least three days of a week in summer, and are long enough for present detail in the columns of the Celtic. There are other regions however, far beyond Ireland, not so accessible to ordinary tourists, which may be examined nevertheless, with equal certainty by geological survey and geographical report; and to these, on some future occasion, we may take an opportunity of directing the reader's attention.
In the meantime, by way of bringing our present argument to a point, would the reader believe that Macpherson, by whose text alone hitherto we have been guided, was himself more ignorant of these very scenes than a school boy; that he never, in fact, saw them, and did not know where, in Scotland or in Ireland, they were to be found? Yet such is the case. Of the Clyde, of which he could not help knowing something, he knew nevertheless very little—yet not much less than some of our modern geologists; but of localities on the Clyde, or between the Forth and the Clyde, as described in Ossian, he knew nothing. The Kelvin, in like manner, as an Ossianic river, was utterly unknown to him; he does not even attempt to translate its name. All that pertains to Arran, and still so distinctly traceable there by the help of his own text in Berrathon—for which Gaelic no longer exists—he transfers in his ignorance to the wilds of Morven. As for Ireland, all that he knows, or seems to know, is that Ullin is Ulster; but the very scenes which are most conspicuous in Ulster he transfers to Leinster—from Antrim, for example, to Meath; and the rest to some undistinguishable point between Londonderry and Armagh. He brings Sulmalla and her forefathers from Wales instead of Wigtonshire, into Wicklow instead of Ardglass; and he lands both Swaran and Cuchullin and Fingal in Lough Foyle apparently, instead of in the Bay of Larne or Belfast? In such circumstances, of what use is it for critics any longer to go on squabbling over Gaelic editions, collecting and collating mediæval Gaelic ballads, and asserting with hopeless fatuity that he was the author of these poems, or that he stole them from the Irish? The Irish themselves are as ignorant of the subject as he is; and yet in spite of all this ignorance on his part and theirs, the text of his translation has received on every page of it the unequivocal countersign of Nature, which can neither be forged nor forfeited. Taking all which into account, does it not now begin to be plain to unprejudiced readers that the whole of this Ossianic controversy has been hitherto on wrong ground; and that if the truth of it is to be arrived at, at all, it must be removed to other ground—from questionable MSS. and mediæval ballads, to the region of facts and the domain of reality? We do not assert that the sort of facts now adduced by us, and elsewhere systematised and elaborated, are the only facts, or the only kind of facts to be considered in such a controversy; but we do assert that their importance is supreme, and that they have never hitherto been admitted in the controversy. It is to facts however, and to facts like these, that the attention of Ossianic students ought now to be directed; and at every step, if we are not greatly deceived, they will multiply and reiterate their testimony in so decided a fashion, that it will be impossible for any critic, or for any collector in the world, to disregard or dispose of them. All farther serious controversy on the subject, in short, is destined to be of this character—common-sense and practical; and the sooner we prepare ourselves, as honest enquirers, to engage in it after this fashion and in this spirit, the better.
P. HATELY WADDELL.