The bare branches of the wood weep,
And the soft herbage of the mountain withers.
But the sun shall return again
To the beautiful forest of the fresh-clothed branch,
And each bough shall smile in the early summer,
Looking up to the son of the sky.
The collection of the M’Callums was a real addition to the stores of Gaelic poetry, and is most helpful in bringing to a satisfactory conclusion the whole question of the ancient Gaelic poetry of Scotland. Were there no other Gaelic compositions in existence save those pieces which this volume contains, they would be sufficient to prove the high character of the heroic poetry of the Scottish Gael for everything that constitutes true poetic power.
It would be wrong in such a sketch as this to overlook the interesting and ingenious contribution made to the discussion of the Ossianic question in the third and fourth volumes of Mr J. Campbell’s Tales of the West Highlands. The whole four volumes are full of interesting materials for the student of Gaelic literature and antiquities, but the third and fourth volumes are those in which a place is given to the ancient Ossianic poems. Mr Campbell, the representative of a distinguished Highland family, and unlike many of the class to which he belongs, an excellent Gaelic scholar, made collections on his own account all over the Highlands. He had as his chief coadjutor in the work Mr Hector M’Lean, teacher in Islay, and he could not have had a better—Mr M’Lean being possessed of scholarship, enthusiasm, and sound judgment. The result is a very remarkable collection of the oral literature of the Highlands, including selections from a large amount of poetry attributed to Ossian. This book is a truly honest book, giving the compositions collected just as they were found among the native Highlanders. We shall take occasion again to refer to the Sgeulachds, or tales, and shall only refer at present to the Ossianic remains presented to us by Mr Campbell.
Mr Campbell’s collections include most of the pieces that have been brought together in the same way, with such variations, of course, as must be looked for in the circumstances. He furnishes us with a version of the Lay of Diarmad (vol. iii., 50), having peculiar features of its own, but to a large extent identical with the versions of the Dean of Lismore and of Gillies. It is of much interest to compare this version, taken down within the last few years, with one taken down one hundred years ago, and another taken down three hundred and fifty years ago. The retentive power of human memory for generations is remarkably illustrated by the comparison. Mr Campbell also gives us “The Lay of Oscar,” “The Praise of Gaul,” “The Poem of Oscar,” and several other minor compositions, some of which had never before been printed. These, with Mr Campbell’s own disquisitions, are full of interest; but for the details we must refer the reader to Mr Campbell’s volumes.
From all that has been written on the subject of these ancient Gaelic poems of Ossian, it is perfectly clear that Ossian himself is no creation of James Macpherson. His name has been familiar to the people both of the Highlands and Ireland, for a thousand years and more. “Oisian an deigh na Feinn,” Ossian after the Fingalians, has been a proverbial saying among them for numberless generations. Nor did Macpherson invent Ossian’s poems. There were poems reputed to be Ossian’s in the Highlands for centuries before he was born, and poems, too, which for poetic power and interest are unsurpassed; which speak home to the heart of every man who can sympathise with popular poetry marked by the richest felicities of diction; and which entitles them justly to all the commendation bestowed upon the poems edited by Macpherson.