the son of Fingal *, a celebrated Celtic poet, who flourished about the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century. Several incidents in his poems point out this as his era: particularly the engagement of Fingal with Caracul, or Caracalla, the son of the emperor Severus, styled by Ossian, The Son of the King of the World; and another expedition under the conduct of Oscar, against the usurper Carausius, the Caros of Ossian, who assumed the purple in the year 287. This corresponds pretty nearly with the account given by the Irish histories, which place the death of Fingal in the year 283, and the death of Oscar (who died many years before his father Ossian) in the year 296.

At such a distance of time, it cannot be expected we should be able to give a particular account of the life of Ossian. The first expedition on which his father sent him was, to raise a stone on the banks of Crona, to perpetuate the memory of a victory which the king of Morven had obtained at that place. The Highlanders talk of this as being emblematical of that immortality which heroes were to receive from his future compositions. In this expedition he was accompanied by Toscar, father to the beautiful Malvina, the amiable companion of his grief, after the death of her beloved Oscar, his son. It appears from his poems, that, in one of his early expeditions to Ireland, he had fallen fallen in love with and married Evirallin, daughter to Branno, petty king of Lego. "I went in suit of the maid of Lego's sable lurge; twelve of my people were there, the sons of dreary Morven. We came to Branno, friend of strangers; Branno of the sounding mail.—'From whence,' he said, 'are the arms of steel? Not easy to win is the maid that has denied the blue-eyed sons of Erin. But blest be thou, O son of Fingal! happy is the maid that waits thee.' Though twelve daughters were mine, thine were the choice, thou son of fame."—Then he opened the hall of the maid; the dark-haired Evirallin. This Evirallin was the mother of his son Oscar, whose exploits he celebrates in many of his poems, and whose death he laments in the first book of Temora. Evirallin died some time before Olcar, (Fingal B. iv.), who seems to have been her only child; and Ossian did not marry afterwards; so that his posterity ended in the death of Olcar; who seems to have died as he was about to be married to Malvina, the daughter of Tofcar. Several of her lamentations for her lover are recorded by Ossian, which paint her grief in the strongest and most beautiful colours.—"It is the voice of my love! few are his visits to my dreams.—But thou dwellest in the soul of Malvina, son of mighty Ossian. My sighs arise with the beams of the east; my tears descend with the drops of night. I was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, with all my branches round me: but thy death came like a blast from the desert, and laid my green head low; the spring returned with its showers, but no green leaf of mine arose." Poem of Cromla.

The principal residence of Ossian was in the vale of Cona, now Glencoe, in Argyleshire. See Fingal, in APPENDIX.

His poems relate many of his expeditions to Ireland, Scandinavia, Clyde, and Tweed or Teutha. His exploits on these occasions, after making a large allowance for poetical exaggeration, shew him to have been no less a warrior than a poet. See Ossian's Works, in the poems Calibon and Colmal, Lathmon, Berration, &c. By these expeditions, which were always undertaken for the relief of the distressed, the mind of Ossian seems to have been cultivated and enlarged beyond what is usually to be met with in so rude a period of society as that in which he lived. His poems breathe throughout, such a spirit of generosity and tenderness, especially towards the fair sex, as is seldom or never to be met with in the compositions of other poets who lived in a more advanced state of civilization. He lived to an extreme old age; having survived all his family and friends, many of whom perished by a fatal accident, recorded in one of his poems called the Fall of Tara*. Malvina, alone, the love of his son Oscar, remained with him till within a few years of his death, and paid him every attention that could be expected from the tender relation in which she stood to him. To her he addresses many of his poems, which seem to have been composed for the most part in his old age. Her death is pathetically lamented by him in the poem of Berdration: towards the close of which, he gives the preludes of his own departure; an event which he often wishes for, under the blindness and other calamities of his declining years. "Roll on, ye dark-brown years, for ye bring no joy on your course. Let the tomb open to Ossian, for his strength has failed. The sons of the song are gone to reit: my voice remains, like a blast, that roars lonely, on the sea-surrounded rock, after the winds are laid. The dark moss whistles there, and the distant mariner sees the waving trees†." But Ossian is a tree that is withered. Its branches are blasted and bare; no green leaf covers its boughs. From its trunk no young shoot is seen to spring. The breeze whistles in its grey mists: the blast shakes its head of age.—The storm will soon overturn it, and flay all its dry branches with thee, O Dermid! and with all the rest of the mighty dead, in the green winding vale of Cona*."

It is not certain at what age Ossian died; but from his poem of having been long blind with years, and from the many contrasts, between his present and past situations, in poems composed, as it would appear, at a considerable distance of time from each other, it is most likely he lived to an extreme old age. The current tradition is, that he died in the house of a Culdee, called the Son of Alpin, with whom he is said to have held several conferences about the doctrines of Christianity. One of these dialogues is still preserved, and bears the genuine marks of a very remote antiquity; (Dissertation prefixed to Ossian's Works.) Several of Ossian's poems are addressed to this son of Alpin, who was probably one of those Christians whom the persecution under Diocletian had driven beyond the pale of the Roman empire.

The poems of Ossian, tho' always held in the highest esteem by those who knew them, were allowed to remain in the obscurity of their original Galic, till Mr Macpherson, about 20 years ago, translated a collection of them into English, which immediately attracted the attention of every person who had a true taste for poetry. Dr Blair, in particular, introduced these poems into the world with those critical remarks, which do no less honour to himself than to the poet. According to that eminent critic, the two great characteristics of Ossian's poetry are tenderness and sublimity. Ossian is, perhaps, the only poet who never relaxes, or lets himself down into the light and amusing strain. He moves perpetually in the high region of the grand and pathetic. The events which he records are all serious and grave; the scenery wild and romantic. We find not in him an imagination that sports itself and drestles out gay trifles to please the fancy. His poetry, more perhaps than that of any other, deserves to be styled the poetry of the heart. It is a heart penetrated with noble sentiments, with sublime and tender passions; a heart that glows and kindles the fancy; a heart that is full, and pours itself forth. Of all the great poets, Homer is the one whose manner and whose times come the nearest to Ossian's. Homer's ideas were more enlarged, and his characters more diversified. Ossian's ideas fewer, but of the kind fittest for poetry; the bravery and generosity of heroes, the tenderness of lovers, and the attachment of friends. Homer is diffuse; Ossian abrupt and concise. His images are a blaze of lightning, which flash and vanish. Homer has more of impetuosity and fire; Ossian of a solemn and awful grandeur. In the pathetic, Homer has great power; but Ossian exerts that power much oftener, and has the character of tenderness more deeply imprinted. printed on his works. No poet knew better how to seize and melt the heart. With regard to dignity of sentiment, we must be surprised to find that the pre-eminence must clearly be given to the Celtic bard. This appears nowhere more remarkable than in the sentiments which he expresses towards his enemies. "U- "thai fell beneath my sword, and the sons of Berra- "thon fled.—It was then I saw him in his beauty, "and the tear hung in my eye. Thou art fallen, young "tree, I said, with all thy beauty round thee. Thou "art fallen on thy plains, and the field is bare. The "winds come from the desert, and there is no sound "in thy leaves! Lovely art thou in death, son of car- "borne Larthmore *!" His supposition, that all the little feuds and differences of this life should be forgot in a future state, and that those who had once been foes would "stretch their arms to the same shell in "Loda," gives us the highest idea of the man as well as of the poet. "Daughter of beauty, thou art low! "A strange shore receives thy corse. But the ghosts "of Morven will open their halls, when they see thee "coming. Heroes around the feast of dim shells, in "the midst of clouds, shall admire thee; and virgins "shall touch the harp of mist f."—"The feuds of "other years by the mighty dead are forgotten. The "warriors now meet in peace, and ride together on "the tempest's wing. No clang of the shield, no noise "of the spear, is heard in their peaceful dwellings. "Side by side they sit, who once mixed in battle their "steel. There, Lochlin and Morven meet at the mu- "tual feast, and listen together to the song of their "bards f."

But the sublimity of moral sentiments, if they wanted the softening of the tender, would be in hazard of giving a stiff air to poetry. It is not enough that we admire. Admiration is a cold feeling in comparison of that deep interest the heart takes in tender and pathetic scenes. With scenes of this kind Ossian abounds; and his high merit in these is incontrovertible. He may be blamed for drawing tears too often from our eyes; but that he has the power of commanding them, no man who has the least sensibility can question. His poems awake the tenderest sympathies, and inspire the most generous emotions. No reader can rise from him without being warmed with the sentiments of humanity, virtue, and honour.

But the excellency of these poems occasioned in many persons a doubt of their authenticity. Their genuineness, however, has been very ably defended by Dr Blair and Lord Kames, and warmly supported by the author of the Galic Antiquities, who has given the public some more remains of Ossian's poetry.

As the nature of our work will not allow us to treat this matter at full length, we shall only give a brief view of the arguments offered in support of the authenticity of these poems, referring our readers to the authors just now mentioned for fuller satisfaction.

These compositions, say they, have all the internal marks of antiquity so strongly impressed upon them, that no reader of taste and judgment can deny their claim to it. They exhibit a lively picture of customs which have disappeared for ages, as could be drawn only from nature and real life. The features are so distinct, that few portraits of the life continually passing before us are found to be drawn with so much likeness. The manners uniformly relate to a very early stage of society; and no hint, no allusion to the arts, customs, or manners, of a more advanced period, appears throughout the poems. To that distinction of ranks, which is always found in adult societies, the poet appears to have been a perfect stranger. The first heroes prepare their own repasts, and indiscriminately condescend to the most menial services. Their quarrels arise from causes generally slight, but in such a period extremely natural. A rivalry in love, an omission at a feast, or an affront at a tournament, are often the foundation of a quarrel among single heroes. And the wars in which whole tribes are engaged, are carried on with a view, not to enlarge their territory, but to revenge perhaps the killing of a few deer on their mountains, or the taking forcibly away one of their women. Their occupation was war and hunting, and their chief ambition was to have their fame in the songs of the bards.

The notions of a future state, exhibited in these poems, are likewise strongly marked with the characters of antiquity. A creed so uncommon that the imagination of a modern could not be supposed to grasp so strong an idea of it from mere fancy, is uniformly supported throughout. This creed is extremely simple, but admirably suited to the times.

The language too, and the structure, of these poems, bear the most striking characters of antiquity. The language is bold, animated, and metaphorical, such as it is found to be in all infant-states; where the words, as well as the ideas and objects, must be few; and where the language, like the imagination, is strong and undisciplined. No abstract, and few general terms appear in the poems of Ossian. If objects are but introduced in a simile, they are always particularized. It is "the young pine of Inithuna;" it is "the bow of the flowery Lena." This character, so conspicuous in the poems of Ossian, is a striking feature in the language of all early states; whose objects and ideas are few and particular, and whose ordinary conversation is of course highly figurative and poetical. A picture, therefore, marked with such striking features, could not be drawn without an original.

The whole texture of the composition is also, like the language, bold, nervous, and concise; yet always plain and artless; without any thing of that modern refinement, or elaborate decoration, which attend the advancement of literature. No foreign ornaments are hunted after. The wild and grand nature which lay within the poet's view, is the only source from which he draws his ornaments. Beyond this circle, his imagination, though quick and rapid, seldom made any excursion. We perceive his language always to be that of a person who saw and felt what he describes; who bore a part in the expeditions which he celebrates, and who fought in the battles which he sings.

In giving the external and more positive proofs of the authenticity of Ossian's poems, it is observed,—That there have been in the Highlands of Scotland, for some ages back, a vast many poems ascribed to Ossian: That these poems have been held in the highest veneration, repeated by almost all persons, and on all occasions. These are facts so well known, that nobody as yet has been hardy enough to deny them: There is not an old man in the Highlands, who will not declare, that he heard such poems repeated by his father and grandfather, as pieces of the most remote antiquity. There is not a district in the Highlands where there are not many places, waters, hills, caves, and mountains, which, from time immemorial, are called after the names of Ossian's heroes.—There is not a lover of ancient tale or poetry, however illiterate, who is not well acquainted with almost every single name, character, and incident, mentioned in those translations of Ossian's poems, which he may have never heard of.—Bards, who are themselves several centuries old, quote those poems, imitate them, and refer to them.—The ordinary conversation and comparisons of the Highlanders frequently allude to the customs and characters mentioned in them;—and many of their most common proverbs, established by the most ancient use, are lines borrowed from the poems of Ossian.

* See examples under each of these heads in the Gallic Antiquities, p. 93, 94, 95.

† Ibid. p. 194, in note.

‡ Kames's Sketches, B. I.

§ Gallic Antiquities, p. 93, 118.

|| See list of names, Appendix to Dr Blair's Disertation, Ossian's Works, 2d edit.

cultivated with most success in the earliest stages of society; that in Greece, Orpheus, Linus, Hesiod, and Homer, wrote their admirable poems some ages before anything had been written in prose in the Greek language; that the book of Job, written in a very early period of society, is highly poetical; that among the tribes of Lapland and America, there have been found, in the earliest state, some excellent pieces of poetry. That the Caledonians in particular, had some peculiar institutions, which tended to improve their poetry: their druids were among the most learned philosophers which perhaps any age or country produced; their bards or poets were the disciples of those druids, and were always a standing order, to which none but the most promising geniuses were admitted. This standing college of poets was furnished, not only with the fruits of their own long study and observation, but also with as much as merited to be preserved of the compositions of their predecessors in office, since the "light of the song" first dawned. They had the advantage of one another's conversation; which would excite their emulation, and make them aspire to eminence: They were always present, and generally engaged, in every grand operation that was transacted; which could not fail to inspire their muse with the truest poetic fire.

The case of Ossian was particularly favourable. He lived in an age when manners came to a considerable degree of refinement under the care of the Bards and Druids. Poetry in his day was considerably advanced; and the language, though strong and figurative, had undergone some degree of cultivation, and learned to flow in regular numbers, adapted to the harp, the favourite instrument of the times. As a prince and a warrior, his mind must have been expanded and much enlarged by his excursions to other countries. At home he had Ullin, Alpin, Carril, and Ryno, to converse with; all of them poets of eminence, who would have advantaged him greatly by their example and conversation. All these advantages, meeting with a native fire and enthusiasm of genius, as in the case of Ossian, may well be supposed to have produced poems that might challenge the veneration of ages.

But it is not to their merit alone that we owe the preservation of these poems so long by oral tradition. Other circumstances concurred; of which, the institution of the Bards deserves particular notice. In a country, the only one perhaps in the world in which there was always, from the earliest period almost to the present age, a standing order of poets, we cannot reasonably be surprized, either at finding excellent poems composed, or, after being composed, carefully preserved from oblivion. A great part of the business of this order was to watch over the poems of Ossian. In every family of distinction there was always one principal bard, and a number of disciples, who vied with each other in having these poems in the greatest perfection. Should the institution of the bards last for ever, the poems of Ossian could never perish.

Nor were they only the bards of great families who took an interest in these poems: the vassal, equally fond of the song with his superior, entertained himself in the same manner. This, with a life free from care, a spirit unbroken by labour, and a space of time unoccupied by any other employment or diversion, contributed to render the Highlanders a nation of fingers. OSS

From such a people, the superior merit of Ossian's poems would naturally procure every encouragement, which they always retained as long as the manners of the people remained unchanged.

Many other reasons conspired to preserve the poems of Ossian. The martial and intrepid spirit which they breathed, made it the interest of the chieftains to preserve them: the strain of justice, generosity, and humanity, which runs through them, recommended them to the superintendents of religion, who well knew how much the morals of a people must be tinctured with those songs which they are continually repeating, and which have all the advantages of poetry and of music. In superstitious ages, the people revered these poems from their being addressed generally to some "son of the rock," supposed to be the tutelar saint of the place, or the great Irish apostle St Patrick. Besides, every hill and dale which the natives of the Highlands walked over, was classic ground. Every mountain, rock, and river, was immortalized in the song. This song would naturally be suggested by the sight of these objects, and every body would hum it as he walked along. All the proverbs and customs to which these poems gave rise, would operate in the same manner. The son would ask what they meant, and the father would repeat the song from which they were taken. The distinct and unshaken state in which the Highlanders remained for so long a course of ages, every clan, one generation after another, inhabiting the same valley, till towards the present century, contributed much to preserve their traditions and their poems; and the constant and general custom of repeating these in the winter-nights, kept them always alive in their remembrance.

To these causes and customs the preservation of Ossian's poems, for so many ages, has been ascribed. But these causes and customs have ceased to exist; and the poems of Ossian, of course, have ceased to be repeated.—Within a century back, the Highlands of Scotland have undergone a greater revolution than it had done for ten before that period. With a quicker pace the feudal system vanished; property fluctuated; new laws and new customs swept in, and supplanted the old: and all this, with such sudden and such violent convulsions, as may well account for the shaking of a fabric which had stood so many ages, that it seemed to have bidden defiance to all the injuries of time. Even since Mr Macpherson gathered the poems in his collection, the amusements, employments, and taste of the Highlanders are much altered. A greater attention to commerce, agriculture, and pasturage, has quite engrossed that partial attention which was paid, even then, to the song of the bard. In twenty years hence, if manners continue to change so fast as they do at present, the faintest traces will scarce be found of these tales and poems. "Ossian himself is the last of his race; and he too shall soon be no more, for his grey branches are already strewn on all the winds."

Among the causes which make these poems vanish so rapidly, poverty and the iron rod should come in for a large share. From the baneful shade of those murderers of the muse, the light of the song must fast retire. No other reason needs be given why the present Highlanders neglect so much the songs of their fathers.—Once, the humble, but happy vassal, sat at his ease, at the foot of his grey rock or green tree. Few were his wants, and fewer still his cares; for he beheld his herds sporting around him, on his then unmeasured mountain. He hummed the careless song, and tuned his harp with joy; while his soul in silence blessed his children.—Now, we were going to draw the comparison:

fed Cythinas aurem Vellit et admodum.

It is more agreeable to remark, as another cause for the neglect of ancient poems and traditions, the growth of industry, which fills up all the blanks of time to more advantage, and especially the increase of more useful knowledge.—But above all, the extinction of the order of the bards hastened the catastrophe of Ossian's poems. By a happy concidence Macpherson overtook the very last that remained of this order, (Macvurch, bard to Clanronald), and got his treasure. This fact (with the red book furnished by Mr Macdonald of Croidart, and some other MSS.) accounts for Mr Macpherson's having found these poems in greater number and perfection than they could ever since be met with. The fragments, however, which have since been gathered, give a credibility to everything that has been said of the original grandeur of the building.

After giving this abstract of the arguments urged for the authenticity of Ossian's poems, and of the answers to objections started against them, we shall conclude with referring those who wish to see the subject discussed on a different footing, namely, by an appeal to facts, to two pamphlets recently published, Shaw's Inquiry, and Clark's Answer: From the former of which, the authenticity of Ossian's poems seemed to sustain a very formidable attack; till the latter appeared, exposed the impotence of the attempt, and shewed the unhaken basis on which the object of it rested. So that now we seem authorised to conclude, without the imputation of partiality, that the controversy is at last come to an end; and that the genuineness of the poems will be as universally established in other nations, as the originals have been admired for ages in the Highlands.