Chapter XXII: Appendix: C (1)

DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE POEMS OF OSSIAN.

I.--CORRESPONDENCE.

(1.)

HUME _to_ ----.

_Edinburgh, August 16, 1760._

SIR,--I am not surprised to find by your letter, that Mr. Gray
should have entertained suspicions with regard to the
authenticity of these fragments of our Highland poetry. The
first time I was shown the copies of some of them in
manuscript, by our friend John Home, I was inclined to be a
little incredulous on that head; but Mr. Home removed my
scruples, by informing me of the manner in which he procured
them from Mr. Macpherson, the translator.

These two gentlemen were drinking the waters together at
Moffat last autumn, when their conversation fell upon Highland
poetry, which Mr. Macpherson extolled very highly. Our friend,
who knew him to be a good scholar, and a man of taste, found
his curiosity excited, and asked whether he had ever
translated any of them. Mr. Macpherson replied, that he never
had attempted any such thing; and doubted whether it was
possible to transfuse such beauties into our language; but,
for Mr. Home's satisfaction, and in order to give him a
general notion of the strain of that wild poetry, he would
endeavour to turn one of them into English. He accordingly
brought him one next day, which our friend was so much pleased
with, that he never ceased soliciting Mr. Macpherson, till he
insensibly produced that small volume which has been
published.

After this volume was in every body's hands, and universally
admired, we heard every day new reasons, which put the
authenticity, not the great antiquity which the translator
ascribes to them, beyond all question; for their antiquity is
a point, which must be ascertained by reasoning; though the
arguments he employs seem very probable and convincing. But
certain it is, that these poems are in every body's mouth in
the Highlands, have been handed down from father to son, and
are of an age beyond all memory and tradition.

In the family of every Highland chieftain, there was anciently
retained a bard, whose office was the same with that of the
Greek rhapsodists; and the general subject of the poems which
they recited was the wars of Fingal; an epoch no less
remarkable among them, than the wars of Troy among the Greek
poets. This custom is not even yet altogether abolished: the
bard and piper are esteemed the most honourable offices in a
chieftain's family, and these two characters are frequently
united in the same person. Adam Smith, the celebrated
Professor in Glasgow, told me that the piper of the
Argyleshire militia repeated to him all those poems which Mr.
Macpherson has translated, and many more of equal beauty.
Major Mackay, Lord Reay's brother, also told me that he
remembers them perfectly; as likewise did the Laird of
Macfarlane, the greatest antiquarian whom we have in this
country, and who insists so strongly on the historical truth,
as well as on the poetical beauty of these productions. I
could add the Laird and Lady Macleod to these authorities,
with many more, if these were not sufficient, as they live in
different parts of the Highlands, very remote from each other,
and they could only be acquainted with poems that had become
in a manner national works, and had gradually spread
themselves into every mouth, and imprinted themselves on every
memory.

Every body in Edinburgh is so convinced of this truth, that we
have endeavoured to put Mr. Macpherson on a way of procuring
us more of these wild flowers. He is a modest, sensible, young
man, not settled in any living, but employed as a private
tutor in Mr. Grahame of Balgowan's family, a way of life which
he is not fond of. We have, therefore, set about a
subscription of a guinea or two guineas a-piece, in order to
enable him to quit that family, and undertake a mission into
the Highlands, where he hopes to recover more of these
fragments. There is, in particular, a country surgeon
somewhere in Lochaber, who, he says, can recite a great number
of them, but never committed them to writing; as indeed the
orthography of the Highland language is not fixed, and the
natives have always employed more the sword than the pen. This
surgeon has by heart the Epic poem mentioned by Mr. Macpherson
in his Preface; and as he is somewhat old, and is the only
person living that has it entire, we are in the more haste to
recover a monument, which will certainly be regarded as a
curiosity in the republic of letters.

I own that my first and chief objection to the authenticity of
these fragments, was not on account of the noble and even
tender strokes which they contain; for these are the offspring
of genius and passion in all countries; I was only surprised
at the regular plan which appears in some of these pieces, and
which seems to be the work of a more cultivated age. None of
the specimens of barbarous poetry known to us, the Hebrew,
Arabian, or any other, contain this species of beauty; and if
a regular epic poem, or even any thing of that kind, nearly
regular, should also come from that rough climate or
uncivilized people, it would appear to me a phenomenon
altogether unaccountable.

I remember Mr. Macpherson told me, that the heroes of this
Highland epic were not only, like Homer's heroes, their own
butchers, bakers, and cooks, but also their own shoemakers,
carpenters, and smiths. He mentioned an incident which put
this matter in a remarkable light. A warrior had the head of
his spear struck off in battle; upon which he immediately
retires behind the army, where a large forge was erected,
makes a new one, hurries back to the action, pierces his
enemy, while the iron, which was yet red-hot, hisses in the
wound. This imagery you will allow to be singular, and so well
imagined, that it would have been adopted by Homer, had the
manners of the Greeks allowed him to have employed it.

I forgot to mention, as another proof of the authenticity of
these poems, and even of the reality of the adventures
contained in them, that the names of the heroes, Fingal,
Oscar, Osur, Oscan, Dermid, are still given in the Highlands
to large mastiffs, in the same manner as we affix to them the
names of Cæsar, Pompey, Hector, or the French that of
Marlborough.

It gives me pleasure to find, that a person of so fine a taste
as Mr. Gray approves of these fragments; as it may convince
us, that our fondness of them is not altogether founded on
national prepossessions, which, however, you know to be a
little strong. The translation is elegant; but I made an
objection to the author, which I wish you would communicate to
Mr. Gray, that we may judge of the justness of it. There
appeared to me many verses in his prose, and all of them in
the same measure with Mr. Shenstone's famous ballad:

"Ye shepherds so cheerful and gay,
Whose flocks never carelessly roam, &c."

Pray, ask Mr. Gray, whether he made the same remark, &c. and
whether he thinks it a blemish. Yours most sincerely,
&c.[465:1]

(2.)

HUME _to_ DR. BLAIR.

_Lisle St. Leicester Fields, 19th Sept. 1763._

DEAR SIR,--I live in a place where I have the pleasure of
frequently hearing justice done to your Dissertation; but
never heard it mentioned in a company where some one person or
other did not express his doubts with regard to the
authenticity of the poems which are its subject; and I often
hear them totally rejected with disdain and indignation, as a
palpable and most impudent forgery. This opinion has, indeed,
become very prevalent among the men of letters in London; and
I can foresee, that in a few years the poems, if they continue
to stand on their present footing, will be thrown aside, and
will fall into final oblivion. It is in vain to say that their
beauty will support them, independent of their authenticity.
No; that beauty is not so much to the general taste as to
ensure you of this event; and if people be once disgusted with
the idea of a forgery, they are thence apt to entertain a more
disadvantageous notion of the excellency of the production
itself. The absurd pride and caprice of Macpherson himself,
who scorns, as he pretends, to satisfy any body that doubts
his veracity, has tended much to confirm this general
scepticism; and I must own, for my own part, that, though I
have had many particular reasons to believe these poems
genuine, more than it is possible for any Englishman of
letters to have, yet I am not entirely without my scruples on
that head. You think that the internal proofs in favour of the
poems are very convincing; so they are: but there are also
internal reasons against them, particularly from the manners,
notwithstanding all the art with which you have endeavoured to
throw a varnish on that circumstance; and the preservation of
such long and such connected poems by oral tradition alone,
during a course of fourteen centuries, is so much out of the
ordinary course of human affairs, that it requires the
strongest reasons to make us believe it.

My present purpose, therefore, is to apply to you, in the name
of all the men of letters of this, and I may say of all other
countries, to establish this capital point, and to give us
proof that these poems are, I do not say so ancient as the age
of Severus, but that they were not forged within these five
years by James Macpherson. These proofs must not be arguments,
but testimonies. People's ears are fortified against the
former: the latter may yet find their way before the poems are
consigned to total oblivion. Now the testimonies may, in my
opinion, be of two kinds. Macpherson pretends that there is an
ancient manuscript of part of Fingal, in the family, I think,
of Clanronald. Get that fact ascertained by more than one
person of credit; let these persons be acquainted with the
Gaelic; let them compare the original and the translation; and
let them testify the fidelity of the latter. But the chief
point in which it will be necessary for you to exert yourself,
will be to get positive testimony from many different hands,
that such poems are vulgarly recited in the Highlands, and
have there long been the entertainment of the people. This
testimony must be as particular as it is positive. It will not
be sufficient that a Highland gentleman or clergyman say or
write to you, that he has heard such poems; nobody questions
that there are traditional poems in that part of the country,
where the names of Ossian and Fingal, and Oscar, and Gaul, are
mentioned in every stanza. The only doubt is, whether these
poems have any farther resemblance to the poems published by
Macpherson. I was told by Bourke, a very ingenious Irish
gentleman, the author of a tract on the Sublime and Beautiful,
that on the first publication of Macpherson's book, all the
Irish cried out, We know all these poems, we have always heard
them from our infancy. But when he asked more particular
questions, he could never learn that any one had ever heard,
or could repeat the original of any one paragraph of the
pretended translation. This generality, then, must be
carefully guarded against, as being of no authority.

Your connexions among your brethren of the clergy, may here
be of great use to you. You may easily learn the names of all
ministers of that country, who understand the language of it;
you may write to them, expressing the doubts that have arisen,
and desiring them to send for such of the bards as remain, and
make them rehearse their ancient poems. Let the clergymen,
then, have the translation in their hands, and let them write
back to you, and inform you that they heard such a one,
(naming him,) living in such a place, rehearse the original of
such a passage, from such a page to such a page of the English
translation, which appeared exact and faithful. If you give to
the public a sufficient number of such testimonies, you may
prevail. But I venture to foretel to you that nothing less
will serve the purpose; nothing less will so much as command
the attention of the public. Becket tells me that he is to
give us a new edition of your Dissertation, accompanied with
some remarks on Temora; here is a favourable opportunity for
you to execute this purpose. You have a just and laudable zeal
for the credit of these poems; they are, if genuine, one of
the greatest curiosities, in all respects, that ever was
discovered in the commonwealth of letters; and the child is,
in a manner, become yours by adoption, as Macpherson has
totally abandoned all care of it. These motives call upon you
to exert yourself; and I think it were suitable to your
candour, and most satisfactory also to the reader, to publish
all the answers to all the letters you write, even though some
of these letters should make somewhat against your own opinion
in this affair. We shall always be the more assured that no
arguments are strained beyond their proper force, and no
contrary arguments suppressed, where such an entire
communication is made to us. Becket joins me heartily in this
application, and he owns to me, that the believers in the
authenticity of the poems diminish every day among the men of
sense and reflection. Nothing less than what I propose, can
throw the balance on the other side. I depart from hence in
about three weeks, and should be glad to hear your resolution
before that time.

This journey to Paris is likely to contribute much to my
entertainment, and will certainly tend much to improve my
fortune; so that I have no reason to repent that I have
allowed myself to be dragged from my retreat. I shall
henceforth converse with authors, but shall not probably for
some time have much leisure to peruse them; which is not
perhaps the way of knowing them most to their advantage. I
carried only four books along with me, a Virgil, a Horace, a
Tasso, and a Tacitus. I could have wished also to carry my
Homer, but I found him too bulky. I own that, in common
decency, I ought to have left my Horace behind me, and that I
ought to be ashamed to look him in the face. For I am sensible
that, at my years, no temptation would have seduced him from
his retreat; nor would he ever have been induced to enter so
late into the path of ambition.[468:1] But I deny that I enter
into the path of ambition; I only walk into the green fields
of amusement; and I affirm, that external amusement becomes
more and more necessary as one advances in years, and can find
less supplies from his own passions or imagination. I am,
&c.[468:2]

(3.)

DR. BLAIR _to_ HUME.

_Edinburgh, 29th September, 1763._

DEAR SIR,--I am much obliged to you for the information you
have communicated to me, and for the concern you show that
justice should be done to our Highland Poems. From what I saw
myself when at London, I could easily believe that the
disposition of men of letters was rather averse to their
reception as genuine; but I trusted that the internal
characters of their authenticity, together with the occasional
testimonies given to them by Highland gentlemen who are every
where scattered, would gradually surmount these prejudices.
For my own part, it is impossible for me to entertain the
smallest doubt of their being real productions, and ancient
ones, too, of the Highlands. Neither Macpherson's parts,
though good, nor his industry, were equal to such a forgery.
The whole publication, you know, was in its first rise
accidental. Macpherson was entreated and dragged into it. Some
of the MSS. sent to him passed through my hands. Severals of
them he translated, in a manner, under my eye. He gave me
these native and genuine accounts of them, which bore plain
characters of truth. What he said was often confirmed to me by
others. I had testimonies from several Highlanders concerning
their authenticity, in words strong and explicit. And, setting
all this aside, is it a thing which any man of sense can
suppose, that Macpherson would venture to forge such a body of
poetry, and give it to the public as ancient poems and songs,
well known at this day through all the Highlands of Scotland,
when he could have been refuted and exposed by every one of
his own countrymen? Is it credible that he could bring so many
thousand people into a conspiracy with him to keep his secret?
or that some would not be found who, attached to their own
ancient songs, would not cry out, "These are not the poems we
deal in. You have forged characters and sentiments we know
nothing about; you have modernized and dressed us up: we have
much better songs and poems of our own." Who but John Bull
could entertain the belief of an imposture so incredible as
this? The utmost I should think any rational scepticism could
suppose is this, that Macpherson might have sometimes
interpolated, or endeavoured to improve, by some corrections
of his own. Of this I am verily persuaded there was very
little, if any at all. Had it prevailed, we would have been
able to trace more marks of inconsistency, and a different
hand and style; whereas, these poems are more remarkable for
nothing than an entire, and supported, and uniform consistency
of character and manner through the whole.

However, seeing we have to do with such incredulous people, I
think it were a pity not to do justice to such valuable
monuments of genius. I have already, therefore, entered upon
the task you prescribe me, though I foresee it may give me
some trouble. I have writ by last post to Sir James Macdonald,
who is fortunately at this time in the Isle of Skye. I have
also, through the Laird of Macleod, writ to Clanronald, and
likewise to two clergymen in the Isle of Skye, men of letters
and character; one of them, Macpherson minister of Sleat, the
author of a very learned work about to be published concerning
the Antiquities of Scotland. Several others in Argyleshire,
the Islands, and other poetical regions, worthy clergymen, who
are well versed in the Gaelic, I intend also without delay to
make application to.

My requisition to them all is for such positive and express
testimonies as you desire; MSS. if they have any, compared
before witnesses with the printed book, and recitations of
bards compared in the same manner. I have given them express
directions in what manner to proceed, so as to avoid that
loose generality which, as you observe, can signify nothing.
What use it may be proper to put these testimonies to, I can
only judge after having got all my materials. I apprehend
there may be some difficulty in obtaining the consent of those
concerned to publish their letters, nor might it be proper.
But concerning this, I may afterwards advise with you and my
other friends.

In the meantime, you may please acquaint Mr. Becket, that this
must retard for some time the publication of his new edition
with my Dissertation; as the least I can allow for the return
of letters from such distant parts, where the communication by
post is irregular and slow, together with the time necessary
for their executing what is desired, will be three months,
perhaps some more; and, assuredly, any new evidence we can
give the world, must accompany my Dissertation.

I am in some difficulty with Macpherson himself in this
affair. Capricious as he is, I would not willingly hurt or
disoblige him; and yet I apprehend that such an inquiry as
this, which is like tracing him out, and supposing his
veracity called in question, will not please him. I must write
him by next post, and endeavour to put the affair in such a
light as to soften him; which you, if you see him, may do
likewise, and show him the necessity of something of this kind
being done; and with more propriety, perhaps, by another than
himself.[470:1]

(4.)

HUME _to_ DR. BLAIR.

_6th October, 1763._

MY DEAR SIR,--I am very glad you have undertaken the task which I used the freedom to recommend to you. Nothing less than what you propose will serve the purpose. You need expect no assistance from Macpherson, who flew into a passion when I told him of the letter I had wrote to you. But you must not mind so strange and heteroclite a mortal, than whom I have scarce ever known a man more perverse and unamiable. He will probably depart for Florida with governor Johnstone, and I would advise him to travel among the Chickisaws or Cherokees, in order to tame him and civilize him.

I should be much pleased to hear of the success of your
labours. Your method of directing to me is under cover to the
Earl of Hertford, Northumberland House; any letters that come
to me under that direction, will be sent over to me at Paris.

I beg my compliments to Robertson and Jardine. I am very sorry
to hear of the state of Ferguson's health. John Hume went to
the country yesterday with Lord Bute. I was introduced the
other day to that noble lord, at his desire. I believe him a
very good man, a better man than a politician.

Since writing the above, I have been in company with Mrs.
Montague, a lady of great distinction in this place, and a
zealous partisan of Ossian. I told her of your intention, and
even used the freedom to read your letter to her. She was
extremely pleased with your project; and the rather as the Duc
de Nivernois, she said, had talked to her much on that subject
last winter, and desired, if possible, to get collected some
proofs of the authenticity of these poems, which he proposed
to lay before the Académie des Belles Lettres at Paris. You
see, then, that you are upon a great stage in this inquiry,
and that many people have their eyes upon you. This is a new
motive for rendering your proofs as complete as possible. I
cannot conceive any objection, which a man, even of the
gravest character, could have to your publication of his
letters, which will only attest a plain fact known to him.
Such scruples, if they occur, you must endeavour to remove.
For on this trial of yours will the judgment of the public
finally depend.

Lord Bath, who was in the company, agreed with me, that such
documents of authenticity are entirely necessary and
indispensable.

Please to write to me as soon as you make any advances, that I
may have something to say on the subject to the literati of
Paris. I beg my compliments to all those who bear that
character at Edinburgh. I cannot but look upon all of them as
my friends. I am, &c.[471:1]

II.

ESSAY ON THE GENUINENESS OF THE POEMS.[471:2]

I think the fate of this production the most curious effect of
prejudice, where superstition had no share, that ever was in
the world. A tiresome, insipid performance; which, if it had
been presented in its real form, as the work of a
contemporary, an obscure Highlander, no man could ever have
had the patience to have once perused, has, by passing for the
poetry of a royal bard, who flourished fifteen centuries ago,
been universally read, has been pretty generally admired, and
has been translated, in prose and verse, into several
languages of Europe. Even the style of the supposed English
translation has been admired, though harsh and absurd in the
highest degree; jumping perpetually from verse to prose, and
from prose to verse; and running, most of it, in the light
cadence and measure of Molly Mog. Such is the Erse epic, which
has been puffed with a zeal and enthusiasm that has drawn a
ridicule on my countrymen.

But, to cut off at once the whole source of its reputation, I
shall collect a few very obvious arguments against the notion
of its great antiquity, with which so many people have been
intoxicated, and which alone made it worthy of any attention.

(1.) The very manner in which it was presented to the public
forms a strong presumption against its authenticity. The
pretended translator goes on a mission to the Highlands to
recover and collect a work, which, he affirmed, was dispersed,
in fragments, among the natives. He returns, and gives a
quarto volume, and then another quarto, with the same
unsupported assurance as if it were a translation of the
Orlando Furioso, or Lousiade, or any poem the best known in
Europe. It might have been expected, at least, that he would
have told the public, and the subscribers to his mission, and
the purchasers of his book, _This part I got from such a
person, in such a place; that other part, from such another
person. I was enabled to correct my first copy of such a
passage by the recital of such another person; a fourth
supplied such a defect in my first copy_. By such a history of
his gradual discoveries he would have given some face of
probability to them. Any man of common sense, who was in
earnest, must, in this case, have seen the peculiar necessity
of that precaution, any man that had regard to his own
character, would have anxiously followed that obvious and easy
method. All the friends of the pretended translator exhorted
and entreated him to give them and the public that
satisfaction. No! those who could doubt his veracity were
fools, whom it was not worth while to satisfy. The most
incredible of all facts was to be taken on his word, whom
nobody knew; and an experiment was to be made, I suppose in
jest, how far the credulity of the public would give way to
assurance and dogmatical affirmation.

(2.) But, to show the utter incredibility of the fact, let
these following considerations be weighed, or, rather, simply
reflected on; for it seems ridiculous to weigh them. Consider
the size of these poems. What is given us is asserted to be
only a part of a much greater collection; yet even these
pieces amount to two quartos. And they were composed, you say,
in the Highlands, about fifteen centuries ago; and have been
faithfully transmitted, ever since, by oral tradition, through
ages totally ignorant of letters, by the rudest, perhaps, of
all the European nations; the most necessitous, the most
turbulent, the most ferocious, and the most unsettled. Did
ever any event happen that approached within a hundred degrees
of this mighty wonder, even to the nations the most fortunate
in their climate and situation? Can a ballad be shown that has
passed, uncorrupted, by oral tradition, through three
generations, among the Greeks, or Italians, or Phoenicians,
or Egyptians, or even among the natives of such countries as
Otaheite or Molacca, who seem exempted by nature from all
attention but to amusement, to poetry, and music?

But the Celtic nations, it is said, had peculiar advantages
for preserving their traditional poetry. The Irish, the Welsh,
the Bretons, are all Celtic nations, much better entitled than
the Highlanders, from their soil, and climate, and situation,
to have leisure for these amusements. They, accordingly,
present us not with complete epic and historical poems, (for
they never had the assurance to go that length,) but with very
copious and circumstantial traditions, which are allowed, by
all men of sense, to be scandalous and ridiculous impostures.

(3.) The style and genius of these pretended poems are another
sufficient proof of the imposition. The Lapland and Runic
odes, conveyed to us, besides their small compass, have a
savage rudeness, and sometimes grandeur, suited to those ages.
But this Erse poetry has an insipid correctness, and
regularity, and uniformity, which betrays a man without
genius, that has been acquainted with the productions of
civilized nations, and had his imagination so limited to that
tract, that it was impossible for him even to mimic the
character which he pretended to assume.

The manners are still a more striking proof of their want of
authenticity. We see nothing but the affected generosity and
gallantry of chivalry, which are quite unknown, not only to
all savage people, but to every nation not trained in these
artificial modes of thinking. In Homer, for instance, and
Virgil, and Ariosto, the heroes are represented as making a
nocturnal incursion into the camp of the enemy. Homer and
Virgil, who certainly were educated in much more civilized
ages than those of Ossian, make no scruple of representing
their heroes as committing undistinguished slaughter on the
sleeping foe. But Orlando walks quietly through the camp of
the Saracens, and scorns to kill even an infidel who cannot
defend himself. Gaul and Oscar are knight-errants, still more
romantic: they make a noise in the midst of the enemy's camp,
that they may waken them, and thereby have a right to fight
with them and to kill them. Nay, Fingal carries his ideas of
chivalry still farther; much beyond what was ever dreamt of by
Amadis de Gaul or Lancelot de Lake. When his territory is
invaded, he scorns to repel the enemy with his whole force: he
sends only an equal number against them, under an inferior
captain: when these are repulsed, he sends a second
detachment; and it is not till after a double defeat, that he
deigns himself to descend from the hill, where he had
remained, all the while, an idle spectator, and to attack the
enemy. Fingal and Swaran combat each other all day, with the
greatest fury. When darkness suspends the fight, they feast
together with the greatest amity, and then renew the combat
with the return of light. Are these the manners of barbarous
nations, or even of people that have common sense? We may
remark, that all this narrative is supposed to be given us by
a contemporary poet. The facts, therefore, must be supposed
entirely, or nearly, conformable to truth. The gallantry and
extreme delicacy towards the women, which is found in these
productions, is, if possible, still more contrary to the
manners of barbarians. Among all rude nations, force and
courage are the predominant virtues; and the inferiority of
the females, in these particulars, renders them an object of
contempt, not of deference and regard.

(4.) But I derive a new argument against the antiquity of
these poems, from the general tenor of the narrative. Where
manners are represented in them, probability, or even
possibility, are totally disregarded: but in all other
respects, the events are within the course of nature; no
giants, no monsters, no magic, no incredible feats of strength
or activity. Every transaction is conformable to familiar
experience, and scarcely even deserves the name of wonderful.
Did this ever happen in ancient and barbarous poetry? Why is
this characteristic wanting, so essential to rude and ignorant
ages? Ossian, you say, was singing the exploits of his
contemporaries, and therefore could not falsify them in any
great degree. But if this had been a restraint, your pretended
Ossian had never sung the exploits of his contemporaries; he
had gone back a generation or two, which would have been
sufficient to throw an entire obscurity on the events; and he
would thereby have attained the marvellous, which is alone
striking to barbarians. I desire it may be observed, that
manners are the only circumstances which a rude people cannot
falsify; because they have no notion of any manners beside
their own: but it is easy for them to let loose their
imagination, and violate the course of nature, in every other
particular; and indeed they take no pleasure in any other kind
of narrative. In Ossian, nature is violated, where alone she
ought to have been preserved; is preserved where alone she
ought to have been violated.

(5.) But there is another species of the marvellous, wanting
in Ossian, which is inseparable from all nations, civilized as
well as barbarous, but still more, if possible, from the
barbarous, and that is religion; no religious sentiment in
this Erse poetry. All those Celtic heroes are more complete
atheists than ever were bred in the school of Epicurus. To
account for this singularity, we are told that a few
generations before Ossian, the people quarrelled with their
Druidical priests, and having expelled them, never afterwards
adopted any other species of religion. It is not quite
unnatural, I own, for the people to quarrel with their
priests,--as we did with ours at the Reformation; but we
attached ourselves with fresh zeal to our new preachers and
new system; and this passion increased in proportion to our
hatred of the old. But I suppose the reason of this strange
absurdity in our new Erse poetry, is, that the author, finding
by the assumed age of his heroes, that he must have given them
the Druidical religion, and not trusting to his literature,
(which seems indeed to be very slender) for making the
representations consistent with antiquity, thought it safest
to give them no religion at all; a circumstance so wonderfully
unnatural, that it is sufficient alone, if men had eyes, to
detect the imposition.

(6.) The state of the arts, as represented in those poems, is
totally incompatible with the age assigned to them. We know,
that the houses even of the Southern Britons, till conquered
by the Romans, were nothing but huts erected in the woods; but
a stately stone building is mentioned by Ossian, of which the
walls remain, after it is consumed with fire. The melancholy
circumstance of a fox is described, who looks out at the
windows; an image, if I be not mistaken, borrowed from the
Scriptures. The Caledonians, as well as the Irish, had no
shipping but currachs, or wicker boats covered with hides: yet
are they represented as passing, in great military
expeditions, from the Hebrides to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden;
a most glaring absurdity. They live entirely by hunting, yet
muster armies, which make incursions to these countries as
well as to Ireland: though it is certain from the experience
of America, that the whole Highlands would scarce subsist a
hundred persons by hunting. They are totally unacquainted with
fishing; though that occupation first tempts all rude nations
to venture on the sea. Ossian alludes to a wind or water-mill,
a machine then unknown to the Greeks and Romans, according to
the opinion of the best antiquaries. His barbarians, though
ignorant of tillage, are well acquainted with the method of
working all kinds of metals. The harp is the musical
instrument of Ossian; but the bagpipe, from time immemorial,
has been the instrument of the Highlanders. If ever the harp
had been known among them, it never had given place to the
other barbarous discord.

Stridenti miserum stipula disperdere carmen.

(7.) All the historical facts of this poem are opposed by
traditions, which, if all these tales be not equally
contemptible, seem to merit much more attention. The Irish
Scoti are the undoubted ancestors of the present Highlanders,
who are but a small colony of that ancient people. But the
Irish traditions make Fingal, Ossian, Oscar, all Irishmen, and
place them some centuries distant from the Erse heroes. They
represent them as giants, and monsters, and enchanters, a sure
mark of a considerable antiquity of these traditions. I ask
the partisans of Erse poetry, since the names of these heroes
have crept over to Ireland, and have become quite familiar to
the natives of that country, how it happens, that not a line
of this poetry, in which they are all celebrated, which, it is
pretended, alone preserves their memory with our Highlanders,
and which is composed by one of these heroes themselves in the
Irish language, ever found its way thither? The songs and
traditions of the Senachies, the genuine poetry of the Irish,
carry in their rudeness and absurdity the inseparable
attendants of barbarism, a very different aspect from the
insipid correctness of Ossian; where the incidents, if you
will pardon the antithesis, are the most unnatural, merely
because they are natural. The same observation extends to the
Welsh, another Celtic nation.

(8.) The fiction of these poems is, if possible, still more
palpably detected, by the great numbers of other traditions,
which, the author pretends, are still fresh in the Highlands,
with regard to all the personages. The poems, composed in the
age of Truthil and Cormac, ancestors of Ossian, are, he says,
full of complaints against the roguery and tyranny of the
Druids. He talks as familiarly of the poetry of that period as
Lucian or Longinus would of the Greek poetry of the Socratic
age. I suppose here is a new rich mine of poetry ready to
break out upon us, if the author thinks it can turn to
account. For probably he does not mind the danger of
detection, which he has little reason to apprehend from his
experience of the public credulity. But I shall venture to
assert, without any reserve or further inquiry, that there is
no Highlander who is not, in some degree, a man of letters,
that ever so much as heard there was a Druid in the world. The
margin of every page almost of this wonderful production is
supported, as he pretends, by minute oral traditions with
regard to the personages. To the poem of Dar-thula, there is
prefixed a long account of the pedigree, marriages, and
adventures of three brothers, Nathos, Althos, and Ardan,
heroes that lived fifteen hundred years ago in Argyleshire,
and whose memory, it seems, is still celebrated there, and in
every part of the Highlands. How ridiculous to advance such a
pretension to the learned, who know that there is no tradition
of Alexander the great all over the East; that the Turks, who
have heard of him from their communication with the Greeks,
believe him to have been the captain of Solomon's guard; that
the Greek and Roman story, the moment it departs from the
historical ages, becomes a heap of fiction and absurdity; that
Cyrus himself, the conqueror of the East, became so much
unknown, even in little more than half a century, that
Herodotus himself, born and bred in Asia, within the limits of
the Persian empire, could tell nothing of him, more than of
Croesus, the contemporary of Cyrus, and who reigned in the
neighbourhood of the historian, but the most ridiculous
fables; and that the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, the
first Saxon conquerors, was conceived to be a divinity. I
suppose it is sufficiently evident, that without the help of
books and history, the very name of Julius Cæsar would at
present be totally unknown in Europe. A gentleman, who
travelled into Italy, told me, that in visiting Frescati or
Tusculum, his cicerone showed him the foundation and ruins of
Cicero's country house. He asked the fellow who this Cicero
might be, "Un grandissimo gigante," said he.

(9.) I ask, since the memory of Fingal and his ancestors and
descendants is still so fresh in the Highlands, how it
happens, that none of the compilers of the Scotch fabulous
history ever laid hold of them, and inserted them in the list
of our ancient monarchs, but were obliged to have recourse to
direct fiction and lying to make out their genealogies? It is
to be remarked, that the Highlanders, who are now but an
inferior part of the nation, anciently composed the whole; so
that no tradition of theirs could be unknown to the court, the
nobility, and the whole kingdom. Where, then, have these
wonderful traditions skulked during so many centuries, that
they have never come to light till yesterday? And the very
names of our ancient kings are unknown; though it is
pretended, that a very particular narrative of their
transactions was still preserved, and universally diffused
among a numerous tribe, who are the original stem of the
nation. Father Innes, the only judicious writer that ever
touched our ancient history, finds in monastic records the
names, and little more than the names, of kings from Fergus,
whom we call Fergus the Second, who lived long after the
supposed Fingal: and he thence begins the true history of the
nation. He had too good sense to give any attention to
pretended traditions even of kings, much less would he have
believed that the memory and adventures of every leader of
banditti in every valley of the Highlands, could be
circumstantially preserved by oral tradition through more than
fifteen centuries.

(10.) I shall observe, that the character of the author, from
all his publications, (for I shall mention nothing else,)
gives us the greatest reason to suspect him of such a
ludicrous imposition on the public. For to be sure it is only
ludicrous; or at most a trial of wit, like that of the
sophist, who gave us Phalaris' Epistles, or of him that
counterfeited Cicero's Consolation, or supplied the fragments
of Petronius. These literary amusements have been very common;
and unless supported by too violent asseverations, or
persisted in too long, never drew the opprobrious appellation
of impostor on the author.

He writes an ancient history of Britain, which is plainly
ludicrous. He gives us a long circumstantial history of the
emigrations of the Belgae, Cimbri, and Sarmatae, so
unsupported by any author of antiquity that nothing but a
particular revelation could warrant it; and yet it is
delivered with such seeming confidence, (for we must not think
he was in earnest,) that the history of the Punic wars is not
related with greater seriousness by Livy. He has even left
palpable contradictions in his narrative, in order to try the
faith of his reader. He tells us, for instance, that the
present inhabitants of Germany have no more connexion with the
Germans mentioned by Tacitus, than with the ancient
inhabitants of Peloponnesus: the Saxons and Angles, in
particular, were all Sarmatians, a quite different tribe from
the Germans, in manners, laws, language, and customs. Yet a
few pages after, when he pretends to deliver the origin of the
Anglo-Saxon constitution, he professedly derives the whole
account from Tacitus. All this was only an experiment to see
how far the force of affirmation could impose on the credulity
of the public: but it did not succeed; he was here in the open
daylight of Greek and Roman erudition, not in the obscurity of
his Erse poetry and traditions. Finding the style of his
Ossian admired by some, he attempts a translation of Homer in
the very same style. He begins and finishes, in six weeks, a
work that was for ever to eclipse the translation of Pope,
whom he does not even deign to mention in his preface; but
this joke was still more unsuccessful: he made a shift,
however, to bring the work to a second edition, where he says,
that, notwithstanding all the envy of his malignant opponents,
his name alone will preserve the work to a more equitable
posterity!

In short, let him now take off the mask, and fairly and openly
laugh at the credulity of the public, who could believe that
long Erse epics had been secretly preserved in the Highlands
of Scotland, from the age of Severus till his time.

The imposition is so gross, that he may well ask the world how
they could ever possibly believe him to be in earnest?

But it may reasonably be expected that I should mention the
external positive evidence, which is brought by Dr. Blair to
support the authenticity of these poems. I own, that this
evidence, considered in itself, is very respectable, and
sufficient to support any fact, that both lies within the
bounds of credibility, and has not become a matter of party.
But will any man pretend to bring human testimony to prove,
that above twenty thousand verses have been transmitted, by
tradition and memory, during more than fifteen hundred years;
that is, above fifty generations, according to the ordinary
course of nature? verses, too, which have not, in their
subject, any thing alluring or inviting to the people, no
miracle, no wonders, no superstitions, no useful instruction;
a people, too, who, during twelve centuries, at least, of that
period, had no writing, no alphabet; and who, even in the
other three centuries, made very little use of that imperfect
alphabet for any purpose; a people who, from the miserable
disadvantages of their soil and climate, were perpetually
struggling with the greatest necessities of nature; who, from
the imperfections of government, lived in a continual state of
internal hostility; ever harassed with the incursions of
neighbouring tribes, or meditating revenge and retaliation on
their neighbours. Have such a people leisure to think of any
poetry, except, perhaps, a miserable song or ballad, in praise
of their own chieftain, or to the disparagement of his rivals?

I should be sorry to be suspected of saying any thing against
the manners of the present Highlanders. I really believe that,
besides their signal bravery, there is not any people in
Europe, not even excepting the Swiss, who have more plain
honesty and fidelity, are more capable of gratitude and
attachment, than that race of men. Yet it was, no doubt, a
great surprise to them to hear that, over and above their
known good qualities, they were also possessed of an
excellence which they never dreamt of, an elegant taste in
poetry, and inherited from the most remote antiquity the
finest compositions of that kind, far surpassing the popular
traditional poems of any other language; no wonder they
crowded to give testimony in favour of their authenticity.
Most of them, no doubt, were sincere in the delusion; the same
names that were to be found in their popular ballads were
carefully preserved in the new publication; some incidents,
too, were perhaps transferred from the one to the other; some
sentiments also might be copied; and, on the whole, they were
willing to believe, and still more willing to persuade others,
that the whole was genuine. On such occasions, the greatest
cloud of witnesses makes no manner of evidence. What Jansenist
was there in Paris, which contains several thousands, that
would not have given evidence for the miracles of Abbé Paris?
The miracle is greater, but not the evidence, with regard to
the authenticity of Ossian.

The late President Forbes was a great believer in the second
sight; and I make no question but he could, on a month's
warning, have overpowered you with evidence in its favour. But
as finite added to finite never approaches a hair's breadth
nearer to infinite; so a fact incredible in itself, acquires
not the smallest accession of probability by the accumulation
of testimony.

The only real wonder in the whole affair is, that a person of
so fine a taste as Dr. Blair, should be so great an admirer of
these productions; and one of so clear and cool a judgment
collect evidence of their authenticity.

FOOTNOTES:

[465:1] _European Magazine_, May, 1784, p. 327.

[468:1] See this observation commented on by Blair, in vol. ii. p. 167.

[468:2] Laing's History, iv. 496. Report of the Highland Society on Ossian's Poems.

[470:1] MS. R.S.E.

[471:1] Laing's History, iv. 500. Report of the Highland Society.

[471:2] See this referred to in Vol. II., p. 85.

END OF VOL. I.

EDINBURGH

Printed by WILLIAM TAIT, 107, Prince's Street.

INDEX.

Abercrombie--General James, i. 212, 222, 311.

Abingdon--Lord, ii. 185.

Adam--John, architect, ii. 174, 187, 195, 286.

----, William--Lord Chief Commissioner, ii. 174.
His notices of Hume, 439.

----, Mrs., ii. 174, 286.

Advocates' Library.
Hume as librarian, i. 367.
Its extent, 373.
French works removed from, as improper, 395.
Hume resigns librarianship of, ii. 18.

Aiguillon--Duchesse de, ii. 175.

Albemarle--Lord, i. 245-246.

Alembert--D', i. 94; ii. 181.
Hume's friendship with, 218, 270, 323, 345, 348, 350, 354, 355, 377,
489.

Allen--Dr., his inquiry into the rise and progress of the royal
prerogative, ii. 122.

Amelia--The Princess, ii. 292.

Ancient Nations--Essay on the populousness of, i. 363.

Anderson--Revd. George, i. 425.
His writings against Hume and Lord Kames, 428.
His death, 432.

Anderson--Dr. Walter, i. 424.

Annandale--Marquis of.
His invitation to Hume, i. 170.
His mental condition, 172.
Hume's residence with, 170, _et seq._

----, Marchioness-Dowager of, i. 185.
Letter to, 203.

Anson--Madame, ii. 236.

Anstruther--General, i. 383.

Antiquaries.
Their use to the historian, ii. 122-123.

Antiquity, the populousness of.
Dissertation on, i. 326.

Aquinas--His theory of association, i. 286.
Its alleged similarity to Hume's, 287.

Argyle--Duke of, ii. 55.

Armstrong--Dr., ii. 64, 148.

Arnauld--Antony, i. 432.

Artois--Comte d', ii. 178.

Assembly--General.
Its proceedings against Hume, i. 429.
Overture to, regarding him, 430.

Association--Hume's theory of, i. 286.

Aylesbury--Lady, ii. 305, 385.

Bacon--Lord, ii. 67.

Balance of trade--Hume's opinions on, i. 358.

Balcarras--Earl of, letter to, i. 412.
His appearance, 413.

Balfour--James of Pilrig, i. 160, 345; ii. 192, 414, 415.

Bank--Cash credit in.
Its nature, i. 359.

Banking--Hume's remarks on, i. 359.

Barbantane--Marquise de, ii. 280, 309, 322, 360.

Barré--Colonel, ii. 150, 289.

Bastide--M., ii. 236, 241.

Bath--Hume's visit to, ii. 495, _et seq._

Bayard--The Chevalier, ii. 441.

Beauchamp--Lord, ii. 161, 162, 171, 183, 204, 245, 268, 287.

Beauvais--Princess, ii. 497.

Beauveau--Madame de, ii. 206.

Beccaria, i. 121.

Bedford--Duke of, ii. 279, 280, 285, 290.

----, Duchess of, ii. 279.

Bellman's Petition, i. 315, 317.

Belot--Madame, her translation of Hume's works, ii. 176.

Bentham, i. 121, 384.

Berri--Duc de, ii. 178.

Bertrand--Professor, ii. 187.

Betham--Mr. and Mrs., i. 411.

Birch--Dr., i. 416, 436; ii. 82.

Black--Joseph.
Letters from, ii. 488, 514-515.

Blacklock--Thomas, i. 385.
Hume's first acquaintance with, 388.
His ideas of light and colours, 389.
Account of his early life, 390.
Publication of his poems, 392.
Miscellaneous notices of, 393, 398; ii. 164, 454.
Letters from, 399.

Blacklock--Mrs., ii. 401.

Blackwell--Hume's criticism on his Court of Augustus, i. 434.

Blair--Dr., i. 427; ii. 86, 115, 117, 139, 153, 167, 175, 192, 198.
Letters to, 180, 181, 193, 229, 265, 267, 286, 288, 297, 310, 312,
318, 344, 365, 371, 386, 395, 421, 472.

----, Robert, President of the Court of Session, ii. 423.

Blanc--Abbé le, i. 365.
His translations from Hume, 366.
Letter to, 406, 409; ii. 347.

Bologna--University of, i. 151.

Bon--Abbé le, his death, ii. 428.

Bonne--Hume's account of, i. 249.

Boswell--James, received Johnson in Hume's house, ii. 138, 139, 307,
441.

Boufflers--Madame de, ii. 72.
Account of, 90.
Her letters to Hume, 94, 99, 106, 110.
Letters to, 114, 205, 246, 247.
Notice of, 251, 279, 280, 298, 303, 323, 330, 346, 352, 353, 429.
Last letter to, 513.

Bourgés--University of, i. 151.

Bower--Archibald, ii. 58.

Boyle--The Honourable Mr., i. 293.

Brand--Mr., ii. 225.

Breda--Hume's account of, i. 244.

Brest, ii. 63.

Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, ii. 283, 497.

Bristol--Lord, ii. 407.

Brodie--George, ii. 66.

Brougham--Lord, ii. 348.
His opinion of Hume's Political Discourses, i. 354.

Brown--Dr. John, ii. 23.

Browne--Sir Thomas, i. 94.

Bruce--Professor, ii. 192.

Bruyére--La, i. 148.

Buccleuch--Duke of, ii. 58, 227, 467.

Buchan--Lord, ii. 455.

Buckingham--Mrs., ii. 186.

Buffon--M. de, ii. 181, 299.

Bunbury--Mr. afterwards Sir Charles, ii. 159, 164, 189, 239, 277, 280.

----, Lady Sarah, ii. 239.

Burke--Edmund, i. 351, 353; ii. 59, 333, 449.

Burnet--James, Lord Monboddo, i. 394; ii. 204, 231.

Bute--Lord, ii. 34, 149, 159, 162, 163, 187, 258, 265, 282, 290, 334,
407; ii. 418.

Butler--Samuel, ii. 90.

----, Bishop, i. 64, 143.

Caldwell--Sir James, i. 260.

Calton Hill--Hume's monument on, ii. 518.

Campbell--Dr. George, ii. 115, 116.
Letter to, 118.
Letter from, 119.
Notice of, 154.

Carlyle--Dr., ii. 88, 164, 266, 472.

Carraccioli, ii. 53.

Carre--George, of Nisbet, i. 115.

Cause and Effect--Hume's views of, i. 79.
Their effect on Kant, ib.

Causes--unseen, aptly illustrated by Hume, i. 83.

Charles Edward--his insurrection, i. 175.
Anecdotes of, ii. 462.

Charlemont--Lord.
Description and anecdotes of Hume by, i. 270, 394; ii. 116, 223.

Chatham--Lord, ii. 396, 406, 418.
Hume's dislike to, ii. 420, 422.

Chaulieu, 510.

Chesterfield--Lord, ii. 131, 160.

Cheyne--Dr. George, i. 42.
His work, "The English Malady," i. 43.

Chivalry--Essay on, i. 18-25.

Choiseul--Duc de, ii. 228, 500.

----, Duchesse de, her civilities to Hume, ii. 169.

Choquart--Abbé, ii. 242, 261, 262, 271, 273.

Christianity--cannot be injured by theories purely metaphysical, i.
86, 88.

Church--Catholic.
Hume's treatment of, ii. 5.

----, Scottish Episcopal.
Its condition in Hume's time, ii. 6.

----, English.
Hume's sympathies with, ii. 9.

Churchill--Charles, ii. 148.

Chute--Mr., ii. 225.

Cicero--Orations of.
Essay on, i. 144, 145.

Clagenfurt in Carinthia.
Hume's account of, i. 264.

Clairaut--M., ii. 295.

Clarendon--as a historian, i. 404.

Clark--General, ii. 172, 195.

Clarke--Dr. Staniers, ii. 179.

Cleghorn--William.
Appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy, i. 170.

Clephane--Dr.
Letters to, i. 314, 376, 379, 381, 384, 397, 408, 433; ii. 38, 443.

Clow--Mr., Professor of logic in the University of Glasgow, i. 351;
ii. 199.

Club--The Poker.
Its proceedings, ii. 456.

Coblentz--Hume's account of, i. 249.

Cockburn--Mrs.
Letter from, ii. 230, 424, 449.

Coke--Sir Edward, ii. 69.

Colebroke--Sir George, ii. 460, 467.

Coleridge--His charge against Hume, i. 286.
How disproved, 287.

Cologne--Hume's account of, i. 248.

Condé--Prince of, ii. 92.

Constitutional theories--Hume's, ii. 65, 67, 73.

Conti--Prince of, ii. 90, 221, 246, 297, 307.

----, Princess of, ii. 245.