Ossian Collection > Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland, appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian

POEMS OF OS5IAN. S9
ance with Mr Macpherfon. I have the honour to
be. Sir, with very fincere efteem, your faithful and
mod obedient fervant,
J. Anderson.*
Henry Mackenzie^ Esq.
The MS. which accompanied Mr Anderfon's let-
ter was ftitched in the form of a very fmall memo-
randum book, and confided of two poems ; one on
Death, and another, a fort of heroic poem, in feve-
ral cantos, written, as appeared from fome memo-
randums on one of its leaves, by Mr Macpherfon,
when he taught a fchool in Badenoch. It contained
no evidence of the forgery of OfTian, which Mr
Laing fufpefted, nor indeed any other evidence con-
nected with this fubject, except in fo far as it fhewed
Mr Macpherfon to have been, as he fays himfelf in
one of his prefaces, an early apprentice to the mufes.
To fhew what he had then acquired in fuch appren-
ticefhip, a fpecimen of each poem is annexed in the
Appendix, NO. 6.
Mr Macpherfon's papers (called by him the ori-
ginal of Offian), above defcribed, were left, as has
been faid to Mr John Mackenzie, for the purpofe
of publication ; and it is now underftood will be
publilhed, as foon as fome preliminary difficulties
can be overcome.
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