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

So' LETTERS TO DR. BLAIR.
The poem In book the 4th, Is handed down pretty entire
in this country, in which each of Fingal's chiefs singles
out the chief among the enenw lie was to fight, leaving to
Fingal the honour of engaging the king of Lochlln. The
description of the sun-beam, Fingal's standard, does not
come up to the beauty and spirit of the original. Along
with that of the sun-beam, there is in the original a parti-
cular description c-^ the standards of the seven principal
chiefs of Fingal, which are all so inirnitably beautiful that
I cannot imagine how Macpherson has omitted them in his
translation. Dermod, who led the right hand of the army
to that battle, (as it is expressed in the original,) had a
standard which, in magnificence, far exceeded the sun-
beam. He is, by the tradition of this country, said to be the-
predecessor of the Campbells.
We have the poem containirg the battle of Lochlego,-
and a good part of that relating the war of Inis-thona, in
page 104.
It would take up too much room, and I think it is not
necessary that I go through all the poems in the collection,
of which we have pieces joined to other poems, and some-
times parts of two or three poems throxvn together int«
one.
Mr Macpherson, in his journey through the Highlands,
put it upon me to look out for the poem called Caih, or the
battle of Benedin. I have since got it, but not till after
the book was published. The battle is the most memo-
rable of Fingal's exploits ; and, I humbly think, the poem
is the most finished of Ossian's works.
Upon the whole, I know not any capable of doing that
justice to the original, which Mr Macpherson has done*
One thing I'm sorry for, his having omitted the descrip- '
tion which Osslan gives of Fingal's ships, their sails,,
masts, and rigging, their extraordinary feats in sailings