Ossian Collection > Notes on the authenticity of Ossian's poems

THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 9
Ewan Macpherson, late schoolmaster at Badenocli,
declares before Mr Norman Macdonald, J.P. at Knock,
Sleat, Sky, on lltli September 1800,*
" That having come to this country from the oppo-
site coast of Knoydart to pay a visit to the Eev. Dr
John Macpherson, then minister of the parish of Sleat,
he happened to meet his old acquaintance Mr James
Macpherson, who was then employed in collecting the
poems of Ossian ; and being well acquainted with the
Gaelic orthography and character, was urged by James
Macpherson to accompany him to the Long Island,
which he eventually did.
" That on that occasion they were one or two nights
at the house of the elder Clanranald at Ormiglade, and
about a week at the house of the younger at Benbicula,
and at Mr McNeill's, minister in South Uist, where he
became acquainted with MacMhurich, the representative
of the celebrated bards of that name, but was not him-
self a man of any note. From this man the declarant
got for Mr James Macpherson a book of the size of a
Testament, and of the nature of a Common-Place Book,
which contained some accounts of the families of the
Macdonalds and the exploits of the great Montrose,
together with some of the poems of Ossian. And Mr
Macpherson obtained at the same time an order from
Clanranald, sen., on Lieut. Donald Macdonald of Edin-
burgh, for a Gaelic folio manuscript belonging to the
family, which was called the ' Leabhar Derg,' and con-
tained, as he heard Clanranald say, some of the poems
of Ossian."
* See H. S. R, App., p. 94.