Ossian Collection > Original collection of the poems of Ossian, Orrann, Ulin, and other bards, who flourished in the same age

XXX PREFACE.
*' It is said, that some men of integrity profess
to have heard parts of it; but they heard them
when they were boys, and it was never said that
any of them could recite six lines. They remem-
ber names, and perhaps some proverbial senti-
ments, and having no distinct ideas, coin a resem-
blance without an original. The persuasion of
the Scots, however, is far from being universal;
and in a question so capable of proof, why should
doubt be suffered to continue. The editor has
been heard to say, that part of the poem has been
received by him in the Saxon character: he has
then found, by some peculiar fortune, an uuM'rit-
ten language, written in a character which the na-
tives probably never beheld."
The first part of this argument has been already
proved false, by many credible witnesses of the
first respectability: as for Mr. M'Pherson to hold
forth, that part of the poem has been received by
him in the Saxon character, it was no " peculiar
fortune;" there are a considerable number of Gaelic
Bibles, at this day, printed in the Saxon chaiacter,
throughout the Highlands. The Editors of these
sheets have one of them ; these characters are still
extant in writing, much more so at the period that
Mr. M'Pherson compiled his edition of the poems
of Ossian.
Sir James Ware (in the Antiquities of Ireland,
c. iii.) informs us, that the Saxons, having no al-
phabet of their own, borrowed the old British