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

10 LETTERS TO DR. BLAIR.
I had reason to believe, that the gentlemen would exert
all their strength in defending a cause in which Dr Blair,
Mr Macpherson, and, let me add, I myself, are so deep-
ly interested, especially as it is a national one ; but hither-
to I have not had the satisfaction of receiving any the small-
est assistance in that way. What I have to say myself,
in answer to your questions, after having made all the re-
searches in my power, is in substance as follows :
That I have perused a Gaelic manuscript, containing all
the poems translated by Mr Macpherson, or a considerable
part of them, I am not able to say ; but can honestly af-
firm, that I have seen a Gaelic manuscript in the hands of
an old bard, who travelled about through the Highlands
and Isles about thirty years ago, out of which he read, in
my hearing, and before thousands yet alive, the exploits
of Cuchullin, Fingal, Oscar, Ossian, Gaul, Dermid, and
the other heroes celebrated in Mr Macpherson's book.
This bard was descended of a race of ancestors who had
served the family of Clanranald for about three hundred
years, in quality of bards and genealogists, and whose
predecessors had been employed in the same office by the
Lords of the Isles long before the family of Clanranald
existed. The, name of the tribe which produced these he-
reditary poets and shenachies, was Macmhurich. The
last man of the tribe who sustained these two characters
with any dignity I knew personally, and conversed with
him more than once. He was a man of some letters, like
all or most of his predecessors in that office ; and had, to
my certain knowledge, some manuscripts, in verse as well
as prose, in his possession. Whether these manuscripts
are now extant, I cannot say, as I live at a great distance
from that part of the country where the Macmhurichs were
settled, and as I have not yet heard from a gentleman there
to whom I have written of late upon that subject.