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

ON MR. HILL 3 SPECIMEN. 1J;;J
■fiation of ideas, to imagine more than he had seen or heard.
He conceived that '* the songs delating to the Feinne, and
** their chieftain, Fion-mac-Coul, or Fion-na-Gacl, whom
" we call in English Fingal ; are wholly confined to Ar-
" gjllshire, and the Western Highlands, where the sceiv?
*' of their actions is supposed to have lain*."
And he asserted that " the songs preserved in the High-
*^ lands relative to the Fingalians, are wholly confined to
" the western coast of the Highlands opposite Ireland i
" that the very traditions of the country themselves ac-
" knowledge the Fingalians to be originally Irish ; and
" that the genealogy of Fingal was there given him as fol-
" lows : Fion Mac Coul, Mac Trathal, Mac Arsht Riogh
" Erin, or King of Ireland, thus attributing tlic origin of
*' his race to the Irish+."
Nothing short of the irresistible power of associated ideas
coi^d have induced Mr. Hill to inform his readers, that the
songs in question " are wholly confined to the western coast
" of the Highlands, where the scene of the actions" to
which they refer ''is supposed to have lain," after he had
told them, but a few pages back, tha/t " Mr. Stuart, mini-
•*' ster of Blair, whom he visited in company with Mr.
*' Stokes — favoured them with the story of a song, relating
" to Dermid one of the Feinne — of which he afterwards
" obtained a copy in the original Erse;" and that, " from
*' one Mac Nab, a blacksmith at Dalmaly, he obtained
*' many songs, which are traditionally attributed ro
** OssianJ." Blair and Dalmaly are inland places, very
remote from any part of the western coast of the Highlands
that is opposite to Ireland ; and if Mr. Hill had visited the
shires of Inverness, Ross, Sutherlaiid, and Caithness, he
would have found the poems, tales, traditions, and local
names, which regard the Fingalians, to be as common ihere.
* Ancient Erie Poems, Ti« T.. f lbi<l. p. ;31. t Uiid,
L 3