Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

xvi INTRODUCTORY NOTE
sidered as untenable as the more obviously absurd Eng-
lish extreme. What is certain is that no early poems
such as those given in English by Macpherson are
extant ; and that the language adopted by Macpherson
belongs much more to the eighteenth century than to
the Ossianic age. In his excellent summary, Mr Camp-
bell naturally dismisses the common English view as
the furthest from the truth : but, despite his Scottish
predilections, leans toward the Irish theory as most
based upon probabilities. He gives ample reasons for
his conviction that Macpherson's " Ossian " was based
upon really genuine ancient Gaelic MSS., although not
those of Ossian himself. His subsequent argument goes
to prove his modification of the too exclusive Irish
theory which would claim Fian, and Ossian, and the
Ossianic literature as purely Irish in the most exclusive
sense of the designation. Mr Campbell proves that the
Ossianic heroes were really known centuries before
Macpherson wrote of them : also that Macpherson
translated, or translated and paraphrased, genuine old
Gaelic poems or fragments : and that in so doing he
may or may not have made a mistake in altering and
expanding his texts as he did, but that on this account
he is not to be blamed for fraudulent claims to have re-
constructed the practically perished oral literature of the
past. The following precis of a section of Mr Camp-
bell's elaborate essay and of the views of other Gaelic
authorities may fittingly be given here : —
Professor O'Curry says that hundreds of Irish
writings are preserved in various libraries, etc., and
contain numerous Ossianic poems "relating to the
Fenian heroes, some of them of great antiquity."
Now these ancient Irish documents, and those which
are preserved in Scotland, are pervaded by the
variously spelt names of Fionn or Finn and his