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

16 LETTERS TO DR. BLAIR.
trons among the better sort of people, or of being favour-
ably received every where, if intimately acquainted with
these works, it was hardly possible that they could either
have perished totally or have been greatly adulterated, I
mean adulterated to such a degree as would have very
much defaced their original beauty, or have entirely de-
stroyed their real excellence.
Again, should we suppose with Mr Macpherson that
Ossian lived down to the beginning of the fourth century,
it seems plain enough that the compositions of that poet
might have been transmitted orally from one generatior> to
another, until letters began to flourish in some degree in
the Highlands ar;d Isles. It is certain, beyond any possi-
bility of contradiction, that we have several Gaelic songs
preserved arnong us here, which are more than three hun-
dred years old ; and any one who can pretend to be tolera-
bly well versed in the History of Scotland must know, that
our ancestors, in the western parts of this kingdom, had the
use of lettters from the latter end of the sixth age at least.
To attempt a proof of that assertion here, however easy
it would be to give a convincing one, would unavoidably
engage me in a discussion too long to be comprehended
within the compass of a letter. But most certain it is, that
we had men of some learning among us from after the pe-
riod just mentioned, at Icolumkill, and in other western
isles, when almost every other part of Europe was over-
spread with ignorance and barbarity. If so, it must be
allowed that we had men capable enough of writing manu-
scripts. In these manuscripts, the works of Ossian might
have been easily preserved ; and copies drawn after these
originals might, with the same ease, have transmitted his
genuine compositions uncorrupted, or nearly so, from one
age to another, until we come down to the present gene-
ration.