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

LETTERS TO MR. MACKENZIE. 75
chat were then recited in the higher parts of Argyllshire ;
as were the poem of Darthula, perhaps the most beautiful
in the collection, called in Gaelic by the name of Clann
Usiiothain, (the children of Usnoth) ; a part of the first
book of Tcmora, known by the title of Bus Oscair (the
death of Oscar), one of the tenderest pieces in the book ;
^nd the description of Cuchullin's car and horses, one of
the most improbable. In that part of the country, many
will be found who remember to have heard these often
recited, and perhaps some who can still recite a part of
them : although within these last fifty years the manners
of the Highlanders are totally changed, and the songs and
tales of their fathers neglected and almost forgotten.
With regard to the degree of liberty used by Mr Mac-
pherson in his translation, it is a point on which it is diflTi-
cult to decide. With better materials, and superior ta-
lents, his execution was far beyond any thing I could pre-
tend to ; but I am convinced, from experience, that he
must have followed the same process. He must have not
only used a discretionary power, or critical acumen, in
pombining and arranging the scattered parts of poems (as
was done by those who collected the books of Homer), but;
he must have also used his judgment in comparing one edi-
tion with another, selecting or rejecting words, lines, and
stanzas, now from one and then from another, in order to
make one correct edition from which he would make his
translation. He may have sometimes added here and
there a connecting line or sentence, or may have perhaps
cast one away, without deviating in the main from the
spirit, sense, and sentiment of his author; but the exact
degree of liberty which he took can hardly be ascertained.
Different editions of the same poem were, as you may
well suppose, very widely different, from their having
been recited for ages by different persons and in different
places J so tliat^ without having the translator's corrected