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. MACKEXZiE. *7T
lands, it is probable he may have found there the greater
part of the 2d Vol. although we had but little of it in the
West ; at least so far as I had access to know, for I am
far from thinking that I heard the whole of what was
known to my countrymen, as I removed early from those
higher parts in which those poems were more generally
known and recited. In a conversation which I had lately
on this subject with Dr Fraser, minister of Inveraray» he
mentioned a James Nicholson, sometime ago minster iir
Sky, whom he had often heard for hours together repeat-
ing some of Ossian's poems, and recited to me a few of
those verses which he still remembered. They were part
of the description of the horses in Cuchullin's car, and
contained one or tv/o epithets wliich neither he nor I could
understand. I have since looked at Mr M.'s translation of
this passage, and observed that these words vrere passed
over in silence, as probably he did not know the meaning
of them either. I think Dr Fraser said the present minis-
ter of Thurso was nephew to this Mr Nicholson. Perhaps
he may know, whether his uncle left any of these poems
in writing, which I fear he did not, as the dilhculty of the
Gaelic orthography deterred even scholars from attempting
to write it. I think there is a specimen or two, if I rev-
member right» of Ossian's poetry published in Mr Shaw's
grammar, and several in Gillies's collection, but, as I ob-
served before, little can be made of one edition, v/ithout
-others to correct it. One or two other poems, ascribed to
Ossian, have been also published some years ago in the
Gentleman's Magazine, by a Mr Hill, an English gentle-
man, who had picked them up in an excursion through
the Highlands. One of these, which is a Dialogue be-
tween St Patrick and Ossian, I often heard, and thought it
an aukward but ancient attempt to imitate the Celtic bard,
by some person who did not advert to the anachronism.
But I had occasion to observe lately, in Colgan, an Irish