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

133 OBSERVATIONS
as it lias been written from the time of its formation in the
reign of Henry ll. had a being*.
He might have known, however, from the very song in'
which it occurred to him, that bèist does not apply, aw
beast does in English, to ever four-footed animal, but de^
notes a fierce beast, or beast of prey — the very meaning in
which h'stia is used by Cicero — Sexcentos ad bestias mi-
sistif.
From this misapprehension Mr. Hill goes on to present
to tile eye of the reader a word purely English, v^^hich the
I^tin could have neitlier lent to the Geltitr, ndr borrowed
from it. Dyheudadh (they might) was transformed into
Dhcf heiidadh, a word utterly unknown in the Gaelic, but
which, froni vj similarity of sound, might be expressed in
English by the word defeated. So that a future enquirer
into the sntbfenticity of Ossian's Poems, might, by this
means, be led to suppose that they were no older than the
reign of Henry II. of England, A. B'.l-n2. when the par-
»ial conquest atchieved by Dermot Mac-Mnrrogh king of
Leinster, and Richard, surnamed Strongbow, Earl of Stri-
gul, introduced the English tongue into Ireland :whence, hy
a singular hypothesis of Mr. Hill (to be hereafter noticed),,
which he adopted in contradiction of the very poems he has
published, they might be transplanted into the Highlands of
Scotland.
A' tranalaticn so very singular as that of stanza 7. above
(^Dteth, htd theefFect of raising a suspicion equally singular
* " Pro tribiis linjjuae Saxonicue epochis totidom'dialectos censeo esse stn-
" tuendas : Prima est quam mujores nortri locuti sunt a pifiino suo in Britan»
" nlam ingressu ad Danorum u»que iiitroitum. Secunda est, quae in usu erat
" a- Danorum in Britanniaiii ingressu ad Normannorum adventum. I'ertia
" ilia est quam locuti sunt majores nostri a iJonn'annorum ingressu ad Henrici
"tjus nominis secundi tempora. Hanc Norman-Dano-Saxonicam vocandam
" censemus." Hickes. Thesaur. I^guar. Septentrional, p. 87, ^9.
\ Vid. Ainrw-. Diction, in voce. '
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