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

154 LETTER FROM MR. JAMES MCPHERSON.
me, how wc have now anj of the beauties of our aucient
Gaelic poetry remaining.
Your collection, I am informed, is pure, as you have
taken pains to restore the style — I shall not make any apo-
logy for this trouble, as it will be for the honour of our
ancestors, how many of their pieces of genius will be
brought to light — / have met with a niimher of old manu-
scripts in my travels ; the poetical part of thc7n 1 have cndea-
Voured to secure.
If siny of ihat kind falls within your hearing, I beg it of
you, to have them in sight.
I shall probably do myself the pleasiure of waiting of
you before I return to Edinburgh. Your correspondence
■in the mean time, will be very agreeable.— You will
excuse this trouble from an entire stranger ; and believe
me,
Reverend Sìt,
Your most humble Servant,
(Signed) JAMES M*PIIERSOV.
Inform me of what you can of the tradition of the .
poems : Direct to me, by Edinburgh and ^uthven, inclosed
to ]\Ir. M'Pherson, postmaster here.
2. TO THE REy. Mr. fi'iAGAN, dated Edinburgh, Kith
January 1"I61.
REV. SIR,
I was favoured with your letter inclosing the
Gaelic Poems, for which I hold myself extremely obliged
to you. Daati a Ghairibh is less poetical and more obscure
than Teantach mor na Feim. The last is far from being a
bad poem, were it complete, and is particularly valuable
for the ancient manners it contains. — I shall reckon jny.s^Uf