Ossian Collection > Essay on the authenticity of the poems of Ossian

74 ON THE AUTHENTICITY
111 Scotland, it is well known, that the
Bardic order was preserved^ in uninterrupted
succession, till A. D. 1726, when Nial Mac-
vurich, the last of the Bards, died, whose
ancestors had, for several generations, exer-
cised that office in the Clanranald family.
In the Appendix to Mr Mackenzie's Report,
we have the very interesting declaration of
Lachlan Macvurich, the son of this Nial, in
which he gives an account of the manner in
which his fathers manuscripts were disper-
sed and lost ; and, particularly, of one large
volume, which his father, by order of Clan-
ranald, gave to James Macpherson, from
Badenoch, (the translator of Ossian.) This
declaration of Lachlan Macvurich, I, too,
received, some years ago, by the obliging at-
tention of Sir John Macgregor INIurray of
Lanrick, Baronet, in the original, with a
translation by himself; but, as it has been
already published in the Report, it is consi-
dered as unnecessary to repeat it.