Hew Morrison Collection > Bolg solair

THE MUSE OF OSSIAN :
A DRAMATIC POEM IN THREE ACTS.
(As performed at the Theatre in Edinburgh, 1763),
)HE warm, keen Celtic revival, kindled half - a - century
ago by Professar Blackie, the beloved enthusiast of a cause
not strictly his own by blood or racial interest, has done
much of late to sift and sort out the neglected waifs and
strays of Gaelic literature. The '-0361," the "Celtic Maga-
zine," the " Celtic Monthly," and the " Highlander " have
done each its own good share of this patriotic work. But the unearthing
of this very interesting relic of the Ossian-Macpherson literary hurricane
we owe less to research than to good luck. I chanced upon the book
all unawares in Mr. Dowell's sale-rooms some years ago ; and when
the lot came to the hammer my bid was unopposed and seemingly un-
noticed. My copy, now with the rest of my Celtic books in the library
of Alma Mater at Aberdeen, is up till now unique. The book is unknown
in any library in Edinburgh, nor is its exemplar in the British Museum.
Neither, so far as my research has gone, is it as much as named in con-
temporary literature, save in two instances which I particularise. It is
noticed at length in the " Edinburgh Evening Courant '" of April i6th,
1763 ; but this is really more in the way of advertisement than in-
dependent criticism. And the book has a place in that monumental
Cyclopaedia of the English Drama, whose joint-editor, David Erskine-
Baker, was also the author of my Ossianic Drama.
The Drama is in three acts. It has a preface, a prologue, an epilogue,
and a list of the " dramatis personae."
The leading parts were filled by Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy — the Irving
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