Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

A PRIlMMINAUY discouuse. 19
manuscript copies found in Clanronald's family,
' IJ — n the scouiidre/, it is he himself that now
speaks, and not Osdan P*
To this sentiment the Committee has the
candour to incline, as it will appear by their
snmmmg up. After producing or pointing to
a large body of mixed evidence, and taking for
granted the existence, at some period, of an a-
bundance of Ossianic poetry, it comes to the
question, ' How far that collection of such
poetiy, published by Mr. James Macpherson,
is genuine ?' To answer this query decisively,
is, as they confess, difficult. This however, is
the ingenious manner va which tliey treat it.
' The Committee is possessed of no docu-
ments, to show how much of his collection Mr.
Macpherson obtained hi the form in which he
has given it to the world. The poems and
fragments of poems which the Committee has
been able to procure, contain, as will appear
from the article in the Appendix (No. 15.) al-
ready mentioned, often the substance, and some-
times almost the literal expression (the ipsissima
verba), of passages given by Mr. Macpherson,
in the poems of which he has published the
translations- But the Committee has not been
able to obtain any one poem the same in title
or tenor with the poems published by him. It
is inclined to believe, that he was in use to
supply chasms, and to give connexion, by in-
serting passages which he did not find, and to
add what he conceived to be dignity and deli-
cacy to the original composition, by striking
out passages, by softening incidents, by refining
the language, in short, by changing what he
considered as too simple or too rude for a mo-
dem ear, and elevating what, in his opinion,
* Report, ti. ^4.