Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, &c > Volume 1

XXVlll PRE FACE.
thullin's car is an Irish ballad, containing
little more than the names and epithets of
the horses. The episode of Fainasolis is
an alteration of Da?i na Ing/mi, or the
Maid's Tragedy, a well known ballad, up-
on which the Fragment of Oscar's combat
with Ullin is also constructed. Ossians
Exploits at Lochlego are taken from the
rachney, desired to be named as vouchers of it. Tliey
remember to have heard it in their younger days ; and
they are positive, that Mr Macpherson's edition is the
genuine translation of Fingal, a poem that has been
transmitted from father to son for a great number of
past centuries. I am promised a copy of Fingal in the
original : if it Y>^-o\es agreeable to my taste and liking, I
will in that event transmit it to you by my brother
Sandy, who goes to Edinburgh in a few weeks hence."
Letter from Lewis Grant, dated Duthil, 26th January,
1764. But this letter has been also suppressed, though
Blair (omitting the negative evidence) rests upon Rothie-
murchus's and Dalrachney's absurd attestations. Yet
the correspondence with Blair is the original evidence,
upon which the poems must ultimately depend ; and it
is curious to compare the meagre evidence contained
in the letters, with the magnificent form whic it as-
sumes in Blair's appendix.