Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal > Volume 1

Af?ENBTT. f^I
•n and ur?ed to produce Ibme evidence for fatisfyinj
the world that they are not the compofttions of Mr.
Macpherfon himit- if', under the borrowed name of Of-
fian.
If the queftion had been concerning manufcripts
brought from fome diflant or unknown region, wiih
which we' had no intercourfe ; or concerning tranfia-
tions from an Afiatic or American language which
fcarce any body underflood, flifpicions might natural-
ly have arifcn, and an author's alTertions have been
anxioufly and fcrupuloufly weighed. But in the cafe
of a literal tranflation, profelTed to be given of old
traditionary poems of our own country ; of poems af-
ferted to be known in the original to many thoufand"
inhabitants of Great Britain, and iiiuftrated too by ma-
ny- of their current tales and ftories concerning them,
fuch extreme fcepticifm is altogether out of place. For
who would have been either io hardy or fo ftupid, as
to attempt a forgery M'^hich could not have failed of
being immediately dete6led ? Either the author muft
have had the iniiuence to engage, as confederates in
the fra;id, all the natives of the Highlands and Ifiands,
difperfed as they are throughout every corner of the
Britifh dominions ; or, we fliould, long ere this time,
have heard their united voice exclaiming, " Thefe are
<* not our poems, nor what we were ever accullomed
*' to hear from our bards or our fathers." Such re-
monilrances would, at Icaft, have reached thofe who
dwell in a part of the country which is adjacent to the
Highlands ; and muft have come loud to the ears of
fuch efpecially, as were known to be the promoters of
Mr. JViacpheribn's undertaking. The filence of a
whole country in this cafe, and of a country, whofe in-
halJ.tants are v.'cll known to be attached, in a remark-
able degree, to all their own antiquities, is of as much
weight as a thoufand poiitive teftirxionies. And furely,
no perfon or common underftanding would have ad-
ventured, as Mr. Macpherfon has done, in his diiTer-
tition on Temora, to engage in a co*itroTcrfy with ike