Ossian Collection > Aspects of poetry

266 THE POETRY OF THE [iX.
to each others' houses in every village, either to recite,
or hear recited or sung, the poems of Ossian, and other
songs and poems.' Almost all the native Gael could
recite some parts of these, but there were professed
Seannachies, or persons of unusual power of memory,
who could go on repeating Fenian poems for two or
three whole nights continuously. I have myself known
men who have often heard five hundred lines of con-
tinuous Fenian poetry recited at one time.
A little after the middle of the last century, when
James MacPherson began his wanderings in search of
these songs, the Highlands were full of such Ossianic
poetry, and of men who could recite it. I am not going
to retail the oft-told history of MacPherson's marvellous
proceedings, much less to plunge into the interminable
jungle of the Ossianic controversy. Those who may
desire to see the facts clearly stated will find this done
in Mr. Skene's Introduction to the book of the Dean of
Lismore, published in 1862, also in the very clear and
candid Dissertation prefixed by Dr. Clerk to his new
and literal translation of the Gaelic Ossian, published
in 1870. A condensed view of the present state of the
question will be found in a paper published inMacmillans
Magazine, for June 1871. Since this last date, new con-
tributions have been made to the subject, especially
by the publication of Mr. J. F. Campbell's Book of the
Feinne, in which he advocates a view entirely opposed to
that taken in the three publications already named.