Ossian Collection > Gaelic bards

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184 ANCIENT GAELIC BARDS.
OSSIAN'S ADDRESS TO THE RISING SUN.
The poem which, on every account, ought to he first, as
being the most ambitious in its nature, and certainly not
the least successful in its mode of dealing with its theme,
which comes under this head, is "Ossian's Address to
the Rising Sun." This poem is found in English in
MacPherson's Carthon. The version from which
MacPherson translated was imperfect, like that in
Stewart's Collection. It seems to have consisted of only
thirty-eight lines, the same as that supplied to the
Highland Society, in 1801, by the Rev. Mr. MacDiarmad,
as got by him thirty years before from an old man in
Glenlyon. This old man learned it in his youth from
people in the same glen, and before MacPherson was
born. Mr. MacDiarmad took down this " Address to
the Sun," along with the " Address to the Setting Sun,"
the "Bed of Gaul," and some other fragments, as he says
himself, "from the man's own mouth." Captain A.
Morrison depond to the Committee of the Highland
Society, that he got the " Address to the Sun " among
Mr. MacPherson's original papers, when he was trans-
cribing fairly for him from these original papers (either
collected by himself, or transmitted to him by his
Highland friends,) as it stood in the poem of Carthon,
afterwards translated and published. Now it is very
remarkable that notwithstanding this — notwithstanding
that the poem of Carthon is included among the poems
published according to the terms of his Will, by
MacPherson's executors, yet the " Address to the Snn "
is not in the Gaelic of MacPherson's Ossian at all. Its
place in the poem of Carthon is marked by asterisks.
Why was this Ì Did 3IacPherson, knowing it to be
admired, actually wish to appropriate the glory of its
production to himself, and so, by not publisliing the
Gaelic at all, try to throw discredit on those versions which