Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

A PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 7
" The absurd pride and caprice of Macpherson him-
self, who scorns, as he pretends, to satisfy anybody
that doubts his veracity, has tended much to confirm
this general skepticism ; and I must own, for my part,
that though I have had many particular reasons to be-
lieve these poems genuine, more than it is possible for
any Englishman of letters to have, yet I am not entirely
without my scruples on that head. You think, that the
internal proofs in favor of the poems are very convin-
cing ; so they are ; but there are also internal reasons
against them, particularly from the manners, notwith-
standing all the art with which you have endeavored to
throw a vernish* on that circumstance ; and the preser-
vation of such long and such connected poems, by oral
tradition alone, during a course of fourteen centuries,
is so much out of the ordinary course of human aifairs,
that it requires the strongest reasons to make us be-
lieve it. My present purpose, therefore, is to apply to
you in the name of all the men of letters of this, and, I
may say, of all other countries, to establish this capital
point, and to give us proofs that these poems are, I do
not say, so ancient as the age of Scverus, but that they
were not forged within these five years by James Mac-
pherson. These proofs must not be arguments, but
testimonies ; people's ears are fortified against the
former ; the latter may yet find their way, before the
poems are consigned to total oblivion. Now the testi-
monies may, in my opinion, be of two kinds. Mac-
pherson pretends there is an ancient manuscript of part
of Fingal in the family, I think, of Clanronald. Get
that fact ascertained by more than one person of credit;
let these persons be acquainted with the Gaelic; \et
them compare the original and the translation ; and le*
them testify the fidelity of the latter.
• So in MS.