Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

8 A PRELIMINARY IISCOURSE.
" But the chief point in which it will be necessary
for you to exert yourself, will be, to get positive testi-
mony from many ditferent hands that such poems are
vulgarly recited in the Highlands, and have there long
been the entertainment of the people. This testimony
must be as particular as it is positive. It will not be
sufficient that a Highland gentleman or clergyman say
or write to you that he has heard such poems ; nobody
questions that there are traditional poems of that part
of the country, where the names of Ossian and Fingal,
and Oscar and Gaul, are mentioned in every stanza.
The only doubt is, whether these poems have any far-
ther resemblance to the poems published by Macpher-
son. I was told by Bourke,* a very ingenious Irish
gentleman, the author of a tract on the sublime and
oeautiful, that on the first publication of Macpherson's
book, all the Irish cried out, ' We know all those
poems. We have always heard them from our infancy.'
/iut when he asked more particular questions, he could
never learn that any one ever heard or could repeat the
original of any one paragraph of the pretended transla-
tion. This generality, then, must be carefully guarded
against, as being of no authority.
" Your connections among your brethren of the
clergy may be of great use to you. You may easily
learn the names of all ministers of that country who
understand the language of it. You may write to
'.hem, expressing the doubts that have arisen, and de-
siring them to send for such of the bards as remain,
and make them rehearse their ancient poems. Lei
the clergymen then have the translation in their hands,
and let them write back to you, and inform you, that
they heard such a one, (naming him,) living in such a
place, rehearse the original of such a passage, from