Ossian Collection > Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland, appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian

*OEMS OF OSSIAN. 7
are mentioned in every ftanza. The only doubt is,
whether thefe poems have any farther refemblance
to the poems publifhed by Macpherfon. I was told
by Bourke, * a very ingenious Irifh gentleman, the
author of a tratt on the Sublime and Beautiful, that
on the firfl publication of Macpherfon^ book, all the
Irifli cried out, We know all those poems ; we have al-
ways heard them from our infancy ; but when he afk-
ed more particular queflions, he could never learn
that any one had ever heard or could repeat the ori-
.ginal of any one paragraph of the pretended tranfla-
tion. This generality, then, muft be carefully guard-
ed againft, as being of no authority.
Your connections among your brethren of the
clergy may here be of great ufe to you. You may
eafily learn the names of all minifters of that coun-
try who understand the language of it. You may
write to them, exprefling the doubts that have arifen,
and defiring them to fend for fuch of the bards as
remain, and make them rehearfe their ancient poems.
Let the clergymen then have the tranflation in their
hands, and let them write back to you, and inform
you that they heard fuch a one (naming him), liv-
ing in fuch a place, rehearfe the original of fuch a
paflage, from fuch a page to fuch a page of the Eng-
lifh tranflation, which appeared exaci: and faithful.
If you give to the public a fufficient number of fuch
teftimonies, you may prevail : But I venture to
foretel to you that nothing lefs will ferve the pur-
A 4 pofe J
* So in MS,