Ossian Collection > Thoughts on the origin and descent of the Gael

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" he got the address among Mr James Macpher-
" son's original papers, when he was transcribing
" fairly for him, from these original papers,
*' (either collected by himself, or transmitted by
" his Highland friends), as it stood in the poem
" of Carthon, afterwards translated and publish-
" ed." — " That he gave the Rev. Mr Mac Kinnon
" of Glendaruel, before he went last time to
" America, in the year 1780, Ossian's address to
" the sun in the original, which being transmit-
" ted by Lord Bannatyne, and presented, he
" identifies : That he can repeat the whole of
" the poems given Mr Mac Kinnon ; and gave
'' a copy of it in writing." — " That there are
" many other such poems, which Mr Macpher-
" son did not collect, and collected some which
" he did not translate, but made his choice with
" proper taste. That the address to the sun, in
" the poem of Carthon, wanted two lines in the
" original, which neither Mr Macplierson, nor
" any body else, could supply, nay, supply a?iij
''thing like them.'"* Whether Mr Macpherson
could supply two lines, which might pass for
original, we will not take it upon us to say; but,
from the testimony of Captain Morrison, he paid
such punctilious regard to the original as he
received it, that he did not shew any disposition
* Appendix, p. \7'), 17^, 177- Report of the Highland So-
ciety.