Topographical, statistical, and historical gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

HIGHLANDS.
779
delight, as to supersede all other mental pursuits.
The mere force of habit in persons who, from their
childhood, have been accustomed to hear recitals
often repeated, which delighted them, will make an
indelible impression, not confined to the ideas sug-
gested, or to the images which float in the imagina-
tion, as reflected from the mirror of the mind, but
extending to the very words themselves.* Besides
these and other reasons in favour of the oral trans-
mission of the Gaelic poetry, to which we shall after-
wards allude, one more important consideration, as
far as we can ascertain, has been entirely overlooked,
namely, that to insure a correct transmission of the
poems in question, through the medium of oral tra-
dition, it was by no means necessary that one or
more individuals should be able to recite all of them.
To secure their existence it was only necessary that
particular persons should be able to recite with ac-
curacy such parts as they might have committed to
memory so as to communicate them to others.
Doubtless there would be great differences in the
powers of acquisition and retention in different per-
sons, but we have no idea that one person could
carry in his memory the whole poetry of Ossian.
Besides these arguments in support of oral tradition,
the following reasons are given by the Right Hon-
ourable Sir John Sinclair, Baronet, in support of the
preservation of the poems of Ossian through that
medium : 1. The beauty of the poetry, of which it
is impossible to form an adequate idea from any
translation hitherto given; 2. The partiality which
the Highlanders naturally entertained for songs,
which contained the traditional history of the great-
est heroes, in the ancient annals of their country ;
3. It is to be observed that the bards were for a
long time a distinct class or caste, whose whole
business it was either to compose verses themselves,
or to recite the poetry of others; 4. Though the
poems were not composed in rhyme, yet there was an
emphasis laid upon particular syllables of a particu-
lar sound in every line, which greatly assisted the
memory; 5. The verses were set to particular music,
by wdiich the remembrance of the words was greatly
facilitated ; and, 6. The Highlanders, at their festi-
vals and other public meetings, acted the poems of
Ossian, and on such occasions, those who could re-
peat the greatest number of verses were liberally
rewarded. What also tended greatly to preserve
the recollection of the Gaelic poetry, was a practice
followed by the Highlanders of going by turns to
each other's houses in every village during the win-
ter-season, and reciting or hearing recited or sung
the poems of Ossian, and also poems and songs
ascribed to other bards. f
* Mr. Wood, in his Essay on the original writings and
genius of Homer, remarks, Willi great justice, that we cannot,
in this age of dictionaries and other technical aids to memory,
judge what her use and powers were at a time when all a man
could ksiow was all he could remember, and when the memory
was loaded with nothing either useless or unintelligible. The
Arabs, who are in the habit of amusing their hours of leisure
hy telling and listening to tales, will remember them though
very long, and rehearse them with great fidelity after one
hearing.
t The first person who made a collection of Gaelic poetry
was the Rev. John Farquharson, a Jesuit missionary in Strath-
glass, about the year 1715.— Alexander Macdonald, a school-
master at Ardnamurchan, was the next who made a collection
of Gaelic poetry, which was published in Gaelic at Edinburgh,
in the year 1751. — Jerome Stone, a native of the county of Fife,
and who had acquired a knowledge of the Gaelic language dur.
ing some year's residence in Dunkeld, where he kept a school,
was the third person who collected several of the ancient
poems of the Highlands, and was the first person who espe-
cially called public attention to the beauty of these poems in a
letter which he addressed ' To the Author of the Scots Maga-
zine," accompanied with a translation in rhyme of one of then),
both of which appeared in that periodical in January, 1750
The next and most noted collector of Gaelic poetry was the
celebrated James Macpherson, whose spirited translations, or
forgeries, as some writers maintain, have consigned his name
A writer of great penetration and extensive eru-
dition, thus speaks of the poems published as Os-
sian 's : " Some fragments of the songs of the Scottish
Highlanders, of very uncertain antiquity, appear to
have fallen into the hands of Macpherson, a young
man of no mean genius, unacquainted with the higher
criticism applied to the genuineness of ancient writ-
ings, and who was too much a stranger to the stu-
dious world to have learnt those refinements which
extend probity to literature as well as to property.
Elated by the praise not unjustly bestowed on some
of these fragments, instead of insuring a general
assent to them by a publication in their natural
state, he unhappily applied his talents for skilful
imitation to complete poetical works in a style simi-
lar to the fragments, and to work them into the
unsuitable shape of epic and dramatic poems. He
was not aware of the impossibility of poems, pre-
served only by tradition, being intelligible after thir-
teen centuries to readers who knew only the language
of their own times; and he did not perceive the
extravagance of peopling the Caledonian mountains,
in the 4th century, with a race of men so generous
and merciful, so gallant, so mild, and so magnani-
mous, that the most ingenious romances of the age
of chivalry could not have ventured to represent a
single hero as on a level with their common virtues.
He did not consider the prodigious absurdity of in-
serting as it were a people thus advanced in moral
civilization between the Britons, ignorant and savage
as they are painted by Cresar, and the Highlanders,
fierce and rude as they are presented by the first ac-
counts of the chroniclers of' the 12th and 14th cen-
turies. Even the better part of the Scots were, in
the latter period, thus spoken of: — ' In Scotland ye
shall find no man lightly of honour or gentleness:
they be like wylde and savage people.' The great
historian who made the annals of Scotland a part
of European literature, had sufficiently warned his
countrymen against such faults, by the decisive ob-
servation that their forefathers were unacquainted
with the art of writing, which alone preserves lan-
guage from total change, and great events from obli-
vion. Macpherson was encouraged to overleap these
and many other improbabilities by youth, talent, and
applause : perhaps he did not at first distinctly pre-
sent to his mind the permanence of the deception.
It is more probable, and it is a supposition counte-
nanced by many circumstances, that after enjoying
the pleasure of duping so many critics, he intended
one day to claim the poems as his own ; but if he
to immortality in the literary world. The circumstances which
gave rise to this collection are fully detailed in various publi-
cations.* and need not be here repeated. The districts through
which Mr. Macpherson travelled in quest of Gaelic poetry were
chiefly the north-western parts of Inverness-shire, the isle of
Skye, and some of the adjoining islands; " places, from their
remoteness and state of manners at that period, most likely to
afford, in a pure and genuine state, the ancient traditionary
tales and poems, of which the recital then formed, as the com-
mittee has before stated, the favourite amusement of the long
and idle winter evenings of the Highlanders." On his return
to Edinburgh from his poetical tour, Macpherson took lodgings
in a house at the head of Klackfriars'.wynd, immediately below
that possessed by his chief patron, Dr. Blair, and immediately
set about translating from the Gaelic into English. He soon
afterwards, viz., in 1701, published one volume in quarto, con-
taining Fingal, an epic poem, in six books, and some other
detached pieces of a similar kind. He published, in the year
176:?. another epic poem called Temora, of one of the books or
divisions of which he annexed the original Gaelic, being the
only specimen he ever published, though at his death be left
£1,000 to defray the expense of a publication of the originals of
the whole of his translations, with directions to his executors
for carrying that purpose into effect. Various causes contri-
buted to delay their appearance till the year 1S07, when they
were published under the sanction of the Highland Society of
London. — A good collection of Gaelic poetry, with very in-
teresting Notes, has recently been published by Mr. John
Mackenzie: Glasgow: Macgregor & I'olson, 1811, 8vo.
* See Report of Highland Society — Graham's ' Essay on the Authenticity*
of Ossian's poems. 1 —Browne's ' History of the Highlands and Highland clans,
vol, i. chap. ii.