from whom the settlement took the name Dalriada. This historical connexion between Scotland and Ireland, though for a long period overlooked, is distinctly recognized by Bede, the early English historian. Previous to this event the name of Scotia belonged exclusively to Ireland, Scotland being then only known as Caledonia and Albania. In course of time, however, as the Scotie colony extended its boundaries, it came to be designated Scotia Minor, while Ireland, by way of distinction, was called Scotia Major. This distinction was so well known on the Continent in the middle ages, that we frequently find the distinguishing appellations of "Scots of Albany" and "Hibernian Scots," applied to the natives of each in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, and it was not until about the tenth century that Ireland ceased to participate in the name.'

*

That Ireland was the ancient Scotia would be a matter of small consequence to show, were it not that the possession of this title in common, and the connexion subsisting for so long a period with the Highlands of Scotland, have served as a pretext for a most extensive system of

* 4th Century.-" Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne."- Claudian "Hibernia a Scotorum gentibus colitur."-Ethicus Cosmog. "Hæc insula proprior Britanniæ, &c. colitur a Scotis."-Paul. Orosius. 7th Century."Gens Scotorum incolit Hiberniam."- Bede, vita St. Columb. "Hibernia dives lactis et mellis insula, nec vinearum expers, &c. Hæc proprie patria Scotorum est."-Ibid. Hist. Gent. Anglicana. 17th Century.-" Scoti omnes Hiberniæ habitatores initio vocabantur."-Buchanan, Hist. rerum Scotica

rum.

Whoever wishes for more ample information may find it in the last edition of Sir James Ware's Antiquities of Ireland.-HAMILTON'S Letters on North Coast of Antrim, pp. 61-2.

literary depredation, and of this country being rifled of many of its early ornaments. The Dalriadian colonists carried with them their own historical traditions, and as the intercourse between the countries continued for many centuries, the later romances and poems were conveyed thither by wandering bards from time to time, and handed down in a mutilated and corrupted form by oral recitations. Thus the colonists came in time to adopt what was originally the property of the mother country. Hence they have borrowed many names from the Irish regal list, many saints from her calendar, and to complete this extensive system of plagiarism, the productions of some nameless Irish bards of the middle ages,* in connexion with the name of Oisin, were in the last century made the groundwork of an imposture, so plausibly fabricated, that it went forth to Europe on the wings of fame, and obtained for Scotland the unfounded claim of having produced the earliest epics perhaps in existence, with the exception of those of Homer and Virgil—a claim which by many is not even 'yet disallowed.† This daring and ingenious attempt of Mr. Macpherson to impose upon public credulity, was favoured by the ignorance which

"There are numberless Irish poems still extant," says Miss Brooke, "attributed to Oisin, and either addressed to St. Patrick, or composed in the form of a dialogue between the saint and the poet. In all of them, the antiquary finds traces of a later period than that in which Oisin flourished; and most of them are supposed to be the compositions of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries." -Reliques of Irish Poetry, quarto edition, p. 73. Specimens of these Fenian poems will be found in another part of this volume.

See the commencement of Lamartine's " Pilgrimage to the Holy Land," where he speaks of Ossian with undoubting faith.

generally prevailed of this twilight period of Irish history; and, by corrupting, falsifying, and clothing in an inflated and mock-heroic diction, which with many might pass for a species of barbaric sublimity suitable to the age of the bard, those oral versions of the Fenian poems and romances which had found their way to the Highlands of Scotland, he has certainly made his epics almost suffisiently different from the originals to warrant the claim of Scotland (though not of Oisin) to their authorship. The argument founded on the impossibility of their having been orally transmitted through so many ages, is not quite conclusive,* when we consider that the epics of Homer were similarly preserved (though certainly among a more refined people) for about five hundred years, until collected by Pisistratus ; but the glaring defiance of chronology and geography by which these pretended translations are so strongly marked, the total absence of genuine simplicity, the introduction of manners and customs incompatible with their reputed age, and numerous other grounds of internal evidence, are fatal to the idea of their authenticity as the works of the bard to whom they are assigned. On the other hand, the very names of the heroes,

* Hume applies the same argument to them as he has used against the evidence of miracles. "It is indeed strange that any man of sense could have imagined it possible that above twenty thousand verses, along with numberless historical facts, could have been preserved by oral tradition during fifty generations, by the rudest, perhaps, of all the European nations, the most necessitous, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled. Where a supposition is so contrary to common sense, any positive evidence of it ought never to be disregarded."- Corresp. with Gibbon. It would certainly have been as well to inquire if there were any positive evidence before resorting to such a general and doubtful proposition.

Cuchullin, Fingal, Osgar, McMorne, &c., and many of the localities being undoubtedly Irish, are significant evidences of their genuine source, of which the so called translator was unable wholly to divest them, without sapping the very foundation on which the whole structure of his imposture was to be reared. It is worthy of remark, that the very chronological errors of Mr. Macpherson afford an argument no less against the authenticity of these productions as the writings of Ossian, than in favour of their being derived in substance, though not in form, from the Fenian tales and poems. These Fenian writings, which it has been already stated, are supposed to have originated with a number of Irish bards in the course of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, bear on the very face of them the same chronological inaccuracy, many of them being in the form of a dialogue between Oisin, who flourished about the middle of the third, and St. Patrick, whose mission did not commence till nearly the same period of the fifth, century. The bards who composed these poems were doubtless aware of the anachronism of which they were guilty, and merely adopted it as an artifice to add to the reality and heighten the dramatic effect of their poetical descriptions, by making their favourite hero, Oisin, the narrator of the exploits of his companions in arms, thus giving to their tales a living and personal interest, which makes it difficult in reading them not to be sometimes persuaded that they were written by one who had witnessed what he describes. Such a coincidence in error on the part of Mr. Macpherson, could scarcely have been accidental. To

enter here into the long-contested discussion as to the genuineness of the poems of Ossian, further than appeared necessary to elucidate the subject, would indeed be a work of supererogation, after Hume, Gibbon, O'Conor, Young, Drummond, O'Reilly, and others, have successively and successfully lent their talents to destroy the imposing but unsubstantial fabric.

To return to our narrative. Though Oisin, according to tradition, was not unskilled

"Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme,"

yet he was probably more enamoured of the sword, and, consequently, the dignity of chief bard to the Fenii fell to his brother Fergus, called Fionbell, or the sweet-voiced -"a bard on whom successive poets have bestowed as many epithets as Homer has given to his Jupiter. So persuasive was his eloquence, that, united with his rank, it acquired an almost universal ascendancy."*

Of this extraordinary power possessed by Fergus-as well in virtue of his office as of his personal characterthere is a notable example on record, evincing that, if the bardic influence was frequently exerted in fanning

Besides

* "Several admirable poems, attributed to Fergus," continues Mr. Walker, "are still extant. . . . . DARGO, a poem written on a foreign prince of that name, invading Ireland. Dargo encountered the Fenii, and was slain by Goll, the son of Morni; and CATH GABHRA (the battle of Gabhra), these, there is a Panegyric on Goll, the son of Morni, and another on Osgur. The diction of these panegyrics is pure, nervous, and persuasive, and to each the name of Fergus, the poet, the son of Fin, is prefixed."-Hist. Mem Irish Bards, pp. 43, 44.