now, although convinced of the imposture, find 'pleasure in reading MACPHERSON.' S. P.

"2. OSSIAN's Poems with Notes and Illustrations by MALCOLM LAING, 2 vols. Edinb. 1805. 8vo. The gift of the Editor.' S. P.

"3. OSSIAN'S Poems attempted in English Verse, by the late Rev. JOHN SHACKLETON, 2 vols. Birmingham, 1817. 8vo."

We find Gray the Poet among the warmest admirers of the Ossianic Poems:

Mr. Gray to Mr. Stonhewer, Lond. June 29, 1760. "I have received another Scotch packet* with a third specimen, inferior in kind, because it is merely description, but yet full of nature, and noble wild imagination. Five bards pass the night at the castle of a chief, (himself a principal bard;) each goes out in his turn to observe the face of things, and returns with an extempore picture

"Of the Fragments of Erse Poetry, many of which Mr. Gray saw in Ms. before they were published. In a Letter to Dr. Wharton, written in the following month, he thus expresses himself on the same subject: If you have seen Mr. Ston'hewer, he has probably told you of my old Scotch, (or rather 'Irish) Poetry. I am gone mad about them; they are said to 'be translations, (literal and in prose,) from the Erse tongue, 'done by one Macpherson, a young clergyman in the Highlands. 'He means to publish a collection he has of these specimens ' of antiquity, if it be antiquity; but what perplexes me, is -'I cannot come at any certainty on that head. I was so struck 'with their beauty, that I writ into Scotland to make a thousand 'enquiries; the letters I have in return, are ill-wrote, ill-rea'soned, unsatisfactory, calculated, one would imagine, to de

of the changes he has seen: (it is an October night, the harvest month of the Highlands.) This is the whole plan: yet there is a contrivance, and a preparation of ideas, that you would not expect. The oddest thing is, that every one of them sees ghosts, (more or less.) The idea that struck and surprised me most, is the following. One of them, (describing a storm of wind and rain,)

says:

'Ghosts ride on the tempest to-night:

'Sweet is their voice between the gusts of wind;
'Their songs are of other worlds!'

Did you never observe, (while rocking winds are piping loud,) that pause, as the gust is recollecting itself, and rising upon the ear in a shrill and plaintive note, like the swell of an Æolian harp? I do assure you there is nothing in the world so like the voice of a spirit. Thomson had an ear sometimes: he was not deaf to this; and

ceive, and yet not cunning enough to do it cleverly. In short, the whole external evidence would make one believe these Fragments counterfeit; but the internal is so strong on the ' other side, that I am resolved to believe them genuine, spite ' of the Devil and the Kirk. It is impossible to conceive that they were written by the same man, that writes me these 'Letters. On the other hand, it is almost as hard to suppose, (if they are original,) that he should be able to translate them so admirably. In short, this man is the very dæmon of poetry, or he has lighted on a treasure hid for ages. The Welch 'Poets are also coming to light; I have seen a discourse in Ms.

about them by one Mr. Evans, a clergyman, with specimens 'of their writing. This is in Latin; and though it does not ⚫ approach the other, there are fine scraps among it.'" MASON.

has described it gloriously, but given it another different turn, and of more horrour. I cannot repeat the lines: it is in his Winter. There is another very fine picture in one of them. It describes the breaking of the clouds after the storm, before it is settled into a calm, and when the moon is seen at short intervals:

'The waves are tumbling on the lake,

'And lash the rocky sides.

The boat is brimful in the cove,

'The oars on the rocking tide.

'Sad sits a maid beneath a cliff,
'And eyes the rolling stream:
'Her lover promised to come ;
She saw his boat, (when it was evening,)
on the lake;

"Are these his groans in the gale?

Is this his broken boat on the shore?

Mr. Gray to Dr. Clarke, Pembroke-Hall, Aug. 12, "Have you seen the Erse Fragments since they

1760.

* "The whole of this descriptive piece has been since published in a note to a Poem, entitled Croma, (see Ossian's Poems 1,350. 8vo.) It is somewhat remarkable that the Ms. in the translator's own hand, which I have in my possession, varies considerably from the printed copy. Some images are omitted, and others added. I will mention one, which is not in the Ms., The spirit of the mountain shrieks. In the Tragedy of Douglas, published at least three years before, I always admired this fine line,

The angry spirit of the water shriek'd.'

Quere:- Did Mr. Home take this sublime image from Ossian, or has the translator of Ossian since borrowed it from Mr. Home?" MASON.

were printed? I am more puzzled than ever about their antiquity, though I still incline, (against every body's opinion,) to believe them old. Those you have already seen, are the best; though there are some others, that are excellent too."

Mr. Gray to Mr. Mason, Cambridge, Aug. 20, 1760. "The Erse Fragments have been published five weeks ago in Scotland, though I had them not, (by a mistake,) till the other day. As you tell me new things do not reach you soon at Aston, I inclose what I can; the rest shall follow, when you tell me whether you have not got the pamphlet already. I send the two to Mr. Wood, which I had before, because he has not the affectation of not admiring.* I have another from Mr. Macpherson, which he has not printed; it is mere description, but excellent too in its kind. If you are good, and will learn to admire, I will transcribe and send it. As to their authenticity, I have made many enquiries, and have lately procured a Letter from Mr. David Hume, (the Historian,)+ which is more satisfactory than anything I

"It was rather a want of credulity than admiration, that Mr. Gray should have laid to my charge, I suspected that, whether the Fragments were genuine or not, they were by no means literally translated. I suspect so still; and a former note gives a sufficient cause for that suspicion. See p. 61."

MASON.

+["It should seem that Hume afterwards changed his opinion:

"Another class of detections is from tradition; and here Mr. Laing thinks he has Ossian fairly, because Mallet and Hume seem to be of his opinion. Mallet may be perfectly

have yet met with on that subject. He says:-Certain 'it is that these Poems are in every body's mouth in the 'Highlands, have been handed down from father to son, ' and are of an age beyond all memory and tradition. 'Adam Smith, the celebrated Professor in Glasgow, told me that the Piper of the Argyleshire-Militia repeated 'to him all those, which Mr. Macpherson had translated,

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correct, when he affirms that the common class of mankind never bestow a thought on any of their progenitors, beyond their grandfathers; but, had he been in the smallest degree acquainted with the manners of the Highlanders of Scotland, he would have known that the most common peasant of the pure and unmixed race, can always count at least six or seven generations back; and that this knowledge of his ancestors is his proudest boast; and that the genealogy of the chieftains was in particular preserved with the most scrupulous veneration. Among such a people, were the poems, which celebrated the most glorious actions of their ancestors, likely to be consigned to neglect?

"Hume alleges it to be utterly impossible, that so many verses could have been preserved by oral tradition, during fifty generations, among a rude and uncivilized people; and adds, in support of this opinion, his famous dogma, that where a supposition is so contrary to common sense, (in other words, common experience,) any positive evidence of it ought never to be regarded. Hume probably uttered this opinion before he was taught, by Campbell's Essay on Miracles, that positive evidence is sufficient to prove the most positive dogma of the most subtile sophist, to be positive nonsense. It is remarkable that such sagacious inquirers as Mr. Hume and Mr. Laing, should not have perceived that the rudeness of the Highlanders, which they so much insist upon, is the strongest circumstance against their argument. If songs, recounting the exploits of their