Poems of Ossian by James MacPherson

THE POEMS OF OSSIAN

by

JAMES MACPHERSON

A PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

As Swift has, with some reason, affirmed that all sublunary 

happiness consists in being well deceived, it may possibly be the 

creed of many, that it had been wise, if after Dr. Blair's ingenious 

and elegant dissertation on "the venerable Ossian," all doubts 

respecting what we have been taught to call his works had forever 

ceased: since there appears cause to believe, that numbers who 

listened with delight to "the voice of Cona," would have been happy, 

if, seeing their own good, they had been content with these poems 

accompanied by Dr. Blair's judgment, and sought to know no more. 

There are men, however, whose ardent love of truth rises, on all 

occasions, paramount to every other consideration; and though the 

first step in search of it should dissolve the charm, and turn a 

fruitful Eden into a barren wild, they would pursue it. For those, 

and for the idly curious in literary problems, added to the wish of 

making this new edition of "The Poems of Ossian" as well-informed as 

the hour would allow, we have here thought it proper to insert some 

account of a renewal of the controversy relating to the genuineness 

of this rich treasure of poetical excellence.

Nearly half a century has elapsed since the Publication of the poems 

ascribed by Mr. Macpherson to Ossian, which poems he then professed 

to have collected in the original Gaelic, during a tour through the 

Western Highlands and Isles; but a doubt of their authenticity 

nevertheless obtained, and, from their first appearance to this day, 

has continued in various degrees to agitate the literary world. In 

the present year, "A Report," springing from an inquiry instituted 

for the purpose of leaving, with regard to this matter, "no hinge or 

loop to hang a doubt on," has been laid before the public. As the 

committee, in this investigation, followed, in a great measure, that 

line of conduct chalked out by David Hume to Dr. Blair, we shall, 

previously to stating their precise mode of proceeding, make several 

large and interesting extracts from the historian's two letters on 

this subject.

"I live in a place," he writes, "where I have the pleasure of 

frequently hearing justice done to your dissertation, but never heard 

it mentioned in a company, where some one person or other did not 

express his doubts with regard to the authenticity of the poems which 

are its subject; and I often hear them totally rejected with disdain 

and indignation, as a palpable and most impudent forgery. This 

opinion has, indeed, become very prevalent among the men of letters 

in London; and I can foresee, that in a few years, the poems, if they 

continue to stand on their present footing, will be thrown aside, and 

will fall into final oblivion.

"The absurd pride and caprice of Macpherson himself, who scorns, as 

he pretends, to satisfy anybody that doubts his veracity, has tended 

much to confirm this general skepticism; and I must own, for my part, 

that though I have had many particular reasons to believe these poems 

genuine, more than it is possible for any Englishman of letters to 

have, yet I am not entirely without my scruples on that head. You 

think, that the internal proofs in favor of the poems are very 

convincing; so they are; but there are also internal reasons against 

them, particularly from the manners, notwithstanding all the art with 

which you have endeavored to throw a vernish 1 on that circumstance; 

and the preservation of such long and such connected poems, by oral 

tradition alone, during a course of fourteen centuries, is so much 

out of the ordinary course of human affairs, that it requires the 

strongest reasons to make us believe it. My present purpose, 

therefore, is to apply to you in the name of all the men of letters 

of this, and, I may say, of all other countries, to establish this 

capital point, and to give us proofs that these poems are, I do not 

say, so ancient as the age of Severus, but that they, were not forged 

within these five years by James Macpherson. These proofs must not be 

arguments, but testimonies; people's ears are fortified against the 

former; the latter may yet find their way, before the poems are 

consigned to total oblivion. Now the testimonies may, in my opinion, 

be of two kinds. Macpherson pretends there is an ancient manuscript 

of part of Fingal in the family, I think, of Clanronald. Get that 

fact ascertained by more than one person of credit; let these persons