the moon, without strength, goes from the sky, hiding herself under a wave in the west. Thou art in thy journey alone; who is so bold as to come nigh thee? The oak falleth from the high mountain; the rock and the precipice fall under old age; the ocean ebbeth and floweth, the moon is lost above in the sky; but thou alone for ever in victory, in the rejoicing of thy own light. When the storm darkeneth around the world, with fierce thunder, and piercing lightnings, thou lookest in thy beauty from the noise, smiling in the troubled sky! To me is thy light in vain, as I can never see thy counte nance; though thy yellow golden locks are spread on the face of the clouds in the east ; or when thou tremblest in the west, at thy dusky aoors in the ocean. Perhaps thou and myself are at one time mighty, at another feeble, our years sliding down from the skies, quickly travelling together to their end. Rejoice then, O sun! while thou art strong, O king in thy youth. Dark and unpleasant is old age, like the vain and feeble light of the moon, while she looks through a cloud on the field, and her gray mist on the sides of the rocks; a blast from the north on the plain, a traveller in distress, and he slow.'

The comparison may be made, by turning to the end of Mr. Macpherson's version of 'Carthon,' beginning O thou that rollest above.'

But it must not be concealed, that after all the exertions of the Committee, it has not been able to obtain any one poem, the same in title and tenor with the poems published by him. We therefore feel that the reader of 'Ossian's Poems,' until grounds more relative be produced, will often, in the perusal of Mr. M.'s translations, be induced, with some show of justice, to exclaim with him, when he looked over the

manuscript copies found in Clanronald's family, 'D-n the scoundrel, it is he himself that now speaks, and not Ossian !*

To this sentiment the Committee has the candour to incline, as it will appear by their summing up. After producing or pointing to a large body of mixed evidence, and taking for granted the existence, at some period, of an abundance of Ossianic poetry, it comes to the question, How far that collection of such poetry, published by Mr. James Macpherson, is genuine?' To answer this query decisively, is, as they confess, difficult. This however, is the ingenious manner in which they treat it.

6

The Committee is possessed of no docu ments, to show how much of his collection Mr. Macpherson obtained in the form in which he has given it to the world. The poems and fragments of poems which the Committee has been able to procure, contain, as will appear from the article in the Appendix (No. 15.) already mentioned, often the substance, and sometimes almost the literal expression (the ipsissima verba), of passages given by Mr. Macpherson, in the poems of which he has published the translations. But the Committee has not been able to obtain any one poem the same in title or tenor with the poems published by him. It is inclined to believe, that he was in use to supply chasms, and to give connexion, by inserting passages which he did not find, and to add what he conceived to be dignity and delicacy to the original composition, by striking out passages, by softening incidents, by refining the language, in short, by changing what he considered as too simple or too rude for a modern ear, and elevating what, in his opinion,

* Report, v. 44.

was below the standard of good poetry, To what degree, however, he exercised these liberties, it is impossible for the Committee to determine. The advantages he possessed, which the Committee began its inquiries too late to enjoy, of collecting from the oral recitation of a number of persons, now no more, a very great number of the same poems on the same subjects, and then collating those different copies, or editions, if they may be so called, rejecting what was spurious or corrupted in one copy, and adopting from another something more genuine and excellent in its place, afforded him an opportunity of putting together what might fairly enough be called an original whole, of much more beauty, and with much fewer blemishes, than the Committee believe it now possible for any person, or combination of persons, to obtain.' P. 152-3.

Some Scotch critics, who should not be ignorant of the strong holds and fastnesses of the advocates for the authenticity of these Poems, appear so convinced of their insufficiency, that they pronounce the question put to rest for ever. But we greatly distrust that any literary question, possessing a single inch of debatable ground to stand upon, will be suffered to enjoy much rest in an age like the present. There are as many minds as men, and of wranglers there is no end. Behold another and another yet,' and in our imagina tion, he

bears a glass,

Which shows us many inore.'

The first of these is Mr. Laing, who has recently published the Poems of Ossian, &c. containing the Poetical Works of James Macpherson, Esq. in Prose and Rhyme with

In 2 vols. 8vo. Edin

notes and illustrations. burgh, 1805.' In these Notes and Illustra tions,' we foresee, that Ossian is likely to share the fate of Shakspeare : that is, ultimately to be loaded and oppressed by heavy commentators, until his immortal spirit groan beneath vast heaps of perishable matter. The object of Mr. Laing's commentary, after having elsewhere endeavoured to show that the Poems are spurious, and of no historical authority, 'is,' says he not merely to exhibit parallel passages, much less instances of a fortuitous resemblance of ideas, but to produce the precise originals from which the similes and images are indisputably derived.'t And these he pretends to find in Holy Writ, and in the classical poets, both of ancient and modern times. Mr. Laing, however, is one of those detectors of plagiarisms, and discoverers of coincidences, whose exquisite penetration and acuteness can find any thing any where. Dr. Johnson, who was shut against conviction with respect to Ossian, even when he affected to seek the truth in the heart of the Hebrides, may yet be made useful to the Ossianites in canvassing the merits of this redoubted stickler on the side of opposition. Among the innumerable practices,' says the Rambler, by which interest or envy have taught those who live upon literary fame to disturb each other at their airy banquets, one of the most common is the charge of plagiarism. When the excellence of a new composition can no longer be contested, and malice is compelled to give way to the unanimity of applause, there is yet this one expedient to be tried, by

In his Critical and Historical Dissertation on the Ap tiquity of Ossian's Poems.

Preface, p. v.

No. 143.

C

which the author may be degraded, though his work be reverenced; and the excellence which we cannot obscure, may be set at such a distance as not to overpower our fainter lustre. This accusation is dangerous, because, even when it is false, it may be sometimes urged with probability.'

How far this just sentence applies to Mr. Laing, it does not become us, nor is it our business, now to declare: but we must say, that nothing can be more disingenuous or groundless than his frequent charges of plagiar ism of the following description; because, in the War of Caros, we meet with these words: It is like the field, when darkness covers the hills around, and the shadow grows slowly on the plain of the sun,' we are to believe, accordmg to Mr. Laing, that the idea was stolen from Virgil's

Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbra.

For see, yon sunny hills the shade extend.-Dryden.

As well might we credit that no one ever beneld a natural phenomenon except the Mantuan bard. The book of nature is open to all, and in her pages there are no new readings. Many subjects,' it is well said by Johnson, 'fall under the consideration of an author, which being limited by nature, can admit only of slight and accidental diversities. All definitions of the *same thing must be nearly the same; and decriptions which are definitions of a more lax and fanciful kind, must always have, in some

"This is not so good, because not so amusing in its absurdity, as an attempt formerly made to prove the Eneid Earse, from Arma virumque cano' and Airm's am fear canem,' having the same meaning, and nearly the same sound.