Rev. DONALD MAC QUEEN to Rev. Dr. JOHN CALDER*. 1780. 66 REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, "Had I been as well acquainted with the critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian in June last, as I am at present, I would have been formally introduced to the Author, who I am sure hath done as much honour to himself, as to the ancient Celtic Bard, whose work will carry down Dr. Blair's name along with it, while the English tongue, or a taste for Polite Literature exists amongst us. When I consider the fate of Homer, I am less surprised that Scotland and Ireland should contend for the birth of Ossian; and when the famous ecclesiastical Commentator of the former great Poet could not secure him from the ravenous claws of nodern Critics, it is the less wonder that a noble ancient poem, just raised from the ashes of a much more considerable Work than what hath yet appeared, or can appear, should attract the envy of neighbours, or rouse the curiosity of men of Letters: an upstart performance hath no more title to inherit the applauses of the public, than an Ainsly or a Douglas to a good estate, before the legitimacy of their birth is ascertained; and whoever gives such a performance wings to fly, is under an obligation to satisfy every rational enquirer. I say, I am not surprised at the English or Irish incredulity, but I am greatly surprised at the elegant Translator's silence in a matter of such importance to his own character, when, if I am rightly informed, he both made himself master of all the manuscripts that could be picked up in the Highlands, particularly one from Clanranald, and another from a gentleman at Knowdart; a declaration under the hands of the owners of these manuscripts, and a comparison made of them with the translation by persons equally skilled in the Gallic and English tongues, would give a full finishing to this argument. What else can you expect to make of it, if your friends will not compare such broken scraps as dwell on the memory of some low people here, with Mr. Macpherson's book; where some shining fragment of one performance is tacked to another, but few or no Episodes are found regular or complete, which cannot fail of great variations among different rehearsers, arising from omissions, transpositions, and the superfluous additions of words, and sentences, in the traditional delivery of them, in a course of ages; to which the use made of them, for a century back, would have greatly contributed. The singing of them at bed time to lull some of our idle gentry into an easy sleep, when the sound was more regarded than the sense. "The Isle of Sky yielded earlier to the arts of industry and peace than the main continent, or the other Islands round about it. The goodness of the soil, the close neighbourhood upon it, the easy access of strangers by sea, the four great families of Mac Do * Of whom see the Fourth Volume of these "Illustrations," p. 799. nald, Mac Leod, Mac Kinnon, and Rasay, could not miss of polishing the inhabitants into the manners of the rest of the nation; so that they must have sooner disregarded the amusement of having these poems commonly recited in their hearing, than those who had not leisure from business; there is less satisfaction therefore, to be had here concerning them, than in the other parts of the Highlands. We are, notwithstanding, universally agreed as to the authenticity of Ossian's Works. Our fathers gave us an account of those who could repeat most of them in their time; and many of us learned some small fragments of them, when we were children, some of which make a part of Mr. Macpherson's publication; and of the greater part there are no traces to be found in it. I shall at present give you what satisfaction I can from my own observation, having had no time to consult others since I was favoured with your letter. The Episode of Fainasolis beginning at the forty-fifth page of Mr. Macpherson's book is the first that I had any acquaintance with in the original; which I compared very early with the translation; in some parts there were strong lines of resemblance, and just propriety; in others considerable variations. In all these, I give my word, the original hath the advantage by great odds, I will give you an instance of a chasm which must have been in the copy made use of by the elegant Translator, though the Poet summons up every image to set off the astonishing beauty of the fair maid, "Cha raibh suim aig neach do mhnaoi Dheth mnaoi se Fein, ach dheth 'n inghean," is entirely lost, though the most emphatical of any thing that could be said: i. e. not one of the Fingalians regarded his own wife but the maid; a bad guest she would have been into any assembly of Judges, Clergy, or even Warriors, were she to hurry them all into a neglect of their old female friends. The Episode of Ossian's address to Everallin, in the forty-ninth page, is the next fragment I knew any thing of; and there I affirm Mr. Macpherson to have been a most faithful Translator, though my prejudices are still in favour of the original. I could once have repeated the choice made by the Fingalian Heroes, of Lochlin's Princes in the field, as you have it in the 58th page. The general Translation I take to be very just, though the proper names of men and places are much diversified; and here I shall take occasion, as I shall never perhaps have another, to make a remark on Inistore (Orkney), which should certainly have been called Inistork: Eiis or Hei, or I, as Inis or Inch, is an Island, and Ork, or Tork, is a Boar, or Whale, i. e. the Isle of Whales; one of the Western Isles is thus called by Buchanan, though a little improperly, Insula Porcorum instead of Insula Catarum ; and much earlier, Homer gives Lacædemon, the country he means, and not the town, the epithet of Knтwooav. Iliad, B. v. 88. If I do not mistake it, I met with the description of the wrestling bout at the foot of the 62nd page, improperly patched up with the rehearsal of another Poem, where every word tallies with the translation, if I except the omission of the disputants raising up springwells with their heels; very probably for saving the marvellous shock of such uncommon throws and boundings. Fingal's message, by his daughter, to Erragon in the 115th page, I have often heard rehearsed, and though there are some differences from the Translation, I must still prevail with myself to give the preference to the original in point of spirit, harmony, and expression. I can say nothing, at present, with precision, about the distress of the sons of Usnoth, recorded in the 158th page; though I had it more than once repeated to me as I was falling asleep; nor can I affirm any thing about the faithfulness of the Translation in the intercourse of Cairbar and Oscar, in the 179th page. I have been frequently amused with the repetition of it in the original. In short, there is a great deal of honour done to Mr. Macpherson's genius, though not so much to his honesty, by those who suspect his Work to be a forgery; for I will venture to say that no other man in Europe is capable of giving such an antique cast to so long a work, and fitted out with such arguments of credibility as to the subject, and the era; and had you been acquainted with the Gallic language, you had subjoined to the rest, in your most elegant Dissertation, another argument for the antiquity of this admirable Work, derived from its being conceived altogether in blank-verse; for, with the single exception of Ossian's Works, there is nothing of the poetical kind known amongst us but what is conceived in rhyme; songs, epigrams, and roundeaux; for we have no other, which must throw them back to a period beyond the incursions of the Goths and Vandals amongst us, or, at least, beyond the time of their servile imitators in poetry, the monks and priests of the 10th and 11th century; and I believe it is more than 200 years ago since Barbar, Author of the Metrical History of Robert the Bruce, said that no such works had been performed since the days of Fingal and Goulmacmorni. Here is at the same time a good authority for the propriety of our Hero's name; and for what was then thought the illustrious atchievements of our countryman starting into the Writer's imagination as a known fact in his day. "I shall presume to cast before you a literal translation of a couplet of Ossian's Works, by which you will see the indistinct notion he had of a Divinity, and that he must have lived before we had much knowledge of Christianity in the country. His favourite Culdee, it seems, would have had Fingal confined to some soth, some dungeon, of the Almighty's making, to be punished for what blood he had shed among the living. Ossian answered thus, ' Had life remained to Carril and to Gaul; to the brown-haired Dermaid, and to my beloved Oscar, your God could never raise a fabric that would keep the noble Fingal in durance;' what a poor vein of Religion is here. In another address ta the same Culdee, he says, Small is thy stock of prudence, wilt thou not hear the songs of the Fingalians with whom thou hast never been acquainted.' To which the Culdee answered, 'Thou renowned son of Fingal, though these songs sound sweet in thine ear, the sound of psalms from off my tongue, is my most charming music.' 'Do I hear you compare your psalms,' said Ossian to Fingal, 'of the naked blades Culdee (Keledei, i. e. a servant of God) thine head shall soon be chopped off thy shoulders and thy body remain in rest, &c.' The Culdee puts himself under the protection of Ossian, who then relates the heroic tale. It is unnecessary to observe that the word Psalm might then have been introduced into common use, by the Christian refugees in this country. "I have given you, Sir, too much trouble to little purpose; but, if you please, I shall further enquire on the main land, where Mr. Mackensie, of Applecross, (whose grandfather stood once possessed of a very full manuscript,) assures me there is a great deal to be found, and, from that source, the greatest part of what we know has issued forth; and the most learned in Ossian's Works amongst us, and my particular acquaintance, is on an expedition to Aberdeen. When you are weary of reading, cast away the paper, and I am, however, with all the esteem that is due to an uncommon degree of merit, Reverend Doctor, "Yours, affectionately, DONALD MAC QUEEN. "P. S. Permit me to lay before you a description of the weapons fabricated by Luno the son of L...., the Scandinavian smith. The well tempered, the blue coloured, and the shade, were the blades of the sons of the craft; the elbow blade was Dermid's which hashed the ghastly wound; the wounding steel was Oscar's, which razed the human frame; the son of Luno was Fingal's, who of lovely flesh left no remains and mine was the carcase-cutter, whose thunder was loud in the strife. By the air of solemnity and majesty which these songs wear in the original they appear to be the work of a more poetical age than the present; there are many obsolete words which are understood as soon as pronounced; many epithets newly composed, as it were, of two words; many adjectives cast into substantives, and the sound all along, echoes to the meaning of the sentences, which are beauties not easily preserved in a Translation; and let me assure you that the whole is very intelligible to a Highland ear, being the Scotch Gallic, and bearing little resemblance to the present Irish dialect. There are many antique words in this composition which fix it to an early period of society, of which I shall give you but two examples: 1st. the Skiff in which Fainasolis (in the above mentioned Episode) comes to land is called Currach, which means a wicker hull covered with hides: the Caruuca of the monkish writers, is derived from this Gallic word; and, if tradition speaks truth, in such a boat came Co lumba to his well-known Isle. When the harbour is called Port an churrich, this word carries the era of the poem beyond the invention of carpenter's work; in the same manner that the Cymbo Sutilis of Virgil, is characteristic of the distant age in which Charon was boat-man on the Nile. The other word is Trod; by which we mean at present a scolding bout, but in the Works of Ossian it is the strife of swords; from which I conclude that the poem was composed when every dispute was determined by blows; and before society was polished into the more civil method of giving vent to their resentments by scolding. Upon the whole you may rest satisfied that a Highlander, of taste, will distinguish Ossian from a modern composer, as well as a critic of a middling size will ascribe a fragment of old Ennius, and the animated vagula blandula of Hadrian, to different ages. Yours sincerely, DONALD MAC QUEEN." The Rev. THEOPHILUS LINDSEY, M. A. was of St. John's College, Cambridge; B. A. 1744; M. A. 1748. Of this learned and unassuming Divine, who died Nov. 3, 1808, at the advanced age of 85, some interesting traits may be seen in the "Literary Anecdotes *." A Life of him has been published by Mr. Belsham; and a brief but satisfactory Memoir, by Mr. Chalmers, in the Biographical Dictionary. * See the several passages referred to in vol. VII. pp. 232.615. + His character was thus briefly, but affectionately, delineated by a Friend in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. LXXVIII. p. 1044: "To mention his name is to celebrate his virtues, so generally have they been known and respected. Even those whose Religious Creed differed most from his, have acknowledged his integrity. But such only as enjoyed the inestimable privilege of his intimacy and friendship, can fully appreciate how excellent he was; they can testify how truly was exemplified in the whole of his life and conversation, the power of that Gospel which, from his youth upward, he ardently loved, and which he professed in its genuine simplicity, to purify the heart and ennoble the character. Although he might have risen to the first stations within the pale of the Church, under the powerful patronage of the families of Huntingdon and Northumberland, with whom he was very early connected, yet neither their splendid prospects, nor what was much nearer to his heart, the tears of a people to whom he was justly endeared, could tempt him to violate the dictates of conscience. On resigning the living of Catterick in the county of York, in 1773, he went to London without the |