focs fly before them, that fathers rejoice in their sons. But give me that broken shield: those feathers, that are rolled in the wind, place them near to Fillan, that less of his fame may fall. Lay me in that hollow rock. Raise no stone above me, lest one should ask about my fame. I am fallen in the first of my fields, fallen without renown.' And thus would have spoken a Scandinavian, a Caledonian, and an Hibernian. Nor is it different from the eagerness with which Thetis, the mother of Achilles, is described as flying to Vulcan for arms, that the death of Patroclus might be revenged.

The scene of most of Ossian's poems is laid in Scotland, or on the coast of Ireland; but whether it be in the one or the other, we perceive no change of manners. They each exhibit exactly the same character; and such is at the same time that of the Scandinavian. Did not an equal similarity prevail among the Greeks and the Trojans? Do not we see, it was also the Scottish custom as well as the Grecian, to exchange arms with their guests; and that those arms were preserved long in the different families, as monuments of the friendship which subsisted between their ancestors?

Men

* Ossian

A

Men of extraordinary talents, however, and of uncommon learning, have looked at the Caledonian story, through different mediums. Most indeed, of later days, and natives of that part of Britain, have, pardonably perhaps, leaned to a system, which gives them a high degree of antiquity, and a reputation, whatever be their ge nealogy, which certainly they eminently deserve. But let me be pardoned for asking, of what advantage to their national fame can fanciful interpretations be, when in opposition to historical evidence? Or is arbitrary and bold assertion to banish every species of tradition, and every fact in annals, looked upon for ages as sanctioned by the suffrage of antiquity? As Celts, the Scots are as old as the oldest people of Europe; and that is enough, one would think, for family pretension. But is it seriously to be believed, that the most northern and ungenial part of Britain should spontaneously have shot into perfection, while the more southern and commercial were centuries, even after their first connection with the Phoenicians, before they could rub off the rust of their native barbarity? The whole compass of the earth, as we have had repeatedly occasion to observe, has had its dark, previous to its enlightened side; and the dawn of im

provement,

provement has always proceeded from foreign intercourse and colonization.

"Ancient historians," says Whitaker, "speak of Ireland as the mother of the Scots; and Caledonia as the parent of the Picts. But this the Scots disdain to admit. From a littleness of soul, they violently oppose the current of history; the Ireland of the Romans is to be interpreted into the present Scotland; and the Scotch are to be made the Aborigines of Caledonia." This is severe language. No prejudices which merely turn upon questions of antiquity, and after all, are perhaps unfairly supposed, can deserve fulminating anathemas. Nothing injures even a good cause so much, as the assumption of infallibility in points wherein the best and wisest have disagreed. It is too dictatorial for a genius as respectable even as Mr. Whitaker's, to look down with the insolent superiority of contemptuous pity, on those who have been led into opposite conclusions. That argument he well knows, is always liable to the greatest suspicion, which is obtruded with dogmatical sufficiency and petulance.

"Were it certain, or even highly probable," says Dr. Macpherson, that the British Scots,

owe their name and existence to the ancient Irish, it is difficult to say, why they should be ashamed of their origin. The Germans, SouthBritons, and Caledonians, were, before the birth of Christ, nations nearly of the same character with the Hibernians, equally illiterate, equally unpolished, and equally barbarous. Nor was it until the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries that religion and learning flourished to such a degree in Ireland, that it was then commonly stiled the mother country of saints, and reputed the kingdom of arts and sciences. The Saxons and Angles sent thither many of their princes, to have the benefit of a pious and liberal education. It ought likewise to be acknowledged, that some of the most eininent teachers of North Britain received their instruction at the Irish seminaries of literature and religion." *

No candour, certainly, can be more strongly marked than this. The reverend author was willing to subscribe to what was advanced in the legendary tales, or history of the Irish, provided his reason could be convinced he was right in so doing. But this was not the case; and he of course wedded himself to another hypothesis. The elegant translator of Ossian likewise says,

Dr. Macpherson.

in

in collateral proof, that the dialect of the Celtic tongue, spoken in the north of Scotland, is much more pure, more agreeable to its mother language, and more abounding with primitives, than that now spoken, or even than that which has been written for some centuries back, among the most unmixed of the Irish nation. " A Scotchman," says he, "tolerably conversant in his own language, understands an Irish composition, from that derivative analogy, which it has to the Galic of North Britain. An Irishman, on the other hand, without the aid of study, can never understand a composition in the Galic tongue. This affords a proof, that the Scotch Galic is the most original, and consequently the language of a more ancient and unmixed people.

From two such authorities, it would certainly be presumption in me to dissent, were I upheld alone by my own judgment. But much auxiliary assistance is at hand; and to that I must apply for the elucidation, if not for the stability, of the system which appears to me to be best supported by argument. At the period of research and improvement, indeed, at which history is now arrived, it is impossible to make any observations, which may not have been touched

upon