MACPHERSON’S OSSIAN.
“That is what I always maintained. He has found names, and stories,
and phrases, nay passages in old songs, and with them has blended
his own compositions, and so made what he gives to the world as the
translation of an ancient poem.”—SAMUEL JOHNSON.
Few questions have more deeply disturbed the equanimity of the
literary world than the age and authorship of the “Poems of Ossian.”
The national antagonism and prejudices of three kingdoms were roused
over the name of the poor old bard, when his reputed works first
appeared nearly one hundred and thirty years ago. A controversy of
exceeding keenness ensued; it has not ended yet; and we may well
question whether it will ever be satisfactorily settled. It is
proposed here to give the history of the poems and annex the opinions
of all those entitled to be heard on the question of authorship.
THE OSSIANIC QUESTION.
1. _Sketch of the “Poems of Ossian._”—In the year 1759 James
Macpherson was tutor in the family of Graham of Balgowan, at Moffat.
There he met John Home, the author of “Douglas.” Home was told by
Professor Adam Fergusson, a Gaelic-speaking Highlander, that some
remains of ancient Gaelic poetry existed; and getting translations
of specimens from Macpherson, a native of Badenoch, he showed them
to Drs Blair, Fergusson, and Robertson, by whom they were highly
appreciated. Importuned by them, he translated all he had, and
published in 1760 “Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the
Highlands of Scotland.”
The friends already mentioned wished to secure all other relics that
could be found in the Highlands; and the tutor, then a divinity
student, was provided with funds, and undertook his famous journey
through the Highlands, where he received MSS., and took down poetry
from the recitation of old people. He was first accompanied by
Lachlan Macpherson of Strathmashie, a gentleman and a scholar, and
also a bard himself, for some time on his tour; he was also joined
latterly by Captain Alexander Morrison, who subsequently assisted
him. He returned to Badenoch, and remained there till January,
1761, preparing his materials for the next publication, assisted by
Macpherson and Morrison. Two Perthshire clergymen were also near
him—the Revs. Mr Gallie and James MacLagan, the latter no mean poet
himself. By these also he was assisted, and he kept correspondence
with them.
In 1762 appeared in London, “Fingal,” an epic in six books, along
with other sixteen poems.
Next year appeared “Temora,” in eight books, and five other poems. “A
specimen of the original of ‘Temora,’” the seventh book in Gaelic,
was also published in this volume.
These _epics_ kindled scepticism in many minds; and the “translator,”
smarting under imputations of forgery, as well as filled with vanity
at being thought the author of the poems, indulged himself in sullen
silence.
2. _Dr Johnson._—The great king who reigned in literary matters
in those days was Samuel Johnson, a very worthy man, but full of
obstinate prejudices against everything Scotch and Highland. He
undertook a journey to the Hebrides purposely to investigate into
the Ossianic question; but he came with the absolute belief that
Gaelic was never written, and no poems of any consequence existed in
that language. Boswell’s journal:—“Dr Johnson proceeded—‘I look upon
Macpherson’s “Fingal” to be as gross an imposition as ever the world
was troubled with. Had it been really an ancient work ... it would be
a curiosity of the first rate.’...
“When Dr Johnson came down, I told him ... that Mr MacQueen repeated
a passage in the original Erse, which Mr Macpherson’s translation was
pretty like; and reminded him that he himself once said he did not
require Mr Macpherson’s ‘Ossian’ to be more like the original than
Pope’s ‘Homer.’
“Johnson—‘Well, sir, that is just what I always maintained. He has
found names, and stories, and phrases, nay, passages in old songs,
and with them has blended his own compositions, and so made what he
gives to the world as the translation of an ancient poem.’ So also
thought Laing in his famous and elaborate essay; as well as thousands
of others who accepted the dicta of these writers.”
3. _The Highland Society’s Report_, got up with great candour,
and after much inquiry and research, and with the testimonies of
noblemen, gentlemen, and clergymen, bearing on the question, from all
parts of the Highlands, appeared in 1806. It was prepared by Henry
Mackenzie, the author of “The Man of Feeling.” The result arrived at
was:—
1st, That the characters of Macpherson’s poem were not invented, but
were subjects of Highland tradition; and that poems certainly existed
which might be called Ossianic.
2d, That such poems had been handed down from an unknown period by
oral recitation, and that many Highlanders could still repeat them.
3d, That such poems had been written, and some were to be found in
MSS.
4th, That Macpherson used many such poems in his work by joining
separated pieces together, and that, by adding connective narratives
of his own, he had woven them into larger poems and the so-called
epics. No materials were found, however, to show the extent of this
process and the amount of genuine matter the poems as published by
Macpherson contained.
4. _The Gaelic Ossian_ was published in 1807, accompanied with
Macfarlane’s Latin version and Mac Arthur’s dissertation. It came
through the hands of Macphersons’s executors, assisted by Dr Thomas
Ross, of Lochbroom. Money was collected in the East Indies by
military gentlemen to defray the expense of publication, and before
Macpherson died in 1796 he had the copy ready for the press; but no
traces were to be found of any ancient MSS. which he might have used
in preparing his copy, if he ever had any such MSS. that he used.
There is nothing exceptionally ancient about the text of 1807.
5. _New State of the Question._—Highlanders, with very few
exceptions, if any, on its appearance accepted the Gaelic text of
1807 as the genuine originals from which Macpherson translated, and
which they regarded as composed by Ossian in the third century. But
the views of Johnson and Laing were still subscribed to by the great
majority of English-speaking people.
6. _Macgregor’s “Genuine Remains.”_—Patrick Macgregor, M.A.,
barrister, published in 1841 the genuine remains of “Ossian” in
an English rhythmical translation not much inferior to Dr Clerk’s
with a very well-written historical introduction maintaining the
authenticity of the Gaelic Ossian.
7. _Irish Writers_ were all along jealous of the attention which
Macpherson’s translations secured for Gaelic poetry in Scotland.
Societies and individuals determined not to be behind Scotland in
supplying the public with ancient Ossianic poems. The _Ossianic
Society_ especially published five volumes of tales, and poems, and
translations; Macpherson was charged with stealing the substance of
his poems from Ireland; and at the same time the arguments of Johnson
and Laing were reiterated; while the most of what they themselves
published as ancient was not more than a century or two old. The
Irish could neither manufacture nor lay their hands on epics like
those of James Macpherson, so Dr Drummond, Edward O’Reilly, &c.,
charged Macpherson with _fabricating_ the poems, when they found
they could not prove that he stole them from Ireland. Ireland has
extensive Celtic literature; much of it ancient too; but it can show
nothing like Macpherson’s productions.
8. _Dr W. F. Skene._—This Celtic scholar says:—“A review of all
the circumstances which have been allowed to transpire regarding
the proceedings of James Macpherson seems rather to lead to the
conclusion that the Gaelic version, in the shape in which it was
afterwards published, had been prepared in Badenoch, during the
months Macpherson passed there, after his return from his Highland
tour, with the assistance of Lachlan Macpherson of Strathmashie,
and Captain Morrison, and that the English translation was made
from it by Macpherson in the same manner in which he had translated
the fragments.” The following facts appear to favour Dr Skene’s
conclusion:—After Lachlan Macpherson’s death, a paper was found in
his repositories containing the Gaelic of the seventh book of Temora,
in his handwriting, with many corrections and alterations, and thus
described—“First rude draft of the seventh book of Temora.”
Mr Gallie sent to the Highland Society a part of the Gaelic of
Fingal, which afterwards appeared as part of the Gaelic version. He
had taken it from a MS. he had recovered, written by a friend, “who
was at that time with Mr Macpherson and me—a gentleman well known for
an uncommon acquaintance with the Gaelic, and a happy facility in
writing it in Roman characters.” Pressed to tell who this friend was,
he says:—“His name was Lachlan Macpherson, of Strathmashy. He died in
1767.” Dr Skene says:—“This Gaelic version seems, therefore, to have
been put together before 1767; and if before 1762, it will account
for the original of the seventh book of Temora having been published
in that year, and also for an advertisement which appeared soon after
the publication of the second quarto, that the originals were lying
at the publisher’s, and would be published if a sufficient number of
subscribers came forward; but as few subscribers appeared, and fewer
came to look at them, they were withdrawn.”
The view of Dr Skene was scarcely maintained hitherto by any Scottish
Gaelic scholar. Shaw in 1788 echoed Johnson’s sentiments. He began
to read through Macpherson; and was held immediately to scorn by the
Gaelic literati.
9. _The Late Rev. Thomas Pattison_, author of “The Gaelic Bards”
(1866), and a man highly capable of forming judgment on the question,
says, “When we consider that the finest parts of Macpherson’s Ossian
are incontestably proved to have been popular poetry long anterior
to his appearing, I think we should throw all prejudice aside, and
affirm that whoever composed the poems attributed to Ossian, James
Macpherson was not the man; and that whatever merit may belong to
him as a translator, or whatever claim he may have to be considered
their compiler in their present form, he has no legitimate title
to be called their author. They are substantially older than he,
probably by many centuries.” Pattison, like many others before him,
dwells on Macpherson’s inferior Gaelic scholarship; but the facts
do not warrant the conclusion drawn, that Macpherson was incapable
of writing the Gaelic Ossian. Macpherson was a man of genius, and
quite able to deliver himself in Gaelic as good and classical as many
scholars that lived then or since.
10. _John F. Campbell, Esq._—The most formidable opponent of the
authenticity of Macpherson’s Ossian recently is Mr Campbell of Islay.
His earlier views, as expressed in the Highland Tales, were those
of Gaelic-speaking Highlanders in general. But the longer he dwelt
among the genuine old ballads found in manuscripts and in collections
taken down from the oral recitation of Highlanders who lived before
Macpherson’s time, the more confirmed he became in his growing
conviction that Macpherson was both translator and author, and that
the English was first composed. “My opinion now,” he says, “is that
Macpherson’s translation was first composed by a great genius, partly
from a knowledge of Scotch nature and folk-lore, partly from ideas
gathered from books, and that he and other translators afterwards
worked at it, and made a Gaelic equivalent whose merit varies
according to the translator’s skill and knowledge of Gaelic. It is
said that an early copy of the 7th book of Temora, with corrections
in Strathmashie’s hand, was found after his death. I suppose that he
revised a Gaelic translation by Macpherson, or by some other. His
own Gaelic songs are idiomatic, whereas the 7th book of Temora is
Saxon Gaelic in general, and nonsense in many passages. The English
equivalent is like the rest of Macpherson’s work. In either case,
because of matter, manner, orthography, and language, Macpherson’s
English and Gaelic Ossian, must have been composed long after Dean
MacGregor collected his book in Macpherson’s country, near his
district, and in Morven.” This is the opinion of a Gaelic-speaking
gentleman thoroughly conversant with the facts of the case, and
eminently qualified to maintain his side of the question.
11. _Mr Hector MacLean_, Mr Campbell’s clever co-adjutor in much of
his work, takes a similar view. He says—“The so-called Gaelic Ossian
of Macpherson exhibits all the symptoms of being a translation from
English. Anglicisms abound everywhere; the structure of the verse is
fully as much akin to English as to Gaelic poetry. It is deficient in
all the good qualities of style, strength, clearness, and propriety.
The versification is exceedingly rugged and irregular; alliteration,
so characteristic of Celtic poetry, is generally deficient, and
frequently entirely wanting; the sentiment is usually morbid and
vapid; and in fact the so-called original Gaelic Ossian is almost
in every respect inferior to the so-called English translation.”
MacLean at the same time speaks of the ballads in Campbell’s _Leabhar
na Féinne_ as “characterised by purity of language, vigour of
expression, and smoothness of versification.” MacLean’s thorough
knowledge of Gaelic as well as his English culture and philological
attainments entitle him to be heard.
12. _Rev. Dr Archibald Clerk._—The dissertation prefixed to the
magnificent edition of Ossian, Gaelic and English, published in 1871,
at the expense of the Marquis of Bute, and edited with a new literal
translation into English by Dr Clerk, of Kilmallie, should be read
by all who wish to know the history of the Ossianic controversy. Dr
Clerk was an accomplished Gaelic scholar—a man of culture and sound
judgment. He ably and warmly maintains that Macpherson was only a
translator. In him his opponents find a writer thoroughly qualified,
by his literary, scholarly, and philological attainments, to deal
with this vexed question. When he and Mr Campbell fail to agree,
it is very difficult for others less conversant with the facts of
the case to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. While Dr Clerk
was patriotically engaged on his splendid new edition of Ossian, Mr
Hector MacLean was regretting “that those who know Gaelic as their
vernacular should be so far duped as to spend their time translating
into English what is really nothing else than an inferior and
incorrect translation from that language.”
13. _The Rev. Dr Hately Waddell._—“Ossian and the Clyde” is the
title of a large, and elaborate, and ingenious work by Dr Waddell.
He holds that “Ossian” is historical and authentic; and he supports
this position by a three-fold argument—geological, geographical and
etymological, and traditional. The work is learned and eloquent; and
the author pursues his argument with much minuteness and research. He
believes in Ossian by instinct, just as many of his opponents have
rejected the same by instinct. He holds that Macpherson is merely
editor and translator; and that he has used no liberties with his
text beyond what an editor and translator is entitled to use. He,
however, labours under the disadvantage of not knowing the Gaelic
language, although this difficulty is much minimised by the help of
Dr Clerk’s literal translation and notes. Part of his arguments is
certainly new and original; and the book deserves perusal on the part
of the student of the Ossianic controversy.
14. _Dr August Ebrard._—This distinguished German divine and writer,
whom Professor Blackie describes as an “impartial spectator” and
a “well-trained German scholar,” has written an article on this
question in which, after giving a historical sketch, he indicates his
arguments in favour of the authenticity of Macpherson’s Ossian. He
says, “in Ossian’s poems there is presented to us the subject-matter
of Observations and thoughts, just such as would have occurred to the
remembrance of one who had taken part in these battles. And whoever
may have cast this material into its present form it is certain that
he has left the substance thus unaltered. And why should this not
actually have proceeded from this Ossian—prince, warrior, and poet?
We know that in old times it was the common custom of the Celtic
tribes that the bards should accompany the army to battle, and that
every warlike and heroic deed should straightway be celebrated in
more or less detailed song. Undoubtedly this would happen with the
numerous warlike deeds of King Finnghal. How intelligible it must,
then, appear, that after the death of Finnghal and the ruin of his
kingdom, the king’s son, Ossian, who had fled to the Hebrides,
and who was now a blind old man, should have collected into such
complex epics as “Carthonn,” “Finnghal,” and “Timora,” the songs
which had been sung, partly by himself and partly by friendly bards
(as Carul and Ulin). How intelligible that these poems, noble in
themselves, as well as being reminiscences of former magnificence,
should have been preserved with a fond tenacity, and transmitted
from generation to generation in the usual manner, by learning by
heart, in the centuries (300-900) when the Caledonian nation was so
heavily oppressed by the Nordmen, Picts, Britons, and Anglo-Saxons.”
He further says:—“And thus all the linguistic phenomena are forthwith
explained.” Dr Ebrard is well known as the author of a work on the
early Celtic Church, and by his Gaelic grammar.
15. _Professor John Stuart Blackie._—In presenting the views of
those entitled to be heard on this question it only remains now
to give the conclusions arrived at by Professor Blackie, who is
acquainted with Gaelic and thoroughly familiar with all the facts.
He holds that the question has never yet been examined in a strictly
philological fashion. After going through the whole of the originals
recently he holds, in opposition to Mr Campbell, that the Gaelic is
unquestionably the original. He brings forward five tests by which a
translator’s hand is clearly discoverable:—
(1.) In the English version, awkward, forced, and unidiomatic
expressions frequently occur, which can be clearly traced to the
influence of a Gaelic original.
(2.) In all poems of any antiquity handed down in manuscripts
difficulties will occur, arising from obsolete words, errors in
transcription, confused connection, and other causes. In such cases
it is a common practice with translators to skip the difficulty,
gloss over the matter with some decent commonplace, and sometimes to
make positive blunders, which it is not difficult for a philologer
to expose. All these signs of a translator’s hand are frequent in
Macpherson’s English, and would be more so had he not indulged in
such a habit of skipping generally, that it is difficult to say in
certain cases decidedly that the skip was made because the writer of
the English wished to shirk a difficulty.
(3.) It is a common practice with translators, when they find a
passage a little obscure, to remove the obscurity by some manifest
alteration of the phrase, or even by interpolating a line or
interlarding a commentary. This also occurs in Macpherson.
(4.) It is not always that a translator writes under the same vivid
vision, or the same fervid inspiration as the original poet. The
instance of failure to seize the most striking features of the
original, and the substitution of generic for specific epithets are
frequent in Macpherson.
(5.) Most translators yield—sometimes, no doubt, wisely—to the
temptation of improving on their originals, and Macpherson, from what
we know of him, was the last man in the world to think of resisting
such a temptation. How much of the Gaelic as we now have it—that is,
his clean copy of his own originals—was subjected to this process of
beautification no one can tell, but departures from the simplicity of
the original can be traced in several instances.
He thinks that the English, as a whole, is a translation from the
Gaelic, and not a translation of the best quality in many respects,
and that this may be accepted as one of the best ascertained facts
in the range of philological investigation. Philological induction,
combined with the amount of external evidence to be found in the
Highland Society’s report, produce a cumulative proof which he is
most anxious to see how Mr Campbell can rebut. Principal Shairp
thinks that Professor Blackie has hit upon the true solution of this
controversy.
16. _Mr Archibald MacNeill, W.S._, with his brothers Lord Colonsay
and Sir John MacNeill, who were all familiar with the Gaelic
language, firmly believed that the Gaelic text of Macpherson belonged
to the early centuries of the Christian era. Mr MacNeill published
his views in a small volume in which legal acumen is brought to
bear on the question, and which concludes as follows: “At what date
Ossian lived we do not pretend to determine; but this, at least, is
sufficiently clear, that the Gaelic Ossian was not the production of
Macpherson or any author of modern times, but must be referred to
a period of remote antiquity. It further appears from the internal
evidence of these poems, that they refer to a period prior to the
diffusion of Christianity and the era of clanship.” Of course
Macpherson was clever enough, granting he elected to do so, to give a
complexion of antiquity to his compositions.
17. My own opinion of the question I embody in the following
propositions. I began the study of Macpherson’s Ossian some twelve
years ago, and exercised myself then in translating many portions of
it, so I am fairly familiar with it.
I believe—
(1.) That the English is a translation from Gaelic, probably from a
ruder version than that published in 1807.
(2.) That Macpherson is neither absolutely the author, nor merely the
translator, of the poems connected with his name.
(3.) That he formed his original Gaelic by joining and recasting old
ballads, that he connected these ballads by paragraphs of his own
composition, and that the newly-written recast matter constitutes
the chief parts of the epics which he had thus formed, but in which,
however, the spirit of the old productions still survives.
(4.) That the Gaelic is far more elaborate than the English, is
subtler in conception, less concrete in expression, and has been
likely, before the text was finally published, the subject of many
alterations and improvements.
(5.) That on the whole the language of the text of 1807 is not, as
some allege, essentially different from that of the ballads that are
known to be genuine.
(6.) That the metre of the Gaelic text is not more irregular than
that of these same ballads, the chief difference being that while
the latter are mostly made up of either trochees or iambs the former
frequently mixes anapaests with trochees or iambs.
The Highland Society’s report, in a general way points to similar
conclusions. The process adopted by Macpherson was early described
by Dr Smith (1780) who is supposed to have dealt with ballads in
Macphersonic fashion:—“Mr Macpherson compiled his publication from
those parts of the Highland songs which he most approved, combining
them into such forms as, according to his ideas, were most excellent,
retaining the old names and leading events.” This is what Dr Smith
himself honestly did in his _Sean Dana_; and it is rather surprising,
after Dr Smith’s description of the process adopted by himself, and
probably also by Macpherson, that any intelligent persons, whether
Highland or otherwise, should insist on the absolute originality of
every line in the texts of both Smith and Macpherson. I believe no
conscientious dishonesty was intended by either, especially by Smith.
They were both influenced by the loose views of editorial functions
prevalent in their day. The question of what was Macpherson’s ideal
of editorial functions lay ignored all along at the root of the
Ossianic controversy. A seriously mistaken and uncritical view it
was; but he thought he was doing what would be for the credit of his
native country.
When the writer arrived at the conclusions just indicated, ten years
ago, he was not so clear as to the process by which Macpherson
wrought the Gaelic and English Ossians into their present forms.
Since then, in 1883, he entered more minutely into the question in
a paper read before the Gaelic Society of London and the conclusion
forced upon his mind, as the result chiefly of comparisons between
the various versions of the Gaelic fragments which were found
in mysterious circulation in Macpherson’s lifetime, was that the
Gaelic Ossian, like the English equivalent, was a production of the
last century, and that James Macpherson was the author as well as
translator of these celebrated compositions of the Gaelic muse. Dr
Macdonald, M.P., President of the Gaelic Society, and other expert
Gaelic scholars present, while reluctant to accept the conclusions
of the paper, did not seriously attempt to dispute them; while Mr
Macdonald Cameron, M.P., regarded the arguments brought forward as
clearly decisive on the question. Since then Mr Macbain of Inverness
ably discussed the poems from other standpoints, and has informed
the writer that the late Dr Cameron of Brodick adopted similar
views. The great Ossianic question may now be regarded as settled.
What was needed all along to settle it was sufficient knowledge,
culture, judgment, and honesty on the part of men familiar with the
Gaelic language. Such men have appeared since the publication of Dr
Clerk’s Ossian, the first note being sounded by Mr J. F. Campbell in
his celebrated review of Clerk’s work in _The Times_. Mr H. Maclean
adopted the same views; and the writer, in 1883, on independent and
other grounds was forced to take up the same position. Dr Cameron and
Mr Macbain, representing the midland and northern Highlands, having
now concurred, the students of the Gaelic language north and south
unite thus in regarding Macpherson’s Gaelic Ossian as compositions
of the last century. These compositions are great original works,
and ought to be thus described. Their spirit is ancient and Celtic,
though their form is modern. They, James Macpherson their author,
and Gaelic literature stand in the same relation to one another that
we find illustrated in the case of the “Idyls of the King,” Alfred
Tennyson, and Cymric literature. The only difference is that Tennyson
has not given us the “Idyls” in Welsh as well as in English, and
that Macpherson’s English version is in prose instead of being in
blank verse. As long as Gaelic scholars of undoubted respectability
believed otherwise, it was difficult for outsiders like the Blackies,
Ebrards, and Waddells, who discussed the question, to be certain
of their conclusions; but henceforth it will be inexcusable in any
man of letters to argue for the old views, as Mr George Eyre-Todd
does in an introduction to the “Poems of Ossian,” published in the
_Canterbury Poets_ series (1888) without taking any cognisance of the
latest deliverances of those most entitled to express an opinion.
For a long time the controversy regarding the poems of Ossian
had only the English version for its critical basis; so it was
unreasonable then to expect a satisfactory solution of the vexed
question of authorship. Those who knew the language could only guess
at the originals; and those who did not know it had to be satisfied
with all they could make of the English. Both parties occupied a
position critically absurd. The one side ignorant of the language
could not presume to pronounce whether the poems were or were not a
translation; and the other had not yet the materials for judgment
before them. But now in the year 1807 appeared the long looked-for
and much discussed Gaelic originals of the Ossianic translations
published some forty years previously. The following is the
title-page in full:—“The Poems of Ossian, in the Original Gaelic,
with a literal translation into Latin, by the late Robert Macfarlane,
A.M., together with a Dissertation on the Authenticity of the Poems
by Sir John Sinclair, Bart., and a translation from the Italian of
the Abbe Cessarotti’s Dissertation on the Controversy respecting the
Authenticity of Ossian, with Notes and a Supplementary Essay, by John
McArthur, LL.D., published under the sanction of the Highland Society
of London. _Magna est veritas et praevalebit._ Vol. I. _London._
[Printers and Publishers’ names], 1807, pp. ccxxxii., 278.
“—— —— —— Vol. II.,” pp. 390.
“—— —— —— Vol. III.,” pp. 576.
“Dana Oisen Mhic Fhinn, air an cur amach air son maith coitcheanta
muinntir na Gaeltachd. Duneidin; clo-bhuailte le Tearlach Stiubhart.
1818.” 8vo., pp. 344.
This last is a copy of the Gaelic text contained in Sir John
Sinclair’s magnificent edition of Ossian. It was printed at the
expense of Sir J. Macgregor Murray and other gentlemen that it might
be distributed among the Highlanders to cultivate and to preserve
their old chivalrous spirit. There was a copy sent for the use of
every parish school in the Highlands. These copies were addressed
to the care of the parish ministers, in whose hands they generally
remained. One thing is certain, they never reached nor became known
amongst the people in the manner in which other books circulated
amongst them.
Here were the Gaelic originals of Ossian at last; and certainly
there was no great reason to regret the delay in their appearance,
when they were now presented in so splendid a dress. Surely now all
controversy about them should cease for ever. All Gaelic-speaking
Highlanders thought so then; and there are many who think similarly
still.
This text was not exactly as it came from Macpherson’s hands,
who died while preparing it for the press. A standard of Celtic
orthography was then in course of formation; and John Mackenzie,
Esq., of London, one of Macpherson’s executors, engaged the Rev. Dr
Thomas Ross to write out with him the text of Ossian in the style
adopted by the excellent translators of the Gaelic Bible. Dr Ross,
although well acquainted with the language, was not the most accurate
scholar of his day. So until Clerk’s “Ossian” appeared in 1870 there
was no fairly correct and scholarly text of these poems. Had the text
come from Macpherson’s own hands, the orthography would probably
have been very different. Macpherson enjoyed neither the time nor
the practice in writing the language to enable him to write either
consistently with himself or with any system of orthography. What
he wrote, or took down, or copied at an earlier period, of which we
have a fair specimen in the 7th Book of “Temora,” published with the
translations, is like what many educated Highlanders of the present
day would write. When conducting Highland periodicals, the writer
frequently received articles from gentlemen with some reputation
for Gaelic scholarship which were much in the style of Macpherson’s
orthography. Yet these same gentlemen might be, as some of them were,
profoundly acquainted with the vocabulary and idioms of the language,
although they were unable to write consistently with their own or any
other mode of spelling; and were they poets of first-class genius,
they could produce, as far as acquaintance with the language was
concerned, poetry like that of Ossian, Macdonald, or Macintyre, the
last of whom could not write at all; whilst it will not be seriously
contended that Ossian was so familiar with the pen as he was ever
with the sword. The state of the text at any time since it was first
moulded in Macpherson’s hands could not be of the slightest value in
deciding the age of the poems. Neither could it be of more service
philologically than any other Gaelic books printed during the last
hundred years. It could have no value like _The Book of Deer_, and
_The Book of the Dean of Lismore_.
Though a very inviting field, it is not here intended to enter into
examination of the words of the text. When this question has been
competently investigated some of our views which at present waver
will be thoroughly confirmed.
Let the question of the authenticity be in the meantime laid
aside, and let the poems as they are be considered. One thing is
certain—they are the clever productions of a Gaelic genius—of a
master whose works have influenced the literature of modern Europe.
The healthy and grand old figure of Ossian appeared on the scene
of the artificial literary world of the eighteenth century, and
his tenderness, his naturalness, and his keen sympathies with the
external world of form, of colour, and of movement carried before
him the conventionalities of a hollow generation. Ossian, along
with Cowper, was the first influence at work in bringing back the
rising poets of the day to the study and contemplation of nature. The
poems were translated into all the languages of Europe. This “most
magnificent mystification of modern times,” as a German writer has
described Ossian, acted like a spell on poets in this country and on
the Continent. Goethe and Lamartine felt the force of this spell;
the former acknowledged it in the “Songs of Selma” in “Werther,” and
the latter in “Memoirs of my Youth.” The illustrious French poet
has vividly described in the following passage the enthusiastic
admiration of Ossian that prevailed in France in his younger days.
“It was now the period when Ossian, that poet of the genius of
ruins and battles, reigned paramount in the imagination of France.
Baour-Lormian had translated him into sonorous verse for the camp of
the emperor. Women sung him in plaintive romances, or in triumphal
strains, at the departure, above the tomb, or on the return of their
lovers. Small editions in portable volumes had found their way into
all the libraries. One of them fell into my hands. I plunged into
this ocean of shadow, of blood, of tears, of phantoms, of foam, of
snow, of fogs, of hoar frosts, and of images, the immensity, the
dimness, and the melancholy of which harmonise so well with the
lofty sadness of a heart of sixteen which expands to the first rays
of the Infinite. Ossian, his localities, and his images harmonised
wonderfully also with the nature of the mountain district, almost
Scottish in its character, with the season of the year, and with
the melancholy aspect of the places where I read him. It was during
the biting blasts of November and December. The earth was covered
with a mantle of snow, pierced here and there by the black trunks
of scattered pines, or overhung by the naked and branching arms of
the oaks, upon which flights of crows assembled, filling the air
with their coarse cawings. Icy fogs clothed the branches with hoar
frost, clouds swept in eddying wreaths around the buried peaks of the
mountains. A few streams of sunshine streamed for a moment through
their openings, and discovered distant perspective of unfathomable
valleys, which the eye might fancy gulfs of the sea. It was the
natural and sublime exposition of the poems of Ossian which I held
in my hand. I carried him in my hunting pouch over the mountains,
and while the dogs made the deep gorges of the hills echo with their
barking, I read his pages, sitting beneath the shelter of some
overhanging rock, only raising my eyes from its pages to find again,
floating along the horizon or outstretched at my feet, the same
mists, the same clouds, the same plains of ice or snow which I had
just beheld in imagination. How often have I felt my tears congealing
on the borders of my eyelids! I had become one of the sons of the
bard, one of the heroic, amorous, or plaintive shades who fought,
who loved, who wept, or who swept the fingers across the harp in the
gloomy domains of Fingal.”
In Italy the influence of Ossian was supreme. Cesarotti tells us
that he became the founder of a school of poetry there. Throughout
the literary world the power of Ossian’s muse was felt. The
artificiality, hollowness, and conventionality of the last quarter of
the eighteenth century rendered the natural echoes of the grand old
voice of Cona a fresh music and a welcome relief.
There are two complete translations of these Gaelic poems before
the world besides Macpherson’s—Macgregor’s and Clerk’s. The last is
absolutely literal, while Macgregor’s is also pretty faithful to the
Gaelic. Both versions are neither blank verse, nor rhyme, nor prose,
but are couched in a species of rhythmic verse in lines of various
lengths. Neither the one nor the other is ever likely to become
popular, so that a literal popular version is still required for
those whom Macpherson’s own cannot satisfy. I have thrown into a very
literal blank verse the whole of _Carrick_, from which I take the
following description of Finn’s encounter with the Ghost of Lodin. It
is a fair specimen of the poems as a whole, and gives us an inkling
of their mythology, which here and elsewhere is vague and shadowy:—
LODIN’S GHOST.
A fire descended in the dark beyond;
The moon was red and languid in the east;
A blast came down in sadness from the plain;
And on its wings the semblance of a man;—
Cru-Lodin standing pale upon the plain—
He nigh approached unto his own abode,
Holding his dark spear useless in his hand;
His red eye like the blazing of the skies;
His speaking like the thunder on the hill
In shadowy darkness distant far away;
Finn lifted up his spear amid the night;
And on the meadow was his shouting heard.
FINN.
“Son of the Night, begone thou from my side.
Betake thee to thy wind and be away!
Why camest thou to my presence, shadowy one?
Thy semblance is unreal as thine arms.
Can thy brown form be terrible to me,
Thou Phantom of the Circles Lodin owns?
Frail is thy shield, and weak thy vapoury cloud;
Thy bare sword like a flame across the surge;
Which shall be cleft asunder by the blast,
And scattered thou thyself without delay,
Begone thou Dismal Offspring of the skies!
Recall thy blast to take thee and begone.”
THE GHOST.
“Would’st thou from my own circle me coerce?”
Spake the deep voice of hollowest refrain.
“It is to me that hosts of heroes yield;
I glance but on the people from the height,
They are dispersed like ashes ’neath my gaze.
Out of my breath proceeds the blast of death.
I journey loftily upon the wind;
And tempests hurry forth themselves on high
Around my brow, cold, melancholy, pale;
But calm is my abode beyond the clouds,
And pleasant the broad fields of my repose.”
FINN.
“Go, and abide then on thy pleasant plains,”
Replied the mighty king with hand on hilt,
“Else, Cuhal’s Son, forget not in the field.
Weak is thy spectre—and my strength is great.
Did I direct my footsteps from the hill
Toward thy hall, high on the peaceful plain?
Or did my pow’rful spear e’er clash amid
The garments of the skies against the voice
Of the Black Ghost Cru-Lodin’s circle keeps?
Why hast thou lifted with a scowl thy brow?
Or wherefore shakest thou aloft thy spear?
Little I dread thy words, thou Shadowy One!
I fled not from an army in the field,
Why flee before the Offspring of the Winds?
The Valiant Brave, the King of Lofty Bens,
He shall not flee! He knows, though he has not
Been there, the frailty of thine arm in war.”
THE GHOST.
“Begone! flee to thy land,” replied the Form,
“Flee on the dismal tempest, flee, begone!
The blast is in the hollow of my hand.
Mine are the conflict and the speed of storms;
The King of Sora is a Son of mine;
He kneels down in the mountain to my form;
At Rock of Hundreds he upholds the strife,
And scathless he shall gain the victory,
Begone to thine own land, thou Cuhal’s son,
Or to thy grief experience my wrath.”
THE COMBAT.
He lifted up his threatening spear on high,
And fiercely forward bent his lofty head.
Then Finn advanced, opposing him in wrath,
Wielding his blue transparent sword in hand,—
The sword—the Son of Luinn of duskiest cheek,
The steely lustre pierced the Phantom through.
The Evil wraith of death assumed a frown;
He fell devoid of shape, far, far beyond,
Riding the wings of the dark cairns, like smoke
A sapling raises with a stick in hand,
About a hearth of discord and of gloom.
The Wraith of Lodin’s form shrieked on the Ben,
Collecting his essentials in the wind;
The Innis of the boars the tumult heard:
The trembling waves stopped action in their course.
The heroes of great Cuhal’s son arose.
And in each hand a spear was held aloft;
“Where is he?”—and their fury gathering gloom,
And every mail loud clanking round its chief.
As formerly remarked, the “Old Lays” of Dr Smith are fully as
interesting and poetical as Macpherson’s Ossian; and all who wish
to read and enjoy good Gaelic poetry—fresh and idiomatic —should
go to these lays. Smith’s own translation is exceedingly loose and
turgid as compared with his Gaelic. As already observed, Smith also
comes under the suspicion of being the author of the Gaelic, as well
as translator. His own account of the translation has been already
given; and there seems no good reason why its honesty and correctness
should be doubted. His Gaelic originals appear to stand in the same
relation to pre-existent ballad and taleologic literature that Burns’
new versions of Scottish songs and ballads sustain to the older and
original productions. Like Macpherson, Dr Smith cannot be said to be
wholly the author nor merely the translator of these grand poetical
“lays.” Illustrative specimens of them are given in the next chapter.
To furnish a contrast to Macpherson’s Ossian and manner, I give the
following lines on _Bas Airt_, or the Death of Artho:—
In battle-field he fell in fame;
Terrible to many as he came
Like thunder through the woods, or lightning
That hid itself midst ruin frightning!
The enemies trembled, fell, and fled;
From Artho’s hand destruction sped,
Like Melmor’s rocks dashed through the woods
To sink below in sullen floods;
Such seemed the low-laid hero’s form
Ere came death’s arrow in the storm.
_Dan an Deirg_, one of the finest poems in Smith’s volume, has been
recently translated, edited, and annotated by an accomplished English
scholar and graduate of Cambridge, Mr C. S. Jerram, who has been at
the pains of studying the language. To this interesting little volume
is prefixed a very intelligent and fair account of the state of the
Ossianic question.
Dr Smith’s “Old Lays,” translated by himself in too free and turgid
a fashion, are as interesting as Macpherson’s “Ossian,” and not
inferior in any respect to that famed production. In the opening of
one of these “lays,” called “Finan and Lorma,” we find a very pretty
set of verses in which the young people around him, looking upon
the heavens, are represented as addressing the aged Ossian in the
following manner:—
While on the plains shines the moon, O bard!
And the shadow of Cona holds;
Like a ghost breathes the wind from the mountain,
With its spirit voice in its folds.
There are two cloudy forms before us,
Where its host the dim night shows;
The sigh of the moor curls their tresses,
As they tread over Alva of roes.
Dusky his dogs came with one,
And he bends his dark-brow of yew;
There’s a stream from the side of the sad-faced maid,
Dyes her robe with a blood-red hue.
Hold thou back, O thou wind! from the mountain,
Let their image a moment stay;
Nor sweep with thy skirts from our eyesight,
Nor scatter their beauty away.
O’er the glen of the rushes, the hill of the hinds
With the vague wandering vapour they go;
O, Bard of the times that have left us!
Aught of their life cans’t thou show?
OSSIAN’S REPLY.
The years that have been they come back as ye speak,
To my soul in their music they glide;
Like the murmur of waves in the far inland calm,
Is their soft and smooth step by my side.
The translation is from “The Gaelic Bards.” Let us now glance at a
particular class of popular pieces that have become mixed up with
the suspected works of Macpherson and Smith. The original of the
specimens which follow was well known before Macpherson’s Gaelic
Ossian appeared. The famous “Address to the Sun” is found in English
in Macpherson’s _Carthon_. In the published Gaelic of 1807 its place
is marked by asterisks. The Gaelic is inserted to correspond with
the English in Clerk’s edition. A new literal translation is here
attempted:—
O, thou that glidest in the sky,
Round as the hero’s full hard shield,
Thy frownless lustre, whence on high?
Sun, whence thy ceaseless light revealed?
Thou comest in thy lovely might;
The stars conceal from us their motion;
The moon pale hies from heaven’s height,
And shrouds her in the western ocean.
Thou in thy distance art alone;
Who bold may dare approach thy might;
With age, cairn, cliff, are overthrown;
With age the oak falls from the height.
The ocean shakes with ebb and flow;
The moon is lost in depth of night;
But, Victor, thou alone dost glow
In endless joy of thine own light.
When tempests darken round the earth
With lightning, and with hoarse-voiced thunder,
Fair through the storm thou look’st in mirth
Upon the troubled heavens under.
But vain to me are thy bright rays,
Since I must see no more thy glance
Gold-tressed that turns on eastern gaze
Of heaven’s cloudy countenance,
When thou art trembling in the west,
Through ocean’s dusky doors to rest.
But like myself thou art perchance—
Once robed with weakness, once with strength;
In circling sky our years advance
Together to one end at length;
Rejoice, O Sun, while thou art young;
Be glad, thou Prince! while thou art strong!
Old age is dark and void of mirth,
Like faint moon ere her horn she fills;
While looking from the clouds on earth
Where hoary mist skirts cairny hills.
The biting blast with breath of cold
Beats on the traveller weak and old.
It is said that this address, the original of which was supplied to
the Highland Society in the year 1801, was well known in the central
Highlands early in the eighteenth century. The Rev. Mr Macdiarmid
wrote it down from the dictation of an old man in Glenlyon about
1770. It is said that this old man learned it in his youth from
people in the same glen before Macpherson was born.
The “Address to the Setting Sun” is given at the beginning of
Macpherson’s _Carricthura_. It consists of eleven lines, and has
been a great favourite among the people. The following is a literal
translation:—
Leav’st the blue distance of the skies,
Unsullied Sun, with tress of gold?
Where west thy tent of slumber lies
The portals of the night unfold.
The cautious billows cower nigher
Thy shining temples to behold;
Awe-struck, their heads they lift up higher
To view thee grand in thy repose!
Pale from thy side they back retire!
May in thy cave sleep o’er thee close,
O, Sun! till thou the dawn inspire.
The above lines were written down by Mr Macdiarmid at the same time
as the “Address to the Sun.” In the two pieces we find abstract
conceptions that we never come across in the old ballads. This gives
real ground to the argument of recent writers that the poems are of
modern date. Whether ancient or modern, they are poetry of a high
order, superior to that of the Irish and Scottish ballads. The new
theory seems to some inconsistent with the honour and veracity of
more than one clergyman and gentleman of repute, who could have
no personal interest in helping to palm on the public the alleged
forgeries of Macpherson. There is another “Address to the Sun”—to the
rising sun—in Dr Smith’s Old Lays, which appeared many years before
the publication of Macpherson’s Gaelic. It is admirably translated by
Mr Pattison, and I avail myself of his translation:—
Son of the young morn! that glancest
O’er the hills of the east with thy gold-yellow hair
How gay on the wild thou advancest
Where the streams laugh as onward they fare;
And the trees yet bedewed by the shower,
Elastic their light bright branches raise,
Whilst the melodies sweet they embower
Hail thee at once with their lays.
But where is the dim light duskily gliding,
On her eagle wings from thy face?
Where now is darkness abiding?
In what cave do bright stars end their race—
When fast, on their faded steps bending,
Like a hunter you rush through the sky,
Up those lone lofty mountains ascending,
While down yon far summits they fly?
Pleasant thy path is, Great Lustre, wide-gleaming,
Dispelling the storm with thy rays;
And graceful thy gold ringlets streaming,
As wont in the westering blaze.
Thee the blind mist of night ne’er deceiveth,
Nor sends from the right course astray!
The strong tempest, all ocean that grieveth,
Can ne’er make thee bend from thy way.
At the call of the mild morn appearing,
Thy festal face wakens up bright;
Thy shade from all dark places clearing,
But the bard’s eye that ne’er sees thy light.
In an Irish poem from which quotations have been made the bard
is represented as blind. In two of these pieces we have touching
allusion to the same melancholy infliction. “Vain to me are thy
bright rays” occurs in the Address to the Sun, and “the bard’s eye
that ne’er sees thy light” in the Address to the Rising Sun. The
soul of the old poet seemed to take delight in contrasting his own
sightless condition with the brilliant sun in his course through
the heavens. This tone of melancholy pleasure—of deep and lonely
nurtured feeling—so characteristic of the Ossianic poems, is also
characteristic of the Celtic race, especially of the Scottish Gael,
whose spirit seems to have been enswathed in the majestic gloom of
his own native glens and mountains. The curtains of mist hanging over
the silent and weird-looking lochs, the ghost-like clouds that glided
across the glens or inwrapped the crests of the hills, the moan of
the sounding seashore mingling with the roar of a hundred streams
forcing their ways to join the boundless ocean, are sights and sounds
which naturally exerted a powerful influence on the souls of those
who lived daily in their midst. When the tempests darkened round the
earth, and lightnings flashed, and the hoarse-voiced thunder shook
the hills, how pleasant it must have been for the depressed spirit of
man to gaze on the face of the sun, looking “fair through the storm”
“upon the troubled heavens under” of a Hebridean sky!
These are specimens of a great deal of poetry which Highlanders of
the present day unhesitatingly ascribe to Ossian. Indeed, the Ossian
of these pieces appears to be a poet of quite a different calibre
from that of the old ballads. One thing is clear that whoever was the
author or authors of these much discussed productions, he or they
were poets of the highest order, and must have been Gaels born and
bred in the Highlands.
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