a character of Scotland was given, prior to the Journey," in the following ftriking lines. • Whoe'er he is, defires to fee He'll find all these perfections there.' Our author's ambition of fending his work to fleep on the fame Shelf with that of the learned Doctor Johnson, recals to our me mory the conduct of a student at one of our univerfities, who being deficient in point of learning, could not undergo the examination requifite for his degree. In confequence of this deficiency he was plucked, but fummoning up his fortitude he coolly and deliberately anfwered his confoling friends, as an alleviation of the miscarriage, that Dean Swift was plucked before him.' To fleep on the shelf for a time, forbodes a difagreeable removal, -In vicum vendentem thus & odores, Et piper & quicquid chartis amicitur ineptis. However, to come to the point, and do Mr. M'Nicol juftice, we confefs, that moft of his remarks are accute and ingenious and had they not abounded with so much perfonal invective, they would have been more likely to engage the attention of the public, and please the taste of judicious readers. Doctor Johnfon had afferted in his Journey,' that Scotland was conquered by Cromwell. But contrary to this, our author fays, that a man must have little knowledge of facts, or ftill less honesty, who can gravely advance fuch an opinion, for adds he," it is well known to every person who is in the leaft acquainted with hiftory, that Scotland has never been conquered. The country has been often invaded, and its armies have been fometimes defeated, but it never yet has fubmitted to a foreign yoke. "To reduce Scotland was an attempt that defied the whole power of the Roman empire, even at the height of its glory. The Danes, who made fo eafy a conqueft of England, acquired nothing but death and graves in Scotland; and the united fraud, force, and perfeverance perfeverance of Edward I. and fome of his fucceffors, though aiways allifted by a powerful faction in the country, could never fubdue the fpirit of a people who were determined to be free, and difdained the control of an ufurper." But in order to clear up this matter, Mr. M'Nicol defires the Doctor to look back and fee what antiquity fays on the fubject, and then cites paffages from Ainmianus Marcellinus, and Dio, whom he calls the most candid and unexceptionable of the Roman hiftorians. In the course of the work Mr. M'Nicol, in answering Dr. Johnson's charge of ignorance and barbarity in the Scots, traces out anecdotes to convince him that civilization did not begin early in England. He calls (p. 92) the Doctor's Dictionary the perverter of the English language. From this affertion we muft beg leave to diffent; for we really look on that performance as an exceeding ufeful and laborious. undertaking, executed with judgment. T. Scaliger, who was no ftranger to the fatigue of Lexicography, hath left the following epigram on Lexicographers, fuppofed to have been written after he had finished his Index to the Thefaurus of Gruterian infcriptions: Si quem dura manet fententia judicis olim As Mr. M'Nicol informs us, that the origin of Doctor Johnson's Tour to Scotland, may be dated from the first ap pearance of Offian's Poems in public, and that they excited the odium he bears to every thing that is Scotch, we fhall lay before our readers his fentiments on that fubject; and this we are the more inclined to do, as we gave Doctor John · fon's opinion of the Poems in the above mentioned Review. But here our author premises that he will not, as on other occafions, quote the particular objections of the Doctor, and answer them one by one; but continue the thread of obser, vation, without any interruption, and with as little perfonal application as poffible. The malignity of a few others, the prejudices of feveral, and the weakness of many, have fuggefted fimilar objections to the authenticity of Offian's Poems, but thefe, our author endeavours to obviate upon the fame general ground. VOL. XI. Q ૧ "The "The concurrent teftimony of a whole people, and the evi dence of many refpectable individuals, laid before the public by that elegant writer and refpectable clergymen, Dr. Blair, have been found incapable, it seems, to fatisfy the minds of men, who are unwilling to give credit to any thing calculated to reflect honour on the ancestors of the Scotch nation. To perfuade fuch men of the truth of any fact, which they are refolved not to believe, is beyond my wish, as well as my expectation. But as many candid and well-meaning perfons have been feduced into an error, by the bold affertions of the incredulous, I fhall examine in a fuccinct manner, the objections on which they found their want of faith, "Some derive an objection to the authenticity of Offian's poems, from an alledged fupercilioufnefs in Mr. Macpherfon, in refufing fatisfaction on that head, to every writer, with or without a name, who chooses to demand that fatisfaction at the bar of the public. Though I am told that fupercilioufnefs is no part of Mr. Macpher Jon's character, I think he has a right to affume it on fuch occafions. To answer the queries of the prejudiced would have no effect; and there can be no end to folving the difficulties started by the ignorant, The moft loud and clamorous are generally thofe who are least entitled to fatisfaction; and were Mr. Macpherson to descend into a controversy, upon a mere matter of fact, he would in a manner, leave truth to the decision of sophistry. "Mr. Macpherson has done all that could, or ought to be expected. He has never refused the examination or perufal of his manuscripts to perfons of taste and knowledge in the Celtic language. Thefe are the best, if not the only judges of the fubject; and as these are perfectly fatisfied as to the authenticity of the poems, Mr. Macpherfon has a right to be totally indifferent to the incredulity of others. "To extend the opportunity of judging for themselves, to fuch as are converfant in the language of the ancient Scots, and yet have no opportunity of examining Mr. Macpherson's originals, he has published the feventh book of Temora. He went further: he published propofals for printing all the poems by fubfcription; but as no fubfcribers appeared, he justly took it as the sense of the public, that the authenticity, as being a matter of such general notoriety, was abfolutely and decifively admitted. The fpecimen, which the tranflator has published, carries to my mind, and, I trust, I have fome right to form a judgment on fuch fubjects, a thorough conviction, that the feventh book of Temora is not of Mr. Macpherfon's compofition. If it had been of his own compofition, how could he mistake the meaning of a paffage in it, as it is evident he has done? To every Highlander, to every man of candour in any country, this is a decifive truth of the authenticity of the poems. Neither the bold affertions of the prejudiced, nor all the fophiftry of criticism, can perfuade the world, that any man can mistake the meaning of what he has written himself. "But But though the poems of Offian bear every internal mark of originality, though they convey no ideas, exhibit no ornaments, contain no fentiments, which are not peculiarly Celtic, according to the accounts we have received of Celtic manners from the an cients, we, the natives of the Highlands, and we certainly muft be allowed to be the best judges of the matter, do not found their authenticity on internal proofs. Every man of enquiry, every perfon of the leaft tafte for the poetry, or turn for the antiquities of his country, has heard often repeated fome part or other of the poems published by Mr. Macpherson. Hundreds still alive have heard portions of them recited, long before Mr. Macpherson was born; fo that he cannot poffibly be deemed the author of compofitions, which existed before he had any existence himself. "It is true there is no man now living, and perhaps there never has existed any one perfon, who either can or could repeat the whole of the poems of Offian. It is enough, that the whole has been repeated, in detached pieces, through the Highlands and Ifles. Mr. Macpherson's great merit has been his collecting the disjecta membra poeta, and his fitting the parts fo well together, as to form a complete figure. Even the perfect fymmetry of that figure has been produced, as an argument against its antiquity. But arguments are loft, and facts are thrown away, upon men, who have predetermined to refift conviction itself. "In vain has it been alledged, that the age of hunting, in which the Fingalians are faid to have lived, cannot be fuppofed to have cultivated poetry. This objection is started by men, who are more acquainted with books than human nature. But had they even confulted their books, they might have received a complete answer to their objection. The Scandinavians, who lived in a country at most as unfit for pafture as for the plough, excelled in the beautiful and fublime of poetry. Their war fongs, their funeral elegies, and their love fonnets, convey more lofty ideas of magnanimity, melancholy, and tenderness, than the moft laboured compofitions of Greece and Rome, on the fame fubjects. The allufions are few and fimple; but they are calculated to imprefs the mind with that "glow of feeling" which springs only from genuine poetry. "Are the Indians of America any more than mere hunters? Yet who can deny them a claim to the poffeffion of poetry? Their whole language feems to be, as it were, infected with poetical metaphor. Their orations at their congreffes, upon matters of bufi nefs, are all in the poetical ftyle. They refemble more the speeches in the Iliad than thofe dry fyllogiftical difquifitions, which have banished all the beautiful fimplicity of eloquence from modern public affemblies. "Befides, is there any perfon acquainted with the natives of the Highlands, who does not know that fuch perfons as are most addicted to hunting, are moft given to poetry? One of the best fongs preferved in Macdonald's collection of Gaelic poems, is altogether on the fubject of hunting, and the date of its compofition is fo old, Q92 that that it lies beyond the reach of tradition itself. The folitary life of a hunter is peculiarly adapted to that melancholy, but fpirited and magnificent turn of thought, which diftinguiflies our ancient poetry. "But it is not neceffary to confider the Fingalians as mere hunters. We frequently find in Ofian's poems allufions to flocks and herds; and a paftoral life has been univerfally allowed to have been peculiarly favourable to the mufe. I could never fee, for my own part, any reason for fuppofing that agriculture itself was un known in the days of Offian, though it is not mentioned in his poems. With a contempt for every thing but the honour acquired by the fword, he perhaps confidered the plough as too mean an inftrument to be alluded to in compofitions chiefly intended to animate the foul to war. "The dignified fentiments, the exalted manners, the humanity, moderation, generofity, gallantry, and tenderness for the fair fex, which are fo confpicuous in the poems of Offian, have been brought as arguments against their authenticity. Thefe objections, however, proceed either from an ignorance of history, a want of knowledge of human nature, or thofe confined notions concerning the character of ages and nations, which are too often entertained in certain univerfities. With the literature of Greece and Rome, they imbibe fuch an exalted idea of claffic character, as induces them to confign to ignorance and barbarifm, all antiquity beyond the pales of the Greek and Roman empires. But had they confulted the hiftory of other nations, they might find that the want of refinement, which is called barbarism, does not abfolutely prove the want of noble and generous qualities of the mind. The powers of the foul are in every country the fame. Why then fhould not the Celtic druid be as capable of impreffing ufeful instruction on the followers of his religion, as the bare-footed Selli, * who facrificed to Jupiter on the cold top of Dodona? Or, by what prefcription has the neighbourhood of HelleSpont a right to fentiments more exalted than thofe of the chieftain who inhabits the coaft of the Vergivian ocean? Have not many nations, who have been called barbarians, excelled the Romans in valour, and in that most exalted of all virtues, a fincere love for their country? "Have not even the Canadians of North America, with fewer opportunities of improvement than the Fingalians, been found to poffefs almoft all the virtues celebrated in the poems of Offian? Why therefore fhould we deny to the ancient Caledo *The Selli were certainly as unpolifhed as any druid in the most barbarous and fequeftred parts of the Highlands and Scottish Isles. Αμφι δε Σελλοί Σοι ναιεσ' υποφῆται ανιπλόποδες, χαμαιεῖναι. Iliad xvi. v. 234, 235. + Abbe de Raynal, Tom. 4. nians |